Abstract
In tangible augmented reality (AR) environments for virtual prototyping, the user interacts with virtual products by manipulating tangible objects with his or her hands, but the user often encounter awkward situations in which his or her hands are occluded by augmented virtual objects, which reduces both immersion and ease of interaction. In this paper, we present how to resolve such hand region occlusion in order to enhance natural interaction and immersive visualization. In the AR environment considered, we use two types (product-type and pointer-type) of tangible objects for tangible user interaction with a virtual product of interest. Holding the tangible objects with his or her hands, the user can create input events by touching specified regions of the product-type tangible object with the pointer-type tangible object. We developed a method for resolving hand region occlusion frequently arising during such user interaction, It first detect hand region in a real image and refines the rendered image of the virtual object by subtracting the hand region from the rendered image, Then, it superimposes the refined image onto the real image to obtain an image in which the occlusion is resolved. Incorporated into tangible AR interaction for virtual prototyping of handheld products such as cellular phones and MP3 players, the method has been found by a preliminary user study that it is not only useful to improve natural interaction and immersive visualization of virtual products, but also helpful for making the users experience the products' shapes and functions better.
