Paper: Using Presence to Evaluate a Location-Aware Augmented Reality Game

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Rod McCall

Rod McCall, Richard Wetzel, Johannes Löschner and Anne-Kathrin Braun

Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (2011) 15:25–35, Springer.

Abstract: Location-aware augmented reality games provide players with a rich and potentially unlimited range of interaction possibilities. In this paper, a study is described which uses a number of measurement techniques including questionnaires, direct observation, semi-structured interviews and video analysis to measure player’s sense of presence. The paper points to the importance of the availability of actions within augmented reality games and how this shapes their sense of presence. The findings indicate that such an approach to measuring presence can provide valuable information on the structure of augmented reality location-aware games.

Paper PDF: Using presence to evaluate an augmented reality location aware game

Updated: Some Papers on Presence

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Rod McCall

For those of you interested in the world of presence research whether this is in virtual, augmented reality or just via Skype then you may find some of these papers which I recently uploaded of interest. They are from a range of journals, conferences and workshops. The work mainly focuses on photo realistic virtual reality, location-aware augmented reality games and also mixed realities in general.

The final TimeWarp: Using Form and Content to Support Player Experience and Presence when Designing Location-Aware Mobile Augmented Reality Games. Blum, L., Wetzel, R., McCall, R., and L. Oppermann. DIS 2012, Newcastle UK
Let’s Do the Time Warp Again – Subjective and Behavioral Presence Measurement in the Augmented Reality Game TimeWarp . Jennifer Klatt, Simon Ten Broeke, Astrid M. von der Pütten, Anna-Christin Schütz, Jens Vervoort, Roderick McCall, Nicole C. Krämer, Richard Wetzel, Lisa Blum, and Leif Oppermann. Presence Conference. Edinburgh Napier University
Wagner, I., Broll, W., Jacucci, G. Kuuti, K., McCall, R., Morrison, A., Schmalsteig, D. and J.J. Terrin. On the Role of Presence in Mixed Reality. In Journal of Presence, Tele-operators and Virtual Environments. Issue 18. Vol. 4. pp249-276. MIT Press.
McCall, R. Ghellal, S. and Rothaeur, J. Mobile Phones, Sub-culture and Presence. Workshop on Mobile Spatial Interaction at CHI 2007
Benyon, D. R., Smyth, M., McCall, R., O¹Neill, S and Carroll, F. The Place Probe: Exploring A Sense of Place in Real and Virtual Environments. Journal of Presence, Tele-operators and Virtual Environments.
McCall, R., O’Neill, S. and Carroll, F. Measuring Presence in Virtual Environments. In, Conference on Human-Factors in Computing: CHI’2004. Vienna, Austria: Association of Computing Machinery.
McCall, R., O’Neill, S., Carroll, F. and Benyon, D. The Presence Probe. In , Workshop on Designing and Evaluating Virtual Reality Systems. University of Nottingham, UK.

Museum Visitors Wanted

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Rod McCall

The LiveCity project is looking for people to take part in an evening focus group about novel interactive experiences. We are currently building a game which people in Luxembourg and Athens can play together using multi-touch technologies and live interactive video.

Date: 3rd December

Time: from 19:00 until 21:30

If you would like to take part please email roderick.mccall (at uni (dot) lu)

Haxogreen Talk Slides

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Rod McCall

The slides from my Haxogreen talk are available from the download link below. Haxogreen is a bi-annual hacker camp held here in Luxembourg with at the time of writing is currently ongoing.

The presentation explored some key themes in mixed realities, from design through to specific projects in particular IPCity (that I worked on for a few years) but also more recent work within the I-GEAR and LiveCity projects. It closed by asking some questions about how augmented reality in the future. In particular identity, augmentation rights and privacy.

Haxogreen Presentation

Acknowledgements: Much of the content in the slides is drawn from work within the IPCity project, therefore my thanks go in particular to the team from Fraunhofer FIT but also the other project members.

Paper: Form and Content in Augmented Reality Gaming

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Rod McCall

At the end of 2009 as the IPCity project drew to a close we completed our final study of the TimeWarp Cologne game (please click on the link to find out more information and see the citation from Blum et al below). The study consisted of sixty participants and we identified six key gaming elements, relating to environment, interaction and characters that were in turn spread across physical and mental properties (see the paper form more information). As a result we developed a set of guidelines based around these asepects and the form and content issues associated with designing augmented reality games. This form and content split was derived from the work by Lombard and Ditton (see citation below) on virtual reality environments. Anyway for those who are interested, here is a quick summary of the guidelines that were derived. Please again check out the full paper for all the details.

