Toward a Usable Mixed Reality Authoring Tool

Mixed reality (MR) applications are gaining wider interest in the industry and in the use of mixed reality is spreading into various application fields. Currently the obstacle for MR to become widely used is that MR application authoring consumes a lot of time and resources and current MR authoring environments are designed and restricted for dedicated experts only. In this paper we present the user tests results of a mixed reality authoring tool. The MR authoring tool is built for non-programmers who are experts in their own field and who do not have a programming background. The tool needs to be consistent with commonly used tools and use common user interface conventions. When working with MR tools the applications are usually 3D, but development occurs in an office environment from 2D screen, where the users have trouble perceiving the third dimension accurately. The screen should display the coordinate axis and origin of the grid on the screen. To get accurate 3D positioning for the objects, the tool have to support live picture authoring, where the user can observe the object from different angles.