Supporting deixis in remote augmented reality collaboration

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In face-to-face collaboration, we often take for granted the ease with which we can communicate with others,**and how the ease of communication plays a key role in the success of a collaboration. Recent technological**innovations have opened the possibility of working with others at a distance in new ways. However, remote**collaboration is still often slow, clumsy and awkward. One key, and often overlooked, aspect that makes**colocated collaborations fast and fluid are deictic gestures - the use of gestures, like pointing, to provide**context and information in verbal communication. Deictic gestures allow people to simply make statements**such as "that thing there", which is perfectly clear when combined with pointing at the object. However,**without adequate support for deixis the statement loses meaning, and collaboration can become cumbersome**and less effective.**Kognitiv Spark is a New Brunswick based business that is interested in how to better support the use of deictic**gestures in their flagship product, Remote Spark. Remote Spark is an augmented reality-based**tele-conferencing system that allows a worker to receive the guidance of a remote expert who could be located**anywhere in the world. Remote Spark uses see-through augmented reality glasses that allow a worker to view**and interact with computer graphics while still seeing the world around. This provides the technological basis**to allow workers to receive guidance in a way that is more tightly aligned with their work. However, how**deixis can be best integrated into Remote Spark is an open challenge.**In this project, we will build an understanding of the use of deixis in augmented reality collaborations. We will**create prototypes that provide alternative designs and approaches for the display and placement of pointing**gestures from a remote collaborator. We will also test new hand tracking algorithms to better allow the**production of pointing gestures by system users. Finally, we will perform an empirical study on the efficacy of**the created prototypes.