Review Reports - CAR-Tourist: An Integrity-Preserved Collaborative Augmented Reality Framework-Tourism as a Use-Case

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

References related to other Computer-Aided Tools are also missing in the literature (see DOI: 10.1109 / EMS.2012.96; DOI: 10.1109 / ITSC.2012.6338789).

In the analysis of the results, there is no validation process that demonstrates the effective effectiveness of this system.

Author Response

Reviewer 1 Concerns and Author Responses

Reviewer 1 Concern No. 1:

References related to other Computer-Aided Tools are also missing in the literature (see DOI: 10.1109 / EMS.2012.96; DOI: 10.1109 / ITSC.2012.6338789).

Response to Concern No. 1:

The two research papers are cited within the text and the references can be seen at S.No. 18 and 19 on Page 22 of 25. The changes are also highlighted in the tracked version of the manuscript.

Reviewer 1 Concern No. 2:

In the analysis of the results, there is no validation process that demonstrates the effective effectiveness of this system.

Response as provided to Reviewer 3 Concern 7 is reproduced in this connection:

As such the application is not publically made available so to enable us to collect feedback, testing is performed and whose results are documented and presented in the results section related to different transactions which could include transactions to sign-up operations, hiring a guide, initiation of an audio call etc are different transactions in the proposed solution. While the review of the literature section presents details of the previous work being done that does not provide any of such collaborated augmented technology with the integration of blockchain infrastructure security-related research. The Collaborated augmented reality and blockchain-based solutions are extensively studied in the literature. Different keywords are used to observe any related study however, no similar study is carried out. Hence this proposed solution itself is a novel approach that cannot be evaluated with the existing approaches as being not available so far. Moreover, since video stream for tracking (SLAM) augmented reality data is not saved in Blockchain and the proposed solution only records transaction initiations, guidance hiring processes, transactions related to fee collection, and correspondence to build and maintain a trust network so as to avoid any conflict in terms of any violations among guide and visitors. The proposed Application is as such not generating an extra overhead as the testing results are observed to have closed similarity in terms of throughput and latency with the previous Blockchain-based similar solutions.

Reviewer 2 Report

The research in this manuscript depicts a decentralized Blockchain framework to address the unauthorised user access and to build the trust in Collaborative Augmented reality for Tourism.
Some of the statements in the introduction are colloquial, please improve the English quality.
Give the full form of VR(Page 1), GPS (page 3), HHD, HMD at its first appearance
In page 2/24, reference 5 to 17 are placed without detailed discussions.
Please provide the appropriate edges/connectors in Figure 1.
Please do verify reference [20] is cited two times at the same statement “……….marketing, entertainment 78 and many more sectors [19,20,20].”
There exist numerous recent research in AR/VR methods for and key challenges in it. The authors can try with these keywords “Challenges and opportunities on AR/VR technologies”.
Section 1 (Literature) is very vast and nicely arranged.
The case study is well explained, and the results are well presented.
It is recommended to do a comparative assessment for better validation.

Author Response

Reviewer 2 Concerns and Author Responses

The research in this manuscript depicts a decentralized Blockchain framework to address the unauthorised user access and to build the trust in Collaborative Augmented reality for Tourism.

Reviewer 2 Concern No.1

Some of the statements in the introduction are colloquial, please improve the English quality.
Give the full form of VR(Page 1), GPS (page 3), HHD, HMD at its first appearance
In page 2/24, reference 5 to 17 are placed without detailed discussions.

Response to Concern No.1

The reviewer’s concern is addressed, the errors are fixed and the full abbreviation is provided in the first place of appearance. The mentioned citation from 5 to 17 points to various case studies related AR, and VR in different sectors including education sectors, manufacturing and logistics, smart cities, museums and social media. The details of these case studies are presented in another review paper being processed with Sensors journal while only citations are provided so to provide readers with a context to explore these areas further. Explaining these case studies will make the manuscript a review paper which this is not. If the reviewer still emphasizes providing details then these will be provided but it can create conflict with the reviews of other reviewers who have recommended shortening the paper as the manuscript is not a review paper.

Reviewer 2 Concern No.2

Please provide the appropriate edges/connectors in Figure 1.
Please do verify reference [20] is cited two times at the same statement “……….marketing, entertainment and many more sectors [19,20,20].”

Response to Concern No.2:

The Figure 1 only explains the working mechanism of this collaborative AR application and how different tools can be used to develop such kinds of applications. It also explains applications of AR in different fields such as medicine, industry and tourism. It further demonstrates the security of this system, how the data of the users are safe and uncompromisable and how an environment of trust is created among the users. As such there are no edges/connectors to provide.

