Exploring the Front Touch Interface for Virtual Reality Headsets

In this paper, we propose a new interface for virtual reality headset: a touchpad in front of the headset. To demonstrate the feasibility of the front touch interface, we built a prototype device, explored VR UI design space expansion, and performed various user studies. We started with preliminary tests to see how intuitively and accurately people can interact with the front touchpad. Then, we further experimented various user interfaces such as a binary selection, a typical menu layout, and a keyboard. Two-Finger and Drag-n-Tap were also explored to find the appropriate selection technique. As a low-cost, light-weight, and in low power budget technology, a touch sensor can make an ideal interface for mobile headset. Also, front touch area can be large enough to allow wide range of interaction types such as multi-finger interactions. With this novel front touch interface, we paved a way to new virtual reality interaction methods

A Conceptual Framework for Motion Based Music Applications

Imaginary projections are the core of the framework for motion based music applications presented in this paper. Their design depends on the space covered by the motion tracking device, but also on the musical feature involved in the application. They can be considered a very powerful tool because they allow not only to project in the virtual environment the image of a traditional acoustic instrument, but also to express any spatially defined abstract concept. The system pipeline starts from the musical content and, through a geometrical interpretation, arrives to its projection in the physical space. Three case studies involving different motion tracking devices and different musical concepts will be analyzed. The three examined applications have been programmed and already tested by the authors. They aim respectively at musical expressive interaction (Disembodied Voices), tonal music knowledge (Harmonic Walk) and XX century music composition (Hand Composer)

An Introduction to 3D User Interface Design

3D user interface design is a critical component of any virtual environment (VE) application. In this paper, we present a broad overview of three-dimensional (3D) interaction and user interfaces. We discuss the effect of common VE hardware devices on user interaction, as well as interaction techniques for generic 3D tasks and the use of traditional two-dimensional interaction styles in 3D environments. We divide most user interaction tasks into three categories: navigation, selection/manipulation, and system control. Throughout the paper, our focus is on presenting not only the available techniques, but also practical guidelines for 3D interaction design and widely held myths. Finally, we briefly discuss two approaches to 3D interaction design, and some example applications with complex 3D interaction requirements. We also present an annotated online bibliography as a reference companion to this article

3DTouch: A wearable 3D input device with an optical sensor and a 9-DOF inertial measurement unit

We present 3DTouch, a novel 3D wearable input device worn on the fingertip for 3D manipulation tasks. 3DTouch is designed to fill the missing gap of a 3D input device that is self-contained, mobile, and universally working across various 3D platforms. This paper presents a low-cost solution to designing and implementing such a device. Our approach relies on relative positioning technique using an optical laser sensor and a 9-DOF inertial measurement unit. 3DTouch is self-contained, and designed to universally work on various 3D platforms. The device employs touch input for the benefits of passive haptic feedback, and movement stability. On the other hand, with touch interaction, 3DTouch is conceptually less fatiguing to use over many hours than 3D spatial input devices. We propose a set of 3D interaction techniques including selection, translation, and rotation using 3DTouch. An evaluation also demonstrates the device's tracking accuracy of 1.10 mm and 2.33 degrees for subtle touch interaction in 3D space. Modular solutions like 3DTouch opens up a whole new design space for interaction techniques to further develop on.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Ambient Gestures

We present Ambient Gestures, a novel gesture-based system designed to support ubiquitous ‘in the environment’ interactions with everyday computing technology. Hand gestures and audio feedback allow users to control computer applications without reliance on a graphical user interface, and without having to switch from the context of a non-computer task to the context of the computer. The Ambient Gestures system is composed of a vision recognition software application, a set of gestures to be processed by a scripting application and a navigation and selection application that is controlled by the gestures. This system allows us to explore gestures as the primary means of interaction within a multimodal, multimedia environment. In this paper we describe the Ambient Gestures system, define the gestures and the interactions that can be achieved in this environment and present a formative study of the system. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and future applications of Ambient Gestures in ubiquitous computing

Interactive Spaces. Models and Algorithms for Reality-based Music Applications

Reality-based interfaces have the property of linking the user's physical space with the computer digital content, bringing in intuition, plasticity and expressiveness. Moreover, applications designed upon motion and gesture tracking technologies involve a lot of psychological features, like space cognition and implicit knowledge. All these elements are the background of three presented music applications, employing the characteristics of three different interactive spaces: a user centered three dimensional space, a floor bi-dimensional camera space, and a small sensor centered three dimensional space. The basic idea is to deploy the application's spatial properties in order to convey some musical knowledge, allowing the users to act inside the designed space and to learn through it in an enactive way

Low Cost Open Source Modal Virtual Environment Interfaces Using Full Body Motion Tracking and Hand Gesture Recognition

Virtual environments provide insightful and meaningful ways to explore data sets through immersive experiences. One of the ways immersion is achieved is through natural interaction methods instead of only a keyboard and mouse. Intuitive tracking systems for natural interfaces suitable for such environments are often expensive. Recently however, devices such as gesture tracking gloves and skeletal tracking systems have emerged in the consumer market. This project integrates gestural interfaces into an open source virtual reality toolkit using consumer grade input devices and generates a set of tools to enable multimodal gestural interface creation. The AnthroTronix AcceleGlove is used to augment body tracking data from a Microsoft Kinect with fine grained hand gesture data. The tools are found to be useful as a sample gestural interface is implemented using them. The project concludes by suggesting studies targeting gestural interfaces using such devices as well as other areas for further research

3D Interaction System with Multiple Identified,Small,Wireless,Battery-less,Occlusion-free Magnetic Markers

Tohoku University北村喜