How Do I Get There? Overcoming Reachability Limitations of Constrained Industrial Environments in Augmented Reality Applications

The paper presents an approach for handheld augmented reality in constrained industrial environments, where it might be hard or even impossible to reach certain poses within a workspace. Therefore, a user might be unable to see or interact with some digital content in applications like visual robot programming, robotic program visualizations, or workspace annotation. To overcome this limitation, we propose a temporal switching to a non-immersive virtual reality that allows the user to see the virtual counterpart of the workspace from any angle and distance, where the viewpoint is controlled using a unique combination of on-screen controls complemented by the physical motion of the handheld device. Using such a combination, the user can position the virtual camera roughly to the desired pose using the on-screen controls and then continue working just as in augmented reality. To explore how people would use it and what the benefits would be over pure augmented reality, we chose a representative task of object alignment and conducted a study. The results revealed that mainly physical demands, which is often a limiting factor for handheld augmented reality, could be reduced and that the usability and utility of the approach are rated as high. In addition, suggestions for improving the user interface were proposed and discussed.