Evaluating Dual-view Perceptual Issues in Handheld Augmented Reality: Device vs. User Perspective Rendering

In handheld Augmented Reality (AR) the magic-lens paradigm is typically implemented by rendering the video stream captured by the back-facing camera onto the device's screen. Unfortunately, such implementations show the real world from the device's perspective rather than the user's perspective. This dual-perspective results in misaligned and incorrectly scaled imagery, a predominate cause for the dual-view problem with potential to distort user's spatial perception. This paper presents a user study that analyzes users' expectations, spatial-perception, and their ability to deal with the dual-view problem, by comparing device-perspective and fixed Point-of-View (POV) user-perspective rendering. The results confirm the existence of the dual-view perceptual issue and that the majority of participants expect user-perspective rendering irrespective of their previous AR experience. Participants also demonstrated significantly better spatial perception and preference of the user-perspective view.