The other required changes are carried out. The changes are highlighted on the tracked version and the clean version file is also updated. The repeated citation entries are deleted as can be seen on Pp. 3 of 20 line No. 79.

Reviewer 2 Concern No.3

There exist numerous recent research in AR/VR methods for and key challenges in it. The authors can try with these keywords “Challenges and opportunities on AR/VR technologies”.

Response to Concern No.3:

The review of literature section presents the review of scientific studies, trends and technologies presented earlier related to Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Collaborative Augmented Reality. The authors believe that the material presented in the review of literature builds a base to the readers. The review of Literature is, however, shortened to two pages as per recommendation of one of the reviewers as can be seen in the clean version of the submitted manuscript. The red lines in the track (highlighted) version of the manuscript can be seen. The red colour is selected to represent the deleted review of literature entries from the review of literature section. Line 143 until 231 makes around 2 pages of literature. Some more technical details are however added from Line 80 to 100 on page No. 3 of the Clean version

Reviewer 2 Concern No. 4:

Section 1 (Literature) is very vast and nicely arranged. The case study is well explained, and the results are well presented. It is recommended to do a comparative assessment for better validation.

Response Concern No. 4:

As such the application is not publically made available so to enable us to collect feedback, testing is performed and whose results are documented and presented in the results section related to different transactions which could include transactions to sign-up operations, hiring a guide, initiation of an audio call etc are different transactions in the proposed solution. While the review of the literature section presents details of the previous work being done that does not provide any of such collaborated augmented technology with the integration of blockchain infrastructure security-related research. The Collaborated augmented reality and blockchain-based solutions are extensively studied in the literature. Different keywords are used to observe any related study however, no similar study is carried out. Hence this proposed solution itself is a novel approach that cannot be evaluated with the existing approaches as being not available so far. Moreover, since video stream for tracking (SLAM) augmented reality data is not saved in Blockchain and the proposed solution only records transaction initiations, guidance hiring processes, transactions related to fee collection, and correspondence to build and maintain a trusted network so as to avoid any conflict in terms of any violations among guide and visitors. The proposed Application is as such not generating an extra overhead as the testing results are observed to have closed similarity in terms of throughput and latency with the previous Blockchain-based similar solutions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript presents an interesting and useful Collaborative Augmented Reality framework (+ case study) for tourism for which security is assured by using a blockchain architecture – as the main novelty in this field. However, the manner in which the information is presented conceals the scientific value.

I consider that before publication, the paper needs major revisions related, first of all, to the text length, redundant information, and excess of details that make it difficult to follow and takes out the readers’ attention from the relevant content.

The manuscript has five pages as the Introduction section, divided into several sub-sections which overlap in many respects with sections 1 and 2 (problem statement with motivation, for instance). I suggest reducing this part to its essential, removing the historical details (L254-267, for instance). Usually, the introductory section includes also the literature review, which the authors choose to present separately. Therefore, I think a synthesis of the information should be presented here, not more than 2 pages. Instead, the authors should clarify if their app is AR or MR type by providing a clear definition of these terms.

Although interesting, figures 2 and 4, in my opinion, are too far away from the main purpose of the paper. Moreover, do the authors hold the copyright of these images?

The literature review (section 1) contains many references which are related to AR applications in general. The paper is not a review of AR, therefore only section 1.1 should be kept (please add details on other AR apps based on blockchain (for example Secure Collaborative Augmented Reality Framework for Biomedical Informatics).

A specific section on Motivation (section 2) is presented in the manuscript. It should be included (a shorter version in the Introduction). The manuscript is spread into too many small parts which repeat the information in other parts.

The relevant part of the paper starts on page 10 with section 3 which describes the proposed architecture. This is also very long, with a lot of text. Here I think it would be useful to provide details on KAFKA, RAFT, PBFT mechanisms and explain better the reasons behind the choice of RAFT. More technical details are needed in a scientific paper than general information and descriptive text.

Section 3 has 7 subsections. SLAM subsection, for instance, has several lines and it should be included in the previous subsection where it was first mentioned. The information presented in section 3 could have been better presented by using the app images. Figure 6 presents such images, but they are so small that cannot be distinguished. The Blockchain network in figures 5 and 6 are similar. Please remove redundant information.

