Augmented Reality for Dismounted Soldier's Situation Awareness : Designing and Evaluating Intuitive Egocentric Depth Perception with Natural Depth Perception Cues

Sammanfattning

In this thesis, three kinds of depth perception symbols are designed and evaluated with an implemented Augmented Reality prototype. The three types of depth perception symbol's purpose are to intuitively visualize depth for objects whose position is too far away to see without technical assistance. The area needed to be aware of is increasing with time since weapons are developed to operate at farther distances. The symbols, together with Augmented Reality, could improve the situational awareness of dismounted soldiers during navigation and in that way allow the soldiers to be aware of a larger area. This thesis aims to investigate if the natural depth perception cues Relative size, Aerial effect, and Drop-line effect improve the depth perception of virtual symbols displayed on a handheld 2D screen with Augmented Reality. The three different depth perception cues were integrated into the three symbol designs. The symbol designs were then put into an Augmented Reality prototype that was used during an explorative user study with eight participants. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected with a presurvey, interviews, and a post-test-questionnaire. The study's results indicate that the three depth perception cues intuitively visualize depth when integrated into the three symbol designs. The most intuitive symbol design combined the three depth perception cues.