Multi-User Mixed Reality

Multi-User Mixed Reality

At IXLAB, we develop multi-user mixed reality simulations, in which groups of people inhabit a single, shared, coherent world composed of virtual and real elements. In contrast to the isolation of pure virtual reality, mixed reality provides direct perception of both the real world and fellow users, which we observe to have a pronounced transformative effect on the experience and behaviour of users.

We also investigate “architectural scale” or “building scale” mixed reality simulations, in which viewers are able to freely navigate spaces much larger than a typical room, such as large halls or atria, long corridors or entire buildings. Mixed reality on such scales opens the door to a wide range of novel experiences, such as visualisation of large structures at a 1:1 scale.

ViewR

At IXLAB we have developed ViewR, an open-source framework for rapid development of architectural scale multi-user mixed reality experiences. ViewR includes tools for rapid alignment of real and virtual worlds, tracking loss detection and recovery, user trajectory visualisation and world state synchronisation between users with persistence across sessions. ViewR also provides control over the blending of the real and the virtual, specification of site-specific blending zones, and video-passthrough avatars, allowing users to see and interact with one another directly.

Using ViewR, we explore the transformation of large architectural structures into immersive arenas by creating a range of experiences in various locations, with a particular focus on architectural affordances such as mezzanines, stairs, gangways and elevators. Our tests reveal that ViewR allows for experiences that would not be possible with pure virtual reality, and indicate that, with certain strategies for recovering from tracking errors, it is possible to construct large scale multi-user MR experiences using contemporary consumer virtual reality head-mounted displays.

Applications

Co-located Multi-User Mixed Reality resembles an important building block in the creation of novel user interactions, collaboration spaces and user experience research. It allows us to see beyond our smartphones, and yet eliminates the isolation nature of Virtual Reality.  In our group, we utilize our expertise to apply this technology to various domains, from shared psychotherapy to collaborative data visualization, from class-scale education to public museum- and art installations.

Using our ViewR-system, we are able to craft these applications and experiences rapidly and, in turn, iterate quickly and closely with our collaborators.

Videos

ViewR Supplemental Material: DOI

Publications

• F. Schier, D. Zeidler, K. Chandran, Z. Yu and M. McGinity, "ViewR: Architectural-Scale Multi-User Mixed Reality With Mobile Head-Mounted Displays," in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 30, no. 8, pp. 5609-5622, Aug. 2024, DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2023.3299781 [Paper] | [Code]

People and Roles

As this project is the foundation of many of our efforts, the entire ixlab team strongly colaborates to continuously improve the project.

The main maintainer of the project currently are Florian Schier and Daniel Zeidler.

Get in touch

Curious? Interested? Want to learn more or experience it yourself?
Please send us a message: Matthew McGinity, Florian Schier and Daniel Zeidler