AR Usability Heatmaps for Safe Geographic Content Placement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Augmented reality systems lack the ability to determine suitable locations in real-world environments for users to interact with AR content, as not all areas are safe or permissible for AR interaction.
Innovation Solution
An online computing system generates usability heatmaps based on geographic data, including user location data, semantic labels, and object detection data, to identify safe and suitable areas for AR content presentation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If AR content is provided in all locations, then AR content coverage is maximized, but user safety is compromised in unsafe areas
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by creating usability heatmaps that assign different usability scores to different geographic locations. AR content is selectively provided only in locations with sufficient usability scores, allowing high coverage in safe areas while avoiding unsafe areas. This resolves the contradiction by making content provision location-dependent rather than uniform.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary action by pre-generating usability heatmaps and computing usability scores for all potential locations before providing AR content. Client devices receive pre-computed heatmap data that enables them to determine in advance which locations are suitable for AR content, avoiding the need to assess safety in real-time during AR interaction.
2Measurement precision
If usability heatmaps are generated using comprehensive geographic data, then location suitability accuracy is improved, but data processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies segmentation by dividing the geographic area into discrete portions or grid cells, with each portion assigned an individual usability score. This segmentation allows the complex problem of overall area assessment to be broken into manageable independent units, improving accuracy while reducing processing complexity through modular computation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary layer (the online system) that performs the complex data processing and heatmap generation centrally. Client devices receive pre-processed heatmap data rather than raw geographic data, transferring the processing complexity to the server infrastructure and simplifying the client-side implementation.
3Manufacturing precision
If usability scores are computed for all portions of geographic area, then content placement precision is improved, but computational time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system computes usability scores for all portions of the geographic area in advance and stores them in pre-generated heatmaps. When a user requests AR content, the system can immediately place content in suitable locations using the pre-computed scores without performing new calculations, significantly reducing computational time while maintaining placement precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The system computes usability scores for all portions of the geographic area (excessive action) rather than only for portions where users are currently present. This ensures comprehensive coverage and precision for content placement decisions across the entire service area, with the computational cost amortized over multiple content delivery operations.
Data Source
AI summary
An online computing system generates and uses usability heatmaps to ensure that AR content is presented in suitable locations within geographic areas. To generate a usability heatmap, the online system accesses geographic data describing a geographic area for which the online system provides AR content services and identifies a set of portions of the geographic area. The online system identifies subsets of the geographic data for each of the portions of the geographic area and computes a usability score for each of the portions. The online system generates a usability heatmap based on the computed usability scores for the portions of the geographic area and stores the heatmap in a heatmap database that stores usability heatmaps for different geographic areas. The online system may use the heatmaps in the database to generate AR content when requested by client devices.