Toward Cyber-Physical Research Practice based on Mixed Reality

Abstract

Research practice has benefited greatly from advances in technology. Yet, disciplines handling physical objects still experience several limitations when connecting analog research practices to digital resources. Utilizing recent developments in mixed reality technology, we propose a digital research environment that overcomes these limitations. We present a soft- and hardware prototype that blends analog annotation practices with its digital counterpart. Our approach advances the state of the art by enabling real-time handling of digital representations by manipulating actual physical objects. We discuss our future work concepts of blending objects and augmenting information using mixed reality technologies, and connecting object-centered research practices to online data sources.