FoldAR: Using the Bended Screen of Foldable Smartphones for Depth Discrimination in Augmented Reality

Mobile augmented reality is used in research and many commercial applications. Handheld-based AR has been widely investigated. Interacting in 3D space, however, has shortcomings when interacting along the depth axis on a flat 2D display. This paper presents the concept of FoldAR, which uses the two screen parts of foldable smartphones to display a camera view and a map view. With foldable smartphones users can spatially align the display’s two parts with the dimensions of interaction. This allows to manipulate objects on two differently oriented screen parts within all three dimensions at once. We contribute a prototype and discuss possibilities and applications.