WonderScope: Practical Near-surface AR Device for Museum Exhibits

Abstract

Mobile augmented reality (AR) applications have become essential tools for delivering additional information to museum visitors. However, interacting through a mobile screen can potentially distract visitors from the exhibits. We propose WonderScope which is a peripheral system for mobile devices that enables practical near-surface AR interaction. Using a single small RFID tag on the exhibit as the origin, WonderScope can detect the position and orientation of the device on the surface of the exhibit. It performs on various surfaces of different materials based on the result of data fusion from two types of displacement sensors and an accelerometer of an inertial measurement unit (IMU). The mobile application utilizes the data for spatial registration of digital content on the exhibit's surface, which make the users feel like seeing-through or magnifying the surface of exhibits.