'Portal-ble' AR System Lets Users Manipulate Virtual Objects in Real Backgrounds by Hand

Brown University  researchers have developed a new system called "Portal-ble" that places virtual objects within real-world backgrounds on smartphone screens, and lets users interact with those objects by hand. The researchers say the idea for Portal-ble’s “hands-on” interaction grew out of frustration with AR apps like Pokemon GO that use smartphones to place virtual objects into real-world scenes, but interacting with those objects requires users to swipe on the screen. The Portal-ble platform makes use of a small infrared sensor mounted on the back of a phone. The sensor tracks the position of people’s hands in relation to virtual objects, enabling users to pick objects up, turn them, stack them, or drop them.

Transcript

00:00:00 hi we're introducing portable a smartphone based augmented reality system that lets you interact with virtual objects with your hands anywhere you go portable provides feedback and accommodations that make it easy to grab and manipulate the virtual objects the surfaces in the physical environment can be used to place virtual objects which

00:00:27 are rendered at the same scale [Music] you use portable on your phone no headsets here portables feedback system helps with perception by giving you signals about how far an object is from your hand [Music] your phone acts like a portal to the virtual world and you can see through

00:01:14 your phone and use your hands to interact with these virtual blocks as if they were physical blocks [Music] the accommodations importable compensates for the imprecision of human motor control to help you do what you intend to do when manipulating objects in this application you can use portable to draw things that are situated in the

00:01:51 physical world like this bicycle here is a garden what's this word here I can't see let's use this virtual lamp to light it up there we go it's as portable