With DigiScope, the user is handling a holographic display tablet just like a six degrees of freedom window that opens a view into the virtual world. The tablet is an optical see-through display which allows for a very natural viewing and scene inspection.

With the embedding of invisible technology into everyday things and architectural spaces, things and spaces also become the interface to "hidden" or "invisible" computational services. Embedded interactive systems allow to mediate between the physical and digital (or virtual) world via natural interaction – away from the desktop displays and keyboards.

We believe that the utility of "invisible services" of smart appliances being better exploited when presented to the user in a more intuitive and natural way, thus raising the need for a better perception of smart environments by the user. To support people living in the real world populated with a variety of digital artefacts as created by the digital components in a smart environment, when acting, perceiving and interacting with objects in their environment, we propose a see-through based theatre experience of visual perception, seamlessly merging the artefacts of the real and the digital world.

We provide now a seamless interface between real and digital world, the DigiScope.

Key Issues

• Support an intuitive "invisible service" inspection (see-through tablet)
• "Context-aware" smart appliances and smart spaces
• Provide services accessible via natural interaction
• Embodied into real world objects like furniture, clothing, crafts, rooms, etc.
• Building a "virtual world" – out of the "physical world"

Approach

Towards a seamless visual perception of the coexistence of a real world and its virtual augmentation, we exploit the metaphor of digital annotations for real world objects, and display these annotations along the line of sight to real world objects that are seen through the tablet.

The challenge for digital annotation visualization via a see-through display is to cope with the changes and interactions among physical and virtual world objects in a certain environment or scene in real-time.

DigiScope

With DigiScope, the user is handling a holographic display tablet just like a six degrees of freedom window that opens a view into the virtual world. The tablet is an optical see-through display which allows for a very natural viewing and scene inspection. To implement correct views into the scene, the angle and perspective of the DigiScope is being tracked, instead of tracking the position and orientation of the user. Thus, the user is freed from any system hardware obstacles like HMDs, stereoscopic glasses, trackers, sensors, markers, tags, pointers and the such. DigiScope builds on hologram technology manufactured in a thin film and laminated to a transparent acrylic plate.