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Reality, Only Better
Researchers create augmented reality | |
THE WORLD CREATED BY an interdisciplinary team of GVU Center researchers is real – only better. It's reality augmented by technology and creativity – designed to educate and entertain.
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Providing the stage for the researchers' latest augmented reality (AR) project is the 1957 Henry Fonda film "Twelve Angry Men," a jury room drama that reveals the jurors' prejudices and misconceptions.
In the AR version, titled "Three Angry Men" (only three characters for logistical reasons), a user wearing a head-mounted display moves from chair to chair around a table to experience each character's point of view. The virtual characters – composed from videotaped segments of professional actors playing the parts – present six minutes of dialogue condensed from the original movie.
"You can go inside each person's head and hear what they're thinking," explains Ph.D. student Maribeth Gandy, who contributed to what began as a class project led by Blair MacIntyre, an assistant professor in the College of Computing, and Jay Bolter, a professor in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture.
Illustrating how the world is configured around you based on your point of view is an obvious fit for AR technology, Bolter says. But "Three Angry Men" is also intended to inspire other artistic expression. "We want to see what people can do, not just in re-staging older dramas, but in creating new content that is not necessarily a narrative or dramatic scene, but could be a light-and-sound show," Bolter adds.
Beyond its educational and entertainment value, "Three Angry Men" provides a test case for development of an augmented reality design toolkit.
"We want to understand how to design and create new media experiences in AR," MacIntyre says. "If people want to create something in a historical setting like a cemetery or historic home and they're not programmers, we want to give them a set of technological tools that will support a natural design process for creating an AR experience."
While they seek funds to further develop the toolkit, the researchers are using AR technology to bring history to life in Atlanta's historic Oakland Cemetery, a burial site for prominent Atlantans and Georgians from 1850 to the present.
"We envision an experience that would have historic figures explain their lives and contributions and perhaps even debate each other," Bolter explains.
These projects are yielding richer AR experiences because they combine MacIntyre's expertise in computer science with Bolter's knowledge of drama and narrative. Their collaboration – representative of the GVU Center mission – offers users a new way to experience real life using augmented reality technology to leverage the aura of a place, Bolter says.
AR is beyond reality, but its users' feet remain planted there. Adds MacIntyre: "There's just something about being there that matters. The physical environment is meaningful, so we use the computer to augment, rather than
For more information, contact Jay Bolter at 404-385-2206 or jay.bolter@lcc.gatech.edu;
or Blair MacIntyre at 404-894-5224 or blair@cc.gatech.edu.
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Last updated: Dec.11, 2003