VesARlius: An Augmented Reality System for Large-Group Co-Located Anatomy Learning

Interactive educational environments are one of the prime applications for the use of Augmented Reality (AR). A large variety of such systems has been proposed in the past for various areas of educa- tion. However, in most cases the number of users these AR systems can support is limited. Only few systems have been developed that support a large number of co-located users to jointly collaborate in a dynamic and interactive learning environment. Multi-user AR collaboration presents a unique setting with distinct challenges and requirements for user interaction and information sharing. In this paper, we present VesARlius, a novel AR system for collaborative and interactive anatomy learning in a large group of co-located users. Our system employs a set of multi-user collaboration paradigms allowing users to engage in an interactive AR learning environ- ment. We evaluated the collaborative features of our system in a user study with 16 medical students. Results demonstrate the poten- tial of the VesARlius system to be used effectively for large-group AR anatomy learning. From our lessons learned, we provide a set of design guidelines for developing similar AR systems to enable large-group collaboration in other application domains.     «

Interactive educational environments are one of the prime applications for the use of Augmented Reality (AR). A large variety of such systems has been proposed in the past for various areas of educa- tion. However, in most cases the number of users these AR systems can support is limited. Only few systems have been developed that support a large number of co-located users to jointly collaborate in a dynamic and interactive learning environment. Multi-user AR collaboration presents a unique setti...     »