The Effects of Shadow Representation of Virtual Objects in Augmented Reality

In this paper, we describe the effects of shadowrepresentation of virtual objects in Augmented Reality.Optical consistency is important in order to createrealistic augmented reality environments. We focus onproviding accurate shadows and made two assumptionsabout the effects of shadow representation of virtualobjects. First, that the shadow of virtual objects providesa stronger connection between the real world and virtualobjects and so increases virtual object presence. Second,that the shadow of virtual objects provides depth cuesand so makes three-dimensional perceptions easier forthe users of the interface. We report on two experimentsthat show that these assumptions are correct. We alsofind that users report that a characteristic shadow shapeprovides more virtual object presence in spite of incorrectvirtual light direction.