Making Augmented Reality Practical on Mobile Phones, Part 1

In 2003, we started an AR framework for mobile phones. We intended its first generation as primarily a proof of feasibility. The second generation was an attempt to port a fully featured PC-based AR framework, Studierstube 4, to a phone platform. You can port existing applications and make them run on mobile phones. However, as we had to painfully experience ourselves, this approach typically produces slow, bloated, and unstable software. Optimally using phones´ scarce resources requires different algorithms and architectural decisions than for PCs, leading to a complete reengineering of an existing solution. So, for the third generation, Studierstube ES, we largely abandoned compatibility requirements and added new elements to the design, such as an asymmetric client-server technique, that are specific to mobile devices. In this first installment of our two-part tale of Studierstube ES and what we´ve learned along the way, we describe the mobile phone platform´s restrictions and how our software architecture allows fast development of mobile phone AR applications.