PAIR: Phone as an Augmented Immersive Reality Controller

Abstract

Immersive head-mounted augmented reality allows users to overlay 3D digital content on a user’s view of the world. Current-generation devices primarily support interaction modalities such as gesture, gaze and voice, which are readily available to most users yet lack precision and tactility, rendering them fatiguing for extended interactions. We propose using smartphones, which are also readily available, as companion devices complementing existing AR interaction modalities. We leverage user familiarity with smartphone interactions, coupled with their support for precise, tactile touch input, to unlock a broad range of interaction techniques and applications - for instance, turning the phone into an interior design palette, touch-enabled catapult or AR-rendered sword. We describe a prototype implementation of our interaction techniques using an off-the-shelf AR headset and smartphone, demonstrate applications, and report on the results of a positional accuracy study.