Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

The main aim of this project is to investigate the use of see-through displays to provide resources to enrich user access to information on objects of interest placed behind a glass screen. Rapid advances in LCD technologies and micro-level controlled lighting have propelled the concept of using see-through displays in public spaces like retail environments and art galleries. To date most research prototypes have been limited to single user interactions, yet the most beneficial aspect of such displays is their ability to support multiple independent groups of users in working simultaneously through the system. Unfortunately, there is, as yet, very little understanding of how users can interact in such display environments or how such environments should be designed to support simultaneous use by multiple users. The proposed research will be one of the first projects to examine the design and technical challenges of supporting multiple users and multi-user interactions for objects behind large see-through displays. The novelty appears on several levels: in developing innovative hardware solutions to support simultaneous viewings; in creating proper user interfaces and interactions; in studying the outcomes outside a laboratory environment. This work is both novel and extremely timely as multi-national display technology firms (such as Samsung) will soon be considering how to go beyond single user see-through displays to target real-world usage. Such technologies have the potential to transform how we interact and get access to information about objects that are literally out of our reach.