arXiv subjects

Blair MacIntyre

Publications and source records attributed to Blair MacIntyre.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Transition Techniques for Externally-Guided Multi-Scale Viewpoint Changes

Extended reality (XR) is increasingly used to help users understand complex virtual environments through multiple viewpoints across different immersion levels, positions, and scales. While numerous techniques address viewpoint transitions for self-guided exploration, many scenarios require externally-guided transitions where a system or presenter controls the user's viewpoint, leaving the user with limited spatial knowledge and control over the transition process, which can increase susceptibility to disorientation and discomfort. We present three transition techniques for externally-guided multi-scale XR viewpoint changes and evaluate them against a fade-to-black baseline in a within-subjects study (N=20). Participants transitioned between world-in-miniature, street-level, and indoor destination views. We combined spatial recall measures, standardized questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews to assess orientation, workload, comfort, and continuity. Results showed that in our setup, techniques externalizing reference frames and the user's pose improved multi-scale spatial recall relative to a fade, while same-scale recall was insensitive to transition technique. We conclude with design implications for multi-scale XR viewpoint transitions.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

CrossAtlas: Evaluating Projection Techniques for Spatial Referencing in Cross-Reality Collaboration

Cross-reality collaboration increasingly connects immersive and desktop users within synchronized workspaces, yet little is known about how bidirectional projection techniques between immersive 3D layouts and desktop 2D views influence communication. Spatial referencing depends on shared spatial understanding, but different mappings preserve and distort geometric relationships in different ways, altering perceived adjacency, orientation, and coverage across collaborators' views. We present CrossAtlas, a synchronized PC-VR collaboration platform that integrates multiple bidirectional projection techniques, including three planar projection variants and equirectangular, a spherical projection variant, across layouts of varying curvature. In a controlled study with 24 dyads, collaborators completed spatial referencing tasks under different projection-layout conditions while we collected performance and subjective measures. Our results show that projection choice strongly shaped collaboration, with the spherical variant often outperforming planar projections and remaining robust across object layouts.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

Secure and Private Spatial Sharing for Mixed Reality Remote Collaboration in Enterprise Settings

Mixed Reality (MR) technologies are increasingly adopted by enterprises to enhance remote collaboration, enabling users to share real-time views of their physical environments through head-mounted displays (HMDs). While MR spatial sharing offers significant benefits, it introduces complex security and privacy risks, particularly in balancing employee collaboration needs with enterprise data protection requirements across office and personal spaces. This paper investigates these challenges through formative interviews with employees and expert consultations with professionals in cybersecurity, IoT, technology risk, and corporate legal domains. We present a conceptual framework for secure MR spatial sharing in enterprise contexts and identify critical concerns and requirements for system design. Based on our findings, we offer actionable recommendations to guide the development of secure and privacy-preserving MR spatial sharing solutions for future enterprise deployments.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

TapNav: Adaptive Spatiotactile Screen Readers for Tactually Guided Touchscreen Interactions for Blind and Low Vision People

Screen readers are audio-based software that Blind and Low Vision (BLV) people use to interact with computing devices, such as tablets and smartphones. Although this technology has significantly improved the accessibility of touchscreen devices, the sequential nature of audio limits the bandwidth of information users can receive and process. We introduce TapNav, an adaptive spatiotactile screen reader prototype developed to interact with touchscreen interfaces spatially. TapNav's screen reader provides adaptive auditory feedback that, in combination with a tactile overlay, conveys spatial information and location of interface elements on-screen. We evaluated TapNav with 12 BLV users who interacted with TapNav to explore a data visualization and interact with a bank transactions application. Our qualitative findings show that touch points and spatially constrained navigation helped users anticipate outcomes for faster exploration, and offload cognitive load to touch. We provide design guidelines for creating tactile overlays for adaptive spatiotactile screen readers and discuss their generalizability beyond our exploratory data analysis and everyday application navigation scenarios.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Adaptive 3D UI Placement in Mixed Reality Using Deep Reinforcement Learning

Mixed Reality (MR) could assist users' tasks by continuously integrating virtual content with their view of the physical environment. However, where and how to place these content to best support the users has been a challenging problem due to the dynamic nature of MR experiences. In contrast to prior work that investigates optimization-based methods, we are exploring how reinforcement learning (RL) could assist with continuous 3D content placement that is aware of users' poses and their surrounding environments. Through an initial exploration and preliminary evaluation, our results demonstrate the potential of RL to position content that maximizes the reward for users on the go. We further identify future directions for research that could harness the power of RL for personalized and optimized UI and content placement in MR.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Examining the Effects of Immersive and Non-Immersive Presenter Modalities on Engagement and Social Interaction in Co-located Augmented Presentations

Head-worn augmented reality (AR) allows audiences to be immersed and engaged in stories told by live presenters. While presenters may also be in AR to have the same level of immersion and awareness as their audience, this symmetric presentation style may diminish important social cues such as eye contact. In this work, we examine the effects this (a)symmetry has on engagement, group awareness, and social interaction in co-located one-on-one augmented presentations. We developed a presentation system incorporating 2D/3D content that audiences can view and interact with in AR, with presenters controlling and delivering the presentation in either a symmetric style in AR, or an asymmetric style with a handheld tablet. We conducted a within- and between-subjects evaluation with 12 participant pairs to examine the differences between these symmetric and asymmetric presentation modalities. From our findings, we extracted four themes and derived strategies and guidelines for designers interested in augmented presentations.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2017

VisAR: Bringing Interactivity to Static Data Visualizations through Augmented Reality

Static visualizations have analytic and expressive value. However, many interactive tasks cannot be completed using static visualizations. As datasets grow in size and complexity, static visualizations start losing their analytic and expressive power for interactive data exploration. Despite this limitation of static visualizations, there are still many cases where visualizations are limited to being static (e.g., visualizations on presentation slides or posters). We believe in many of these cases, static visualizations will benefit from allowing users to perform interactive tasks on them. Inspired by the introduction of numerous commercial personal augmented reality (AR) devices, we propose an AR solution that allows interactive data exploration of datasets on static visualizations. In particular, we present a prototype system named VisAR that uses the Microsoft Hololens to enable users to complete interactive tasks on static visualizations.

cs.HC↗