Virtual concrete truck occluded by a real building            Virtual backhoe occluded by a real building

     Virtual dozer occluded by a real tower crane               Virtual forklift occluded by a real container

Real Time Occlusion Handling in Augmented Reality

 

This page shows the latest results of the ongoing research in Augmented Reality visualization of simulated construction operations.

 

In each of the snapshots shown on the left, a real object blocks the view of a virtual object. This issue which is often referred to as "incorrect occlusion" is a longstanding problem in the development of almost all AR applications and can not be automatically handled in real time.

 

A series of self-contained depth based methods has been recently developed in this research to efficiently address the problem of incorrect occlusion. The snapshots shown on this page, are real output of the AR application with all existing occlusion cases correctly resolved in real time.

 

To conduct these tests, a number of miniature models (trucks, backhoe, shovel, tower crane, and buildings) were used to create a small scale construction environment in which virtual CAD models of construction equipments were superimposed and operating based on a simulation scenario.

 

The AR application developed in this research is capable of correctly identifying occluding and occluded objects from both groups (i.e. real and virtual) and appropriately resolving incorrect occlusion cases at the pixel level to create a realistic and authentic output of the visualized scene in AR.