ERCIM News 103
July 2026
Special theme Augmented Reality
Guest editors Constantine Stephanidis (ICS-FORTH, Greece) and Eija Kaasinen (VTT)
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by Constantine Stephanidis and Eija Kaasinen
Augmented Reality (AR) is a real-time direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment that is enhanced or augmented by adding virtual computer-generated information to it. Accordingly, an AR system: (i) combines real and virtual objects in a real environment, (ii) aligns real and virtual objects with each other so that as the view to a real object changes, the augmented object connected to it changes accordingly, and (iii) runs interactively, in three dimensions, and in real time. AR technologies enhance human perception and help seeing, hearing, and feeling the surrounding environment in new and enriched ways. This is achieved by making people sense virtual objects, which appear to coexist in the real world. AR can also be used to hide visual elements of the real world to allow people to focus on specific aspects (Diminished Reality).
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by Leif Arne Rønningen
Figure 1: The Cliff Performing Arts Centre at a molo in the Trondheim harbour.
Size ca 300 x 200 x 100 meters.
The Cliff is a revolutionary concept for an arts centre on the fjord. It will create a new and exciting multi venue scene for audio and visual experience. The realization of The Cliff requires extremely low-delay networks between different venues, multi-view collaboration surfaces, and both internal and external multi-view video arts scenography.
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by Michal Haindl, Matěj Sedláček and Radomír Vávra
Museums and other cultural heritage custodians are interested in digitizing their collections, not only for the sake of preserving cultural heritage, but also to make the information content accessible and affordable to researchers and the general public. Once an object’s digital model is created it can be digitally reconstructed to its original uneroded or unbroken shape or realistically visualized using different historical materials. Some artifacts are so fragile that they cannot leave the carefully controlled light, humidity, and temperature of their storage facilities, thus they are already inaccessible to the public, and the viable alternative is their exhibition in the form of an augmented reality scene. Researchers at the Institute of Information Theory and Automation (UTIA) of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague have developed a sophisticated measurement and processing setup to enable the construction of physically correct virtual models.
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by Nuria Rodríguez-Calatayud, Jordi Linares-Pellicer and David Heras-Evangelio
The exhibition “Think with Your Hands” offers a new way to look at illustrations and sketchbooks. It breaks the mould of a traditional show, thanks to an augmented reality project developed by ‘UNIT experimental’ at Universitat Politècnica de València. This project centres on the work of Pep Carrió and Isidro Ferrer, two of Spain’s most prestigious graphic designers, whose sketchbooks, objects and collages come to life when interacting with the mobile devices and augmented reality.
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by Dimitris Grammenos, Xenophon Zabulis and Panayiotis Koutlemanis
3602 is an interactive system that allows exploration of digital representations of real artifacts through physical and multi-touch interaction with a double rotating gimbal (i.e., a disk that the user can freely rotate around two axes). While the user manipulates the disk, the system uses a projector to augment a display upon it. User input is supported both through fingertip contact (i.e., multi-touch) and disk rotation in both axes. In addition to the disk, a secondary projection surface is provided for additional information, upon which multi-touch gestures are supported.
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by Francesco Banterle, Franco Alberto Cardillo, and Luigi Malomo
Augmented Reality (AR) - the augmentation of a physical world’s view with digital media - has recently gained popularity thanks to the increasing computational power and diffusion of mobile devices such as tablets, and smartphones. These developments allow many practical applications of AR technology, especially in the cultural heritage domain. LecceAR is an advanced app that allows tourists to view rich 3D reconstructions of cultural heritage sites within the city of Lecce in Italy.
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by Leif Oppermann
Being able to explore vast outdoor scenery, cityscapes, or the interior of virtual buildings is the state of the art for video gamers. But city planners and building owners usually still have to settle with blueprints, rendered movies, and miniature models. Fraunhofer FIT’s innovative “Auto AR” system allows the user to experience virtual building models on site, almost as if they were already built.
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by Charles Woodward, Mika Hakkarainen and Timo Kuula
Augmented Reality (AR) can help mobile workers to obtain timely and accurate information related to maintenance targets. We implemented a mobile AR system based on the BIM representation of a building, combined with FMS and other data sources. Technical challenges included indoors locationing and 3D tracking of the mobile device. User evaluations were conducted in two phases, first providing valuable input for system design, and finally showing very positive results on technology acceptance.
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by Eija Kaasinen, Susanna Aromaa and Ville Rauhala
One particularly promising application field for augmented reality (AR) is maintenance work. AR can provide field service personnel with easy access to situationally relevant information that supports their work. Several demos and proofs of concept have previously been presented. We propose that AR has a lot of potential, especially in gathering and sharing tacit knowledge. Successful solutions are based on a thorough understanding of the maintenance work and the associated knowledge sharing requirements.
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by Constantin Brosda and Leif Oppermann
Complex physical phenomena, such as airstreams around objects and the resulting forces, can be very difficult to understand. Our Augmented Reality Supported Learning (ARL) app uses Augmented Reality (AR) to visualize the effects occurring upon a tangible object and to develop a set of experiments to be used in a learning environment.
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by Xenophon Zabulis, George Margetis, Panagiotis Koutlemanis and Constantine Stephanidis
The “Interactive Documents” system augments documents, books, and leaflets on the surfaces on which they are read. The augmented content complements that of the printed document interactively; the user can touch regions of interest both within the printed matter and the augmented content.
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by Filip Škola, Szymon Fiałek and Fotis Liarokapis
Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that merges real and virtual information in real-time performance. AR introduces new opportunities in a number of application domains, one of the least explored to date being perception and psychology. Researchers from the HCI Lab developed a novel AR experiment in order to test the effects of the well known rubber hand illusion.
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by Howard Ogden
This article is an introduction to Augmented Reality (AR) Browsers, market analysis and challenges to overcome (barriers to adoption).