A Proposal of In Situ Authoring Tool with Visual-Inertial Sensor Fusion for Outdoor Location-Based Augmented Reality

In location-based augmented reality (LAR) applications, a simple and effective authoring tool is essential to create immersive AR experiences in real-world contexts. Unfortunately, most of the current tools are primarily desktop-based, requiring manual location acquisitions, the use of software development kits (SDKs), and high programming skills, which poses significant challenges for novice developers and a lack of precise LAR content alignment. In this paper, we propose an intuitive in situ authoring tool with visual-inertial sensor fusions to simplify the LAR content creation and storing process directly using a smartphone at the point of interest (POI) location. The tool localizes the user’s position using smartphone sensors and maps it with the captured smartphone movement and the surrounding environment data in real-time. Thus, the AR developer can place a virtual object on-site intuitively without complex programming. By leveraging the combined capabilities of Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping(VSLAM) and Google Street View (GSV), it enhances localization and mapping accuracy during AR object creation. For evaluations, we conducted extensive user testing with 15 participants, assessing the task success rate and completion time of the tool in practical pedestrian navigation scenarios. The Handheld Augmented Reality Usability Scale (HARUS) was used to evaluate overall user satisfaction. The results showed that all the participants successfully completed the tasks, taking 16.76 s on average to create one AR object in a 50 m radius area, while common desktop-based methods in the literature need 1–8 min on average, depending on the user’s expertise. Usability scores reached 89.44 for manipulability and 85.14 for comprehensibility, demonstrating the high effectiveness in simplifying the outdoor LAR content creation process.