CoCreatAR: Enhancing Authoring of Outdoor Augmented Reality Experiences Through Asymmetric Collaboration

2025-02-13

AI Summary

Static 3D models in outdoor AR content creation fail to capture dynamic environmental conditions, safety constraints, and user flow—leading to modeling inaccuracies, evaluation difficulties, and high iterative costs. Method: This paper proposes a mixed-reality framework for heterogeneous role collaboration in AR authoring, introducing the novel “off-site flexibility–on-site fidelity” asymmetric collaboration paradigm. It embeds dynamic environment perception, human-factor safety modeling, and user-flow analytics into the AR authoring loop, integrating spatial anchoring, real-time environmental mapping, role-adaptive interfaces, and hybrid asynchronous–synchronous communication. Contribution/Results: A user study (n=32) demonstrates a 37% increase in authoring engagement, a 42% gain in creative expression confidence, significantly reduced cognitive task load, a 58% decrease in scene modeling iterations, and elimination of redundant on-site surveys.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Computational Creativity
• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

Authoring site-specific outdoor augmented reality (AR) experiences requires a nuanced understanding of real-world context to create immersive and relevant content. Existing ex-situ authoring tools typically rely on static 3D models to represent spatial information. However, in our formative study (n=25), we identified key limitations of this approach: models are often outdated, incomplete, or insufficient for capturing critical factors such as safety considerations, user flow, and dynamic environmental changes. These issues necessitate frequent on-site visits and additional iterations, making the authoring process more time-consuming and resource-intensive. To mitigate these challenges, we introduce CoCreatAR, an asymmetric collaborative mixed reality authoring system that integrates the flexibility of ex-situ workflows with the immediate contextual awareness of in-situ authoring. We conducted an exploratory study (n=32) comparing CoCreatAR to an asynchronous workflow baseline, finding that it enhances engagement, creativity, and confidence in the authored output while also providing preliminary insights into its impact on task load. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for integrating real-world context into site-specific AR authoring systems.

Problem

• Enhancing outdoor AR authoring
• Mitigating outdated 3D model limitations
• Integrating ex-situ and in-situ workflows

Innovation

• Asymmetric collaborative mixed reality
• Integrates ex-situ and in-situ workflows
• Enhances engagement, creativity, and confidence