BalloonProbeAR
Also known as BalloonProbe AR
For selecting physical objects in AR, a hemisphere placed where the hand ray meets the floor lifts virtual copies of nearby physical objects onto its surface, where the hidden ones can then be picked with the ray.
How it works
Adapted from Elmqvist's BalloonProbe for physical referents. On a HoloLens 2, the user points a hand ray at the floor of a physical scale model (a LEGO city) and switches mode with a Nintendo Switch controller button. A hemisphere appears at the hit point and virtual clones of the physical objects inside it are pushed out onto its surface, so objects hidden behind others become reachable. The user then selects a clone with the ray and confirms with the button. Compared with AR adaptations of AlphaCursor and vMirror (12 participants): BalloonProbeAR had the fewest errors (7%); vMirrorAR was fastest for targets near the front wall but worst near the back; AlphaCursorAR caused arm fatigue and was ranked last.
Papers
- Truillet, Dubois, Serrano (2025). Occlusion Reduction Techniques for the Selection of Physical Referents in AR: Adaptation and Evaluation of VR Techniques. IHM '25 (Conférence francophone sur l'Interaction Humain-Machine) doi:10.1145/3765712.3765719