Encourage players to explore virtual elements
Include short but intensive physical tasks
Allow virtual characters to become meaningful in the real world
Tap into existing emotions of players
Confront players with meaningful decisions
Do not focus on visual realism

My thanks again go to the other members of the TimeWarp team at Fraunhofer FIT.

The final TimeWarp: Using Form and Content to Support Player Experience and Presence when Designing Location-Aware Mobile Augmented Reality Games. Blum, L., Wetzel, R., McCall, R., and L. Oppermann. DIS 2012, Newcastle UK

Lombard, M., Ditton, T., At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 1997. 3(2).

LiveCity Design Competition Announced

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Rod McCall

Are you interested in creating a mixed reality game that will bring the people of Athens and Luxembourg closer together? Well now you can and you will have the development resources to do it! We are offering the lucky winner the chance to pitch a game concept that will go live for a period of one year in both cities.

For more information visit: www.livecity-psp.eu

Deadline: 1st September 2012

Talk @ Haxogreen Summer Camp, Luxembourg

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Rod McCall

For those who are interested in looking more at the human side of mixed realities I will be giving a public talk at the Haxogreen Summer Camp here in Luxembourg. There are also many other interesting presentations some of which have already been announced and some which will be announced shortly.

Haxogreen is a hackers summer camp which takes place in Luxembourg from 26th-29th July, and is organised by syc2cat.

The early bird registration ends on 22nd June, registration is surprisingly cheap and for those staying overnight the website promises readily available toilets

LiveCity: Luxembourg and Athens Mixed Reality Game

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Rod McCall

As I have mentioned during some recent presentations and also on this blog before we have just launched the LiveCity project here in Luxembourg.

“The aim of LiveCity is to empower the citizens of a city to interact with each other in a more productive, efficient and socially useful way by using high quality Video-to-Video over the internet. Video-to-video can be used to save patients lives, improve city administration, reduce fuel costs, reduce carbon footprint, enhance education and improve city experiences for tourists and cultural consumers.” (Source: LiveCity Website)

For our work we are going to build a game that is played between the people of Athens and Luxembourg using a combination of multi-touch tables and mobile phones. As part of this we would be very keen to hear from people who have concepts they would like the share. There will be an open competition and we will pick the one which best fits the various competition requirements.

Game Scope

The game should promote aspects of city life and experience in Athens and Luxembourg, for example letting the people of Athens find out more about Luxembourg and vice versa. This could for example be about daily life in either city, tourism or other aspects such as the environment.

We envisage that each city will have a “control room” where players can visit, this will consist of a multi-touch table and a minimum of one live video feed which is fed to the other location. You may also include the use of mobile phones in each city.

Technical Limitations

You must make use of the following technologies:

A multi-touch surface (one will be located at a site in each city – known as the control rooms)
A live video feed between the control rooms

Optionally you may:

Include mobile phone players

You are encouraged to:

Provide a well developed idea
Contribute content if possible

We will:

Provide the locations for the control rooms in each city (e.g. a museum or library)
Provide the relevant multi-touch table
Develop the end system (hopefully with your help), keep it simple as we have limited resources!

Dates, we will announce the competition within the next few weeks, the deadline for submission will be around 2 months after the call.

For more information visit the contact page on this website.

Totem Summer School for Location-Aware Games

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Rod McCall

Totem Project Logo

My previous employed Fraunhofer FIT along their fellow TOTEM project partner Institut Telecom (France) are organising a summer school on location-aware games development. Knowing the team involved in the project I can thoroughly recommend going, they are not only tech savvy people but also very creative. Also the TOTEM projects focuses on making games development even more accessible.

Students will gain experience in all aspects for location-aware games development including graphics and sound design and user testing. The summer school will be based on the Android platform with server side work being undertaken in Python.

Applications Deadline: 22nd June 2012

When: Sunday July 22nd- Sunday July 29th (arrival/departure)

Where: Sankt Augustin (near Bonn), Germany

For who: Master students, although PhD and Bachelor students are also welcome.

Link: Summer School Homepage

Jobs: Six Graduate Student Research Assistant Positions at UL

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Rod McCall

We are looking for six graduate students based at UL to help us with two funded research projects I-GEAR and LiveCity. Students will be expected to spend about 25% of their time working on the projects and will receive payment for doing so. More information can be found in the attached job adverts.

LiveCity-students

IGEAR-students

Positions are available from now.

Rod McCall

In-car systems, games and human-computer interaction

Category Archives: Mixed Reality