IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - October 2015 - 133

establish quality metrics and accuracy grades so that printed materials at
the consumer level can be assembled
faultlessly, while also addressing
issues related to privacy, security, and
control measures.
IEEE will host several workshops
on consumer 3-D printing to collect
input and solicit participation for IEEE

P3030. The first workshop will be held
during the 2015 IEEE Global High
Tech Congress on Electronics in conjunction with the 17th China Hi-Tech
Fair on 16-21 November 2015 in Shenzhen, the largest electronics industry
base in China.
This standards project is sponsored by
the CE Society Standards Committee.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Should you be interested in submitting
new standardization ideas, or participating in our current projects, please
don't hesitate to contact me at
y.yuan@ieee.org. We are particularly
looking forward to new proposals in the
areas of wearables, smart home, and
consumer Internet of Things.

Open and Interoperable Augmented
Reality and the IEEE
By Christine Perey

oday it is safe to assume that when
a mobile consumer electronics
(CE) device is low on power, connecting the device using a standard
cable into the next power outlet will
address the issue; recharging begins
immediately. Generating and distributing power, and then making it available for CE devices is taken for
granted. It was not always this easy. A
century ago leaders-even those of
competing companies-agreed to
develop and adopt standards.
Standards in electricity and CE are
valuable because, widely adopted, their
contribution to the development of
large industries involving thousands of
companies globally is well recognized.
Information and communications
industry standards also foster innovation in other parts of an interconnected
group of companies: an ecosystem.

INTEROPERABILITY IN
AUGMENTED REALITY
Some define augmented reality (AR) as
only the final step in a complex information workflow in which digitally
stored information is presented to a
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCE.2015.2463432
Date of publication: 29 October 2015

user in context with the physical world.
A chain of events using a digital model
of the physical world combines digital
assets and brings these to the user's
senses (e.g., sight, haptic, or auditory).
Regardless of how it is defined, AR
always requires hardware, software,
and content. It also must involve
the physical world, and its digital
representation.
At this time, standardization is beingdiscussed, proposed, and approached in
domains where interoperability is an
obstacle to growth and diversification.
For example, the MIPI Alliance defines
physical interface standards for camera,
display, and other hardware components
that device makers integrate so that any
MIPI compliant camera interface supports real-time image capture. Members
of the Khronos Group develop application programming interfaces enabling
access to optimized hardware acceleration of known processes such as physical world capture and digital asset
rendering on any Khronos-compliant
hardware components.
Some standards organizations are
working on the digital representation
of the physical world. For example,
many Open Geospatial Consortium
standards describe the use of digital

data to describe terrain and other
dimensions or "layers" of the physical
world. In ISO WG29 WG11 (MPEG),
digital representation of dozens of
aspects of the physical world through
sensors has been standardized (MPEGV). ISO also has been working on a
Mixed and Augmented Reality Reference Model (ARRM).
These are only a few examples of
work that can reduce the need for proprietary solutions. I lead a grassroots
community of individuals and companies seeking to identify and use existing standards that can contribute to
interoperable AR components, content,
and experiences. The AR Community:
▼ collaborates to define requirements
that existing standards can address
with or without extension or where
new standards may be valuable
▼ provides feedback on proposed standards and other approaches to
increasing open and interoperable AR
▼ supports collaboration between standards-development organizations to
resolve overlaps or work on domains
where there is a lack of standards-development organization activity.
Since 2009 we have met with representatives of and worked to varying
degrees with nearly 20 organizations

october 2015

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - October 2015