EasyCOHMO: Visual assistance tool for the contact-free human machine communication

The collaborative project EASY-COHMO of the 3D-Sensation consortium targets the exploration and development of operational concepts for human-machine interaction and human-machine cooperation, seamlessly integrated in different working contexts. As a part of the general objective, this subproject addresses the object- and room-stable augmentation of the environment or working space. A context sensitive spatial presentation of additional information and visualizations of three-dimensional data is supporting the user and allows the machine to communicate its status. The subproject on the one hand includes analysis components to capture the augmented environment and on the other hand the processing and presentation of the displayed content. This includes a perspective distortion of the content to guaranty a correct displaying independent of the augmented area, which can potentially be the complete working space of the user. To show information at the correct position in space, head mounted displays and projector-based systems, following the concept of spatial augmented reality, are used. As the application domain of the different industry partners differs very much in terms of the working environment and the displayed data (e.g. workflow information in production halls or atlas data of a patient) all algorithms are designed as generic as possible. This allows a custom configuration and adaption matching the individual conditions.