ARTHUR: Augmented Round Table for Architecture and Urban Planning

ARTHUR bridges the gap between real and virtual worlds by enhancing the users' current working environment with virtual 3D objects. The project focuses on providing an intuitive environment supporting natural interaction with virtual objects while sustaining existing communication and interaction mechanisms. Real world objects are used as tangible interfaces to make 3D environments attractive even to non-experts. ARTHUR developed new types of user-friendly head mounted see-through displays (HMD), non-intrusive object tracking mechanisms, and intuitive user interface mechanisms within a location independent multi-user real-time augmented reality environment. CVMT develops object and head tracking mechanisms based on computer vision using cameras mounted on the HMD. A colour based tracking has been developed and implemented that is robust to illumination changes and that has real-time performance. Multi-view position and orientation estimation were developed and will be combined with other tracking methods. Furthermore, a computer vision based gesture interface has been developed allowing to recognize gestures without disturbing the user in his or her natural behaviour by cumbersome and wired hand tracking devices. ARTHUR was a six partner that was funded from 2001 until 2004 as an EU-IST-RTD project (IST-2000-28559), Key Action 4, Mixed Realities. However, research in the field is continued at CVMT. (Thomas B. Moeslund, Moritz Störring, Claus B. Madsen, Erik Granum)