Realistic occlusion effects in mirror-based co-located augmented reality systems

This paper describes the incorporation of realistic occlusion effects into mirror-based, stereoscopic co-location augmented reality display systems. By adding a light-blocking device in the form of an LCD panel underneath the semi-transparent mirror, the view on the physical world can be selectively blocked out such that virtual objects can fully occlude physical objects. Furthermore, by removing areas of the virtual objects rendered on the reflected display, physical objects seen through the semi-transparent mirror and the transmissive LCD panel appear to occlude these virtual objects. We describe the governing principles of the approach, and present an efficient algorithm for the generation of the occlusion masks with the use of vision-based scene reconstruction. Finally, a first prototype implementation of the system is presented.