Browsing by Author "Tanous, Kyle"

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    AR DriveSim: An Immersive Driving Simulator for Augmented Reality Head-Up Display Research
    Gabbard, Joseph L.; Smith, Missie; Tanous, Kyle; Kim, Hyungil; Jonas, Bryan (Frontiers, 2019-10-23)
    Optical see-through automotive head-up displays (HUDs) are a form of augmented reality (AR) that is quickly gaining penetration into the consumer market. Despite increasing adoption, demand, and competition among manufacturers to deliver higher quality HUDs with increased fields of view, little work has been done to understand how best to design and assess AR HUD user interfaces, and how to quantify their effects on driver behavior, performance, and ultimately safety. This paper reports on a novel, low-cost, immersive driving simulator created using a myriad of custom hardware and software technologies specifically to examine basic and applied research questions related to AR HUDs usage when driving. We describe our experiences developing simulator hardware and software and detail a user study that examines driver performance, visual attention, and preferences using two AR navigation interfaces. Results suggest that conformal AR graphics may not be inherently better than other HUD interfaces. We include lessons learned from our simulator development experiences, results of the user study and conclude with limitations and future work.
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    Calculating and Analyzing Angular Head Jerk in Augmented and Virtual Reality: Effect of AR Cue Design on Angular Jerk
    Van Dam, Jared; Tanous, Kyle; Werner, Matt; Gabbard, Joseph L. (MDPI, 2021-10-28)
    In this work, we propose a convenient method for evaluating levels of angular jerk in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Jerk is a rarely analyzed metric in usability studies, although it can be measured and calculated easily with most head-worn displays and can yield highly relevant information to designers. Here, we developed and implemented a system capable of calculating and analyzing jerk in real-time based on orientation data from an off-the-shelf head-worn display. An experiment was then carried out to determine whether the presence of AR user interface annotations results in changes to users’ angular head jerk when conducting a time-pressured visual search task. Analysis of the data indicates that a decrease in jerk is significantly associated with the use of AR augmentations. As noted in the limitations section, however, the conclusions drawn from this work should be limited, as this analysis method is novel in the VR/AR space and because of methodological limitations that limited the reliability of the jerk data. The work presented herein considerably facilitates the use of jerk as a quick component measure of usability and serves as an initial point off which future research involving jerk in VR and AR can be performed.
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    Effects of Volumetric Augmented Reality Displays on Human Depth Judgments: Implications for Heads-Up Displays in Transportation
    Lisle, Lee; Merenda, Coleman; Tanous, Kyle; Kim, Hyungil; Gabbard, Joseph L.; Bowman, Douglas A. (IGI Global, 2019)
    Many driving scenarios involve correctly perceiving road elements in depth and manually responding as appropriate. Of late, augmented reality (AR) head-up displays (HUDs) have been explored to assist drivers in identifying road elements, by using a myriad of AR interface designs that include world-fixed graphics perceptually placed in the forward driving scene. Volumetric AR HUDs purportedly offer increased accuracy of distance perception through natural presentation of oculomotor cues as compared to traditional HUDs. In this article, the authors quantify participant performance matching virtual objects to real-world counterparts at egocentric distances of 7-12 meters while using both volumetric and fixed-focal plane AR HUDs. The authors found the volumetric HUD to be associated with faster and more accurate depth judgements at far distance, and that participants performed depth judgements more quickly as the experiment progressed. The authors observed no differences between the two displays in terms of reported simulator sickness or eye strain.
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    New River Valley (NRV) Time Bank Development Report
    Tanous, Kyle; Richards, Aaron (2016-05-04)
    TimeBanks is an international non-profit organization whose goal is to foster strong community relationships and an economy based on home, family, and community instead of money. The primary goal of the system developed for the NRV Time Bank is to provide a more usable interface than is provided by established time bank management software. This report and accompanying presentation detail the requirements, design, prototyping, implementation, and testing processes involved in the development of the software used by NRV Time Bank of Blacksburg, VA as an interface to their services.