A novel AR remote collaborative platform for sharing 2.5D gestures and gaze

Although sharing gestures and gaze can improve AR remote collaboration, most current systems only enable collaborators to share 2D or 3D gestures, and the unimodal HCI interface remains dominant. To address this problem, we describe a novel remote collaborative platform based on 2.5D gestures and gaze (2.5DGG), which supports an expert who collaborates with a worker (e.g., during assembly or training tasks). We investigate the impact of sharing the remote site’s 2.5DGG using spatial AR (SAR) remote collaboration in manufacturing. Compared to other systems, there is a key advantage that it can provide more natural and intuitive multimodal interaction based on 2.5DGG. We track the remote experts’ gestures and eye gaze using Leap Motion and aGlass, respectively, in a VR space displaying the live video stream of the local physical workspace and visualize them onto the local work scenario by a projector. The results of an exploratory user study demonstrate that 2.5DGG has a clear difference in performance time and collaborative experience, and it is better than the traditional one.