Therapet: Designing an Interactive XR Therapeutic Pet

As Extended Reality (XR) technologies continue to mature, they offer ever more diverse, complex, and impactful experiences. This paper presents “Therapet”, an augmented reality (AR) application designed for AR glasses such as the Hololens 2. Therapet presents an interactive therapeutic pet avatar—using both Volumetric Video (VV) recordings and traditionally animated rigged models—with which users can interact with by feeding, playing fetch, and petting. We conducted a pilot study to investigate usability and user preferences, revealing positive user experiences and insights into the use of (and perceptions towards) Volumetric Video based avatars for interactive AR experiences. Furthermore, we analyze the feasibility of using VV in production (where memory usage and performance are critical factors) and discuss lessons learned to create a successful AR therapeutic pet application.