Personal+Context navigation: combining AR and shared displays in network path-following

Abstract

Shared displays are well suited to public viewing and collaboration, however they lack personal space to view private information and act without disturbing others. Combining them with Augmented Reality (AR) headsets allows interaction without altering the context on the shared display. We study a set of such interaction techniques in the context of network navigation, in particular path following, an important network analysis task. Applications abound, for example planning private trips on a network map shown on a public display.The proposed techniques allow for hands-free interaction, rendering visual aids inside the headset, in order to help the viewer maintain a connection between the AR cursor and the network that is only shown on the shared display. In two experiments on path following, we found that adding persistent connections between the AR cursor and the network on the shared display works well for high precision tasks, but more transient connections work best for lower precision tasks. More broadly, we show that combining personal AR interaction with shared displays is feasible for network navigation.