Tabletop augmented reality system with omnidirectional camera using specific object recognition

We present an augmented reality (AR) system that is based on a tabletop system and has a hemisphere omnidirectional camera. We perpendicularly set the camera on a tabletop display and showed an omnidirectional image on the display screen. When users present objects to the camera, these objects are captured and recognized by using a specific object recognition technique. On the bases of the recognition result, AR contents are overlaid onto the omnidirectional image on the screen. Our system includes following two advantages. First, users can interact with each other by recognizing the relationship among the users, objects, and their AR contents because the entire surrounding of the tabletop is shown as a circular image on the screen. Second, multiple users interact here without the need for any specific devices. To describe the applicability of our system, we present various examples of applications exploiting its advantages.