What does it mean to invite some­one into your mixed real­i­ty — with­out reduc­ing the moment to menus and pop-ups? Could a simple hand­shake become the interface?

Allow me into your dream / TouchPort is a mixed real­i­ty inter­ac­tion pro­to­type that explores how people might share per­son­al aug­ment­ed worlds during face-to-face encoun­ters. In a future where each person’s mixed real­i­ty layer may be pri­vate, cus­tomized, and invis­i­ble to others, TouchPort asks how shar­ing can become more imme­di­ate, embod­ied, con­sen­su­al, and social­ly legible.

Rather than using nested menus or invi­ta­tion dialogs, TouchPort turns a famil­iar social ges­ture into an inter­ac­tion pro­to­col. When two mixed real­i­ty users shake hands, a portal opens between their worlds. Each person can peek into the other’s aug­ment­ed layer. A gentle pull becomes an invi­ta­tion to enter. Stepping back through the portal pro­vides a clear way to leave.

Watch the video:
https://youtu.be/uMSXnUxnxd4

Why this matters

Mixed real­i­ty sys­tems increas­ing­ly allow people to over­lay dig­i­tal objects, atmos­pheres, anno­ta­tions, and expe­ri­ences onto the phys­i­cal world. Yet these aug­ment­ed layers are often per­son­al and device-spe­cif­ic. Two people may stand in the same room while seeing very dif­fer­ent dig­i­tal worlds.

This cre­ates a social design chal­lenge: How do we ask to see what some­one else sees? How do we invite anoth­er person into our aug­ment­ed space? How do we make dis­cov­ery, con­sent, entry, and exit clear with­out inter­rupt­ing the moment with con­ven­tion­al inter­face dialogs?

TouchPort explores one pos­si­ble answer: treat mixed real­i­ty shar­ing not only as a tech­ni­cal syn­chro­niza­tion prob­lem, but also as an embod­ied social encounter.

How TouchPort works

TouchPort unfolds through four inter­ac­tion stages:

Handshake
A hand­shake acts as an opt-in dis­cov­ery ges­ture. Both users inten­tion­al­ly extend and clasp hands while wear­ing mixed real­i­ty headsets.

Portal peek
When the hand­shake is detect­ed, a portal opens above the clasped hands. The portal acts as a window into the other person’s mixed real­i­ty layer, allow­ing both users to pre­view the other world before entering.

Enter
If both users are com­fort­able, a gentle pull extends the hand­shake into an invi­ta­tion. The portal expands, and the guest can step through into the host’s aug­ment­ed world.

Exit
The portal remains spa­tial­ly anchored, allow­ing the guest to step back through and return to their own mixed real­i­ty world.

The experience

Allow me into your dream is a mul­ti­play­er mixed real­i­ty expe­ri­ence in which each par­tic­i­pant inhab­its a dif­fer­ent aug­ment­ed “dream” lay­ered onto the same phys­i­cal room. These dream-worlds are sur­re­al, spa­tial­ly reg­is­tered, and vis­i­ble to others only through TouchPort.

Participants can invite one anoth­er into their dream-worlds through the hand­shake-and-pull ges­ture. As they move between worlds, the same phys­i­cal space is trans­formed into dif­fer­ent mixed real­i­ty envi­ron­ments. The expe­ri­ence raises ques­tions about pri­va­cy, trust, shared atten­tion, social bound­aries, and co-pres­ence in future XR systems.

Research and design contribution

TouchPort inves­ti­gates how every­day social rit­u­als can be reimag­ined as inter­ac­tion pro­to­cols for future mixed real­i­ty sys­tems. The project con­tributes to research and design in:

• Embodied inter­ac­tion: using bodily ges­tures, spa­tial move­ment, and social cues as inter­face elements.
• Co-locat­ed mixed real­i­ty: sup­port­ing people who share phys­i­cal space but may not share the same aug­ment­ed layer.
• Consent and social bound­aries: making invi­ta­tion, pre­view, entry, and exit part of the inter­ac­tion itself.
• Experiential futures: cre­at­ing a work­ing pro­to­type that allows people to expe­ri­ence and reflect on a plau­si­ble near-future scenario.
• Mixed real­i­ty world-shar­ing: explor­ing how per­son­al­ized aug­ment­ed envi­ron­ments might be pre­viewed, entered, and exchanged.

Prototype

TouchPort runs as a mul­ti­play­er passthrough mixed real­i­ty pro­to­type on Meta Quest 3 head­sets. The system uses hand track­ing to detect the hand­shake, spa­tial align­ment to keep users co-locat­ed in the same phys­i­cal room, and portal ren­der­ing to let each user see into the other’s aug­ment­ed world.

The cur­rent ver­sion is a curat­ed research and exhi­bi­tion pro­to­type. It demon­strates one pos­si­ble design direc­tion for future MR sys­tems in which shar­ing a world could become as social­ly leg­i­ble as offer­ing a hand.

Team

Botao Amber Hu — Reality Design Lab
Yilan “Elan” Tao — Simon Fraser University, iSpace Lab / SIAT
Yue Li — Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Bernhard Riecke — Simon Fraser University, iSpace Lab / SIAT

Yilan “Elan” Tao is an artist and researcher work­ing at the inter­sec­tion of mixed real­i­ty and embod­ied inter­ac­tion. She is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing an MSc at the iSpace Lab in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University.

Venue

Presented at the SIGGRAPH 2026 Immersive Pavilion, Los Angeles, July 19–23, 2026.

Publication

Hu, B. A., Tao, Y. E., Li, Y., & Riecke, B. (2026). Allow me into your dream: Sharing mixed real­i­ties through hand­shakes. SIGGRAPH Immersive Pavilion ’26, Los Angeles, CA, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3799823.3812456

Links

Video: https://youtu.be/uMSXnUxnxd4

SIGGRAPH Immersive Pavilion: https://s2026.siggraph.org/program/immersive-pavilion/

Elan Tao: https://elantao.space/

Media Gallery

[mediatags]project–touchport/mediatags]

Publications and exhibits