A Mobile Augmented Reality Emulator for Android

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) provides a fusion of the real and virtual worlds by superimposing virtual objects on real world scenery. The implementation of AR on mobile devices is known as Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR). MAR is in its infancy and MAR development software is in the process of maturing. Dating back to the origin of Computer Science as an independent field, software development tools have been an integral part of the process of software creation. MAR, being a relatively new technology, is still lacking such related software development tools. With the rapid progression of mobile devices, the development of MAR applications fusing advanced Computer Vision techniques with mobile device sensors have become increasingly feasible. However, testing and debugging of MAR applications present a new challenge in that they require the developer be at the location that is being augmented at some point during the development process. In this research study, a MAR recorder application was developed as well as emulation class libraries for Android devices that allows the recording and off-site playback of video, location and motion sensor data. The research objective was to provide a software emulator which provides debugging, testing and prototyping capabilities for a MAR application including the ability to emulate the combination of computer vision with locational and motion sensors using previously recorded data. The emulator was evaluated using different mobile technologies. The results indicate that this research could assist developers of MAR applications to implement applications more rapidly, without being at the location.

Keywords

• Mobile Augmented Reality
• Emulation
• Software tools