Cam-2-Cam: Exploring the Design Space of Dual-Camera Interactions for Smartphone-based Augmented Reality

Off-the-shelf smartphone-based AR systems typically use a single front-facing or rear-facing camera, which restricts user interactions to a narrow field of view and small screen size, thus reducing their practicality. We present Cam-2-Cam, an interaction concept implemented in three smartphone-based AR applications with interactions that span both cameras. Results from our qualitative analysis conducted on 30 participants presented two major design lessons that explore the interaction space of smartphone AR while maintaining critical AR interface attributes like embodiment and immersion: (1) Balancing Contextual Relevance and Feedback Quality serves to outline a delicate balance between implementing familiar interactions people do in the real world and the quality of multimodal AR responses and (2) Preventing Disorientation using Simultaneous Capture and Alternating Cameras which details how to prevent disorientation during AR interactions using the two distinct camera techniques we implemented in the paper. Additionally, we consider observed user assumptions or natural tendencies to inform future implementations of dual-camera setups for smartphone-based AR. We envision our design lessons as an initial pioneering step toward expanding the interaction space of smartphone-based AR, potentially driving broader adoption and overcoming limitations of single-camera AR.