A Primer on Spatial Scale and Its Application to Mixed Reality

As mixed reality grows in popularity, the concepts and language we use to describe it will need to evolve as well. Having such concepts will allow for better interdisciplinary collaboration in both the arts and sciences, help to inform the creation of new software tools that enable the further evolution of the field, and will enable mixed reality research to advance scientific understanding in other disciplines. We provide an explication of the concept of spatial scale, including its relevant history in the fields of psychology and geography, and demonstrate its relevance to mixed reality. Through two case studies we show that spatial scale can operate effectively as a system of classification and analysis for mixed reality, and identify two concepts—scale transitions and the scale/complexity tradeoff—as critical to using this concept in future discussions of mixed reality.