TouchableAR: A new experience of augmented reality

This paper mainly discusses the concept of TouchableAR (Touchable Augmented Reality), introduces how to create a natural tactile experience without the haptic device and introduces how the tactile experience could improve effect of AR system. This paper first gives the overall composition of the TouchableAR system and compares it with the traditional augmented reality systems. And then, two prototype systems were presented to analyze the role of touch in the AR system. In first example, an AR evaluation prototype system was set up to help the designer design the aircraft cockpit. In this system, the pilot can use his hand to touch the virtual buttons and meters to test the ergonomics performance of the design results. In second example, a touchable AR girl prototype system was set up to help the doctor to treat heterosexual-social anxiety, in which, patients can touch and feel a virtual girl. In response to these two prototype systems, this paper design a series of subjective experiments and objective experiments to compare the performance of TouchableAR system with virtual reality system and non-touchable AR system, to prove the importance of "touchable" to enhancing the user experience in AR system.