Architecture and Architectural Patterns for Mobile Augmented Reality

Abstract

A software architecture codifies the design choices of software developers, which defines a modular organizational spine for the design of a software artefact. Different architectures may be specified for different types of artefacts, a real-time interactive artefact, for example, would have markedly different requirements to those of a batch based transactional system. The use of software architecture becomes increasingly important as the complexity of artefacts increases. Augmented Reality blends the real world observed through a computer interface, with a computer generated virtual world. With the advent of powerful mobile devices, Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) applications have become increasingly feasible, however the increased power has led to increased complexity. Most MAR research has been directed towards technologies and not design resulting in a dearth of architecture and design literature for MAR. This research is targeted at addressing this void. The main requirement that a MAR architecture must meet is identified as being the efficient real-time processing of data streams such as video frames and sensor data. A set of highly parallelised architectural patterns are documented within the context of MAR that meet this requirement. The contribution of this research is a software architecture, codified as architectural patterns, for MAR.