LevelEd AR is an iOS application and workflow aimed at using consumer grade technology to allow users to quickly and effectively create a digital map of a space so that it can be used for serious games built with Unity. LevelEd AR is built with ARKit 1.0 and is supported on most modern iPhone and iPad devices.
The inspiration for this workflow came from earlier work by our research team who created a powered wheelchair training tool in VR. We felt that users would get a more immersive experience and could improve their learning if they were training in a location that they will frequent once trained (like their home or workflow) that was spatially accurate. To do this we would need a way of mapping this space which would ideally be affordable and make use of consumer technology.
LevelEd AR uses augmented reality to allow a user to create a blockout map of their space. This is uploaded to a server and then users can generate this spatially accurate blockout map in Unity. They can then use the blockout to ensure the virtual space is spatially accurate for VR and non-VR serious games and applications.
We devised a study that would test LevelEd AR for accuracy and usablity against the Structure Sensor, which was a similar system and a traditional tape measure. Our results suggest that our application is more accurate than the depth sensor system and as accurate and more time efficient as the tape measure over several tasks. Participants also showed a preference to our LevelEd AR application over the depth sensor system regarding usability.
Results for this study have been published at both VSGAMES 2019 and CGVC 2019. See below:
Beever, L., Pop, S., & John, N. (2019). Assisting Serious Games Level Design with an Augmented Reality Application and Workflow. In 2019 Computer Graphics and Visual Computing (CGVC). doi:10.2312/cgvc.20191253
Accessible: Here
Beever, L., Pop, S., & John, N. (2019). Evaluating LevelEd AR: An Indoor Modelling Application for Serious Games Level Design. In 2019 11th International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications (VS-Games). doi:10.1109/vs-games.2019.8864534
Accessible: Here or here.