Microsoft researchers are reportedly working on a multi-person augmented reality project called "Comradre," which enables users to interact, as well as share virtual worlds.
This would mark an important first, especially considering how difficult it is to make augmented reality (AR) a shared experience. Because it overlays digital artefacts over real-word surroundings, augmented reality makes it tricky for multiple users to see the same thing and view the same digital artefact from multiple angles. The headsets would not only have to track all movements of the wearer's head to ensure the digital object stays anchored, but also communicate with each other at all times, transmitting information about their relative positions. The headsets may also need to track the wearer's body movements to allow for interaction with the digital object.
A multi-user augmented reality experience is tougher to achieve than a virtual reality (VR) one, because VR involves a fully digital environment whereas AR involves the aforementioned overlay that combines the real world with digital artefacts.
Microsoft researchers are now working on making augmented reality a shared experience, with project Comradre (pronounced "comradery") is in development at a company lab run by VR pioneer Jaron Lanier. As MIT Technology Review reports, Comradre allows multiple people to share both VR and AR experiences.
The Comradre project has reportedly involved a number of projects already, in which multiple people experienced and interacted with the same object in VR.
Lanier showed a video of the researchers' work so far during a presentation at SIGGRAPH 2015, but the video cannot be shared due to SIGGRAPH limitations. Nevertheless, Lanier demonstrated how his team used augmented-reality headsets they created, called "Reality Mashers," and not the Microsoft HoloLens AR headset.
According to Lanier, the goal of this Comradre project is to study multi-user applications in augmented reality, as well as the potential for creating prototype equipment for such social AR experiences.
The "Reality Mashers" reportedly have several forms and great performance, delivering a field-of-view beyond 60 degrees. The displays may vary, whether it's a smartphone or a smaller display, but Lanier notes that it's "always untethered." The team used various trackers, including OptiTracks, communicating with each other using a wireless LAN with low latency.
The video showed the work the researchers conducted in just two months, which makes this project even more exciting. The potential could be huge and shared AR experiences could be closer than imagined, and Lanier should soon offer more details on additional progress.
