2015 Volume 17 Issue 3 Pages 287-296
A challenge to Augmented Reality (AR) is to provide proper depth perception when an inner virtual object image is overlaid on a real object. To improve depth perception in stereoscopic AR, we focus on the "stereoscopic pseudo-transparency" effect induced by a method that overlays a random dot mask on the real object surface. This method conveys to the observers the illusion of observing the virtual object through many small holes and makes We expect that our proposed method improves not only the perception of the spatial relationship between a real object surface and an inner object, but it also improves the depth perception (i.e., observers can distinguish the distance between them). Through the series of experiments, we investigated that (1) the occlusion and density of the mask affects depth and transparency perception, respectively, (2) the proposed method is effective for improving the depth perception between the real object surface and the virtual object compared to existing methods, and (3) the proposed method can be used with motion cues.
