Hear

1
HearThereAn Augmented Reality System of Linked
Audio

• Joey Rozier
• Karrie Karahalios and Judith Donath
• Sociable Media Group
• MIT Media Lab
• ICAD 2000 Conference - April 3, 2000

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Overview

• Project Purpose and Goals
• Brief Scenario
• Basic Augmentation Details
• Hardware
• Authoring and Playback
• Security and Privacy

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Purpose and Goals

• Augment Environment with Audio
• Augmented Reality (or Mixed Reality)
• Develop Social Augmentations
• Oral Histories
• Focus on Authoring
• Activation Networks - Linking
• Self-Contained and Portable
• Limit Use of Visual Cues

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Example Scenario

• Augmented Boston Common
• Can hear audio left behind (maybe history)
• Guided towards related audio (moo...)
• Author can add his/her own sound
• Others are unaware

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Augmentation Details

• The SoundSpot
• Basic unit of augmentation
• Any type of audio (voice, music, whatever)
• Placed at a specific location
  (longitude/latitude)
• Has a specified size
• Other audio properties (braids, etc.)
• User walking into SoundSpot hears it

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Augmentation Details

• Example

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Augmentation Details

• Must Determine Users Location
• GPS
• Typical Accuracy Order of 10m
• Accuracy of Ours sub-meter
• Refresh Rate 10Hz
• Drawback Bulk
• Result Media Lab Courtyard

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Hardware

• GPS
• Compass
• PalmPilot
• Laptop
• Headphones
• Microphone

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Authoring and Playback

• Focus on user authoring
• Most other systems do not
• Simple!
• Playback is still very important
• New author options lead to new playback issues

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Authoring

• Author creates SoundSpots
• In-Field
• Using GUI

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Playback Basics

• User dons system
• Very simple start-up
• Moves through environment
• Hears sound tied to location

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Playback Spatialized Sound

• Each sound appears to be coming from center of
  a SoundSpot
• Java 3D API
• Compass attached to headphones
• Do not deal with environment effects (enclosed
  spaces, etc.)
• Future work will improve spatialized sound

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Playback Two Modes

• Explorer
• All SoundSpots activated
• Can be very cluttered
• Ultimate control with listener
• Activation Networks

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Playback Activation Networks

• For Linking and Organizing Sounds
• Author creates Link Categories
• e.g. My Family, About Media Lab
• Author associates Link Categories with a
  SoundSpot
• User can activate Link Category when standing in
  SoundSpot
• StartSpots

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Playback Activation Networks Example

• StartSpot in Bostons Public Garden
• Link Categories
• SMG SMG SoundSpots
• Weeping Willow interesting SoundSpots about
  weeping willow trees
• My Favorites my favorite SoundSpots
• When entering StartSpot, activate Weeping
  Willow now those exist
• Weeping Willow spots may have their own
  LinkCategories

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Playback Directing the User

• Palm Interface
• Easy, intuitive
• But uses visual information!
• Audio Beacons?

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Security and Privacy

• Authentication for Authors
• Open System for Users
• Wireless Connection to Server?

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Future Work

• Finish Implementation!
• More Portable System
• Temporal Information
• Other forms of audio augmentation

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Contact and Contributors

• E-mail jrozier_at_mit.edu
• http//smg.media.mit.edu
• Primary Contributors
• Judith Donath
• Karrie Karahalios
• Birendro Roy and Tuan Phan