Microsoft researchers working on multiple person augmented reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a fantastic experience that overlays digital information in real time on the real world using live video or virtual images. That eerie AR experience, however, can be amplified if it can be shared with another person.

Microsoft researchers are working on multi-person virtual reality. Jaron Lanier, a pioneer researcher in the field of virtual reality in the 1980s, is working on a project known as Comradre (pronounced comradery).

This is entirely separate from the HoloLens project. Project Comradre will allow two people to share augmented reality, reports the MIT Technology Review. Microsoft plans to utilise the technology in gaming and communications.

The necessary hardware required to support the new AR devices consist of smartphones and gaming laptops. It will be interesting to see how multiple individuals react to objects in augmented reality. Project Comradre will allow many persons to interact, share and access information, and will create a more immersive experience of the AR worlds.

The project involves groups of researchers (including doctoral and masters students) contributing in the development of AR applications, including a platform for children to play together in virtual reality. A prominent contribution from a student at Stanford University is software that reacts to physical interactions with virtual effects like bubbles, or flames that appear when two people shake hands.

Lanier said the main purpose of Project Comradre is to study social or multi-user applications in mixed reality. He showcased his efforts to develop the project at SIGGRAPH 2015, according to CNET.

The AR headsets called “Reality Mashers” have a field of view in excess of 60-degrees in all cases. Participants can communicate with each other through a low-latency wireless LAN.

Jeremy Bailson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, pointed out major impediments to Project Comradre but also acknowledged the technology has major potential in virtual reality, said a report in VR Focus.

“The critical aspect for multi-person virtual reality is that you have to track everybody’s movements very accurately in their own scene”, explains Bailson.

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