PhoneLens: A Low-Cost, Spatially Aware, Mobile-Interaction Device

• Published in: IEEE transactions on human-machine systems Vol. 44; no. 3; pp. 301 - 314
• Main Authors: Roudaki, Amin, Jun Kong, Walia, Gursimran S., Roudaki, Ali
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.06.2014; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Artificial intelligence; Augmented reality; Browsing; Cameras; Computer science; control theory; systems; Computer systems and distributed systems. User interface; Devices; Exact sciences and technology; Hardware; Information systems. Data bases; Infrared; interactive paper; Light emitting diodes; Memory organisation. Data processing; Mobile communication; Mobile communication systems; mobile HCI; Pattern recognition. Digital image processing. Computational geometry; Searching; Smart phones; Software; spatially aware computing; Tasks; Tracking; Mobile phone; Tracking; interactive paper; Electronic document; mobile HCI; Remote control; Digital information; Efficiency; User interface; Virtual reality; Man machine relation; Zoom; Localization; Operating system; Context aware; Annotation; Information browsing; Augmented reality; Search algorithm; Light emitting diode; Interactive system; Document retrieval; spatially aware computing; Paper; Thermal imaging; Mobile computing; Workspace
• ISSN: 2168-2291; 2168-2305
• DOI: 10.1109/THMS.2014.2305436

Large paper sheets are still the most preferred medium used by engineers to inspect remote sites. However, these paper documents are hard to modify and retrieve. This paper presents a novel, spatially aware, mobile system (called PhoneLens) which combines the merits of paper documents and mobile devices. It augments paper documents with digital information. Different from previous approaches, PhoneLens is inexpensive. It includes two infrared LEDs (i.e., light-emitting diodes), one Wiimote, and one Android device. Based on the hardware setting, we developed an efficient spatial-tracking algorithm to record the movement of a mobile device within a large workspace. Our approach is robust and applicable to various scenarios. PhoneLens provides different functions to browse a multivalent document, such as browsing different layers, searching annotations, and zooming. We conducted a controlled study that compared the participants' performance with PhoneLens against a traditional paper-based method with a multivalent paper document at a significance level of p <; 0.05. The following results were obtained from the study: 1) PhoneLens was significantly more efficient than the paper-based method on search and measurement tasks; 2) PhoneLens was rated higher on subjects' overall experience than the paper-based method; and 3) the usefulness of the training on PhoneLens was positively correlated with subjects' browsing efficiency.