EXMAR: EXpanded view of mobile augmented reality

There have been many studies to minimize the psychological and physical load increase caused by mobile augmented reality systems. In this paper, we propose a new technique called “EXMAR”, which enables the user to explore his/her surroundings with an expanded field of view, resulting in a decrease of physical movement. Through this novel interaction technique, the user can explore off-screen point of interests with environmental contextual information by simple dragging gestures. To evaluate this initial approach, we conducted a proof of concept usability test under a set of scenarios such as “Exploring objects behind the user”, “Avoiding the invasion of personal space” and “Walk and type with front-view.” Through this initial examination, we found that users can explore off-screen point of interests and grasp the spatial relations without the increase of mental effort. We believe that this preliminary study gives a meaningful indication that employing the interactive field of view can be a useful method to decrease the physical load without any additional mental efforts in a mixed and augmented reality environment.