Did the authors gather also users’ feedback on the application? How many users have downloaded and used the app so far? Again, more technical data and results are needed. Results show be discussed in correlation with similar paper (some of those presented in the Literature Review).

Please revise English and make sure that all sentences are correct and full. E.g. “If a person visits from a foreign country to Saudi Arabia and the visitor wants to visit these historical landmarks.” “By using blockchain, the tourists can share their private data like his/her mobile location and live camera videos without any”

Author Response

Reviewer 3 Concerns and Author Responses

Reviewer 3 Concern No. 1:

Response: The overlapping texts are rectified, and the problem statement and the motivation sections are reduced. The Historical details provided in L254 to 267 have been removed. The contents of the Literature studies are reduced to less than 2 pages while some of the additional contents have been deleteted/summarized.

Reviewer 3 Concern No. 2:

Although interesting, figures 2 and 4, in my opinion, are too far away from the main purpose of the paper. Moreover, do the authors hold the copyright of these images?

Response to concern No. 2 :

The concern of the reviewer is addressed and both of the two Figures, i.e. Figure 2 and Figure 4 have been removed from the manuscript along with the corresponding within-the-text citations to these figures.

Reviewer 3 Concern No. 3:

The literature review (section 1) contains many references which are related to AR applications in general. The paper is not a review of AR, therefore only section 1.1 should be kept (please add details on other AR apps based on Blockchain (for example Secure Collaborative Augmented Reality Framework for Biomedical Informatics).

Response to Concern No. 3:

The review of literature section presents the review of scientific studies, trends and technologies presented earlier related to Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Collaborative Augmented Reality. The authors believe that the material presented in the review of literature builds a base to the readers. The review of Literature is, however, shortened to two pages as can be seen in the clean version of the submitted manuscript. The red lines in the track (highlighted) version of the manuscript can be seen. The red colour is selected to represent the deleted review of literature entries from the review of literature section. The review of literature section constitutes 2 pages of literature. Some more technical details are however added from Line 82 to 101 on page No. 3 of the Clean version.

Reviewer 3 Concern No. 4:

Response to Concern No. 4:

A shorter version of the motivation is added to the end of the Introduction section as can be seen in the clean version from lines 114 to 119 on Pp. 3 of 19. While the repetition is removed from the manuscript. While the deleted content in red color can be seen in the tracked (highlighted version) of the manuscript from lines 379 to 402 on Pp. 9 and 10 of 24.

Reviewer 3 Concern No. 5:

The relevant part of the paper starts on page 10 with section 3 which describes the proposed architecture. This is also very long, with a lot of text. Here I think it would be useful to provide details on KAFKA, RAFT, and PBFT mechanisms and explain better the reasons behind the choice of RAFT. More technical details are needed in a scientific paper than general information and descriptive text.

Response to Concern No. 5:

Details of KAFKA, RAFT, and PBFT are presented separately from lines number 756 to 795 on Pp. 19. The required modification are highlighted in green color in the tracked version while the clean version on the mentioned pagination. While the clean version is updated as can be seen on Pp15 from line 599 to 627.

Reviewer 3 Concern No. 6:

Response:

The SLAM has been merged with previous subsection. A Figure 3 is is provided as can be seen in the clean version that comes up with app images for better presentation. It is demonstrated in Figure 3 that tourist initiates AR application in first step, while in step 2 of Figure 3, Blockchain is initiated to record transactions related to sign up, record audio call, proceed with payment/subscription etc. In Step 3, when transaction is established, AR is initiated that enables visitor to receive guidance from Travel Guide. The app creates a map of the real environment. The created map and the vision provides a SLAM. i.e. SLAM provides an overall vision and details of different objects in the real world. While inertial tracking controls the movement and direction in the augmented reality application. The virtual objects are then placed after identifying vision and tracking. In a collaborative environment, the guides are provided with an option of annotation that can circle a particular object or spot different locations, landmarks or to point to different incidents.

Reviewer 3 Concern No. 7:

Response:

Reviewer 3 Concern No. 8:

Please revise your English and make sure that all sentences are correct and full. E.g. “If a person visits from a foreign country to Saudi Arabia and the visitor wants to visit these historical landmarks.” “By using blockchain, the tourists can share their private data like his/her mobile location and live camera videos without any”

Response to Concern No. 8:

The paper is gone through proofreading and the required changes are made.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors received all indications

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors did not provide a version with track changes for making easier to understand the modifications made, especially the texts removed (the color code was not that useful). However, based on the rebuttal, I think all the observations made were addressed, and the paper can be accepted for publication.