MoPeDT: A Modular Head-Mounted Display Toolkit to Conduct Peripheral Vision Research

Peripheral vision plays a significant role in human perception and orientation. However, its relevance for human-computer interaction, especially head-mounted displays, has not been fully explored yet. In the past, a few specialized appliances were developed to display visual cues in the periphery, each designed for a single specific use case only. A multi-purpose headset to exclusively augment peripheral vision did not exist yet. We introduce MoPeDT: Modular Peripheral Display Toolkit, a freely available, flexible, reconfigurable, and extendable headset to conduct peripheral vision research. MoPeDT can be built with a 3D printer and off-the-shelf components. It features multiple spatially configurable near-eye display modules and full 3D tracking inside and outside the lab. With our system, researchers and designers may easily develop and prototype novel peripheral vision interaction and visualization techniques. We demonstrate the versatility of our headset with several possible applications for spatial awareness, balance, interaction, feedback, and notifications. We conducted a small study to evaluate the usability of the system. We found that participants were largely not irritated by the peripheral cues, but the headset's comfort could be further improved. We also evaluated our system based on established heuristics for human-computer interaction toolkits to show how MoPeDT adapts to changing requirements, lowers the entry barrier for peripheral vision research, and facilitates expressive power in the combination of modular building blocks.Comment: Accepted IEEE VR 2023 conference pape

Extending mobile touchscreen interaction

Touchscreens have become a de facto interface for mobile devices, and are penetrating further beyond their core application domain of smartphones. This work presents a design space for extending touchscreen interaction, to which new solutions may be mapped. Specific touchscreen enhancements in the domains of manual input, visual output and haptic feedback are explored and quantitative and experiental findings reported. Particular areas covered are unintentional interaction, screen locking, stereoscopic displays and picoprojection. In addition, the novel interaction approaches of finger identification and onscreen physical guides are also explored. The use of touchscreens in the domains of car dashboards and smart handbags are evaluated as domain specific use cases. This work draws together solutions from the broad area of mobile touchscreen interaction. Fruitful directions for future research are identified, and information is provided for future researchers addressing those topics.Kosketusnäytöistä on muodostunut mobiililaitteiden pääasiallinen käyttöliittymä, ja ne ovat levinneet alkuperäiseltä ydinsovellusalueeltaan, matkapuhelimista, myös muihin laitteisiin. Työssä tutkitaan uusia vuorovaikutuksen, visualisoinnin ja käyttöliittymäpalautteen keinoja, jotka laajentavat perinteistä kosketusnäytön avulla tapahtuvaa vuorovaikutusta. Näihin liittyen väitöskirjassa esitetään sekä kvantitatiivisia tuloksia että uutta kartoittavia löydöksiä. Erityisesti työ tarkastelee tahatonta kosketusnäytön käyttöä, kosketusnäytön lukitusta, stereoskooppisia kosketusnäyttöjä ja pikoprojektoreiden hyödyntämistä. Lisäksi kartoitetaan uusia vuorovaikutustapoja, jotka liittyvät sormien identifioimiseen vuorovaikutuksen yhteydessä, ja fyysisiin, liikettä ohjaaviin rakenteisiin kosketusnäytöllä. Kosketusnäytön käyttöä autossa sekä osana älykästä käsilaukkua tarkastellaan esimerkkeinä käyttökonteksteista. Väitöskirjassa esitetään vuorovaikutussuunnittelun viitekehys, joka laajentaa kosketusnäyttöjen kautta tapahtuvaa vuorovaikutusta mobiililaitteen kanssa, ja johon työssä esitellyt, uudet vuorovaikutustavat voidaan sijoittaa. Väitöskirja yhdistää kosketusnäyttöihin liittyviä käyttöliittymäsuunnittelun ratkaisuja laajalta alueelta. Työ esittelee potentiaalisia suuntaviivoja tulevaisuuden tutkimuksille ja tuo uutta tutkimustietoa, jota mobiililaitteiden vuorovaikutuksen tutkijat ja käyttöliittymäsuunnittelijat voivat hyödyntää

Extending mobile touchscreen interaction

Touchscreens have become a de facto interface for mobile devices, and are penetrating further beyond their core application domain of smartphones. This work presents a design space for extending touchscreen interaction, to which new solutions may be mapped. Specific touchscreen enhancements in the domains of manual input, visual output and haptic feedback are explored and quantitative and experiental findings reported. Particular areas covered are unintentional interaction, screen locking, stereoscopic displays and picoprojection. In addition, the novel interaction approaches of finger identification and onscreen physical guides are also explored. The use of touchscreens in the domains of car dashboards and smart handbags are evaluated as domain specific use cases. This work draws together solutions from the broad area of mobile touchscreen interaction. Fruitful directions for future research are identified, and information is provided for future researchers addressing those topics.Kosketusnäytöistä on muodostunut mobiililaitteiden pääasiallinen käyttöliittymä, ja ne ovat levinneet alkuperäiseltä ydinsovellusalueeltaan, matkapuhelimista, myös muihin laitteisiin. Työssä tutkitaan uusia vuorovaikutuksen, visualisoinnin ja käyttöliittymäpalautteen keinoja, jotka laajentavat perinteistä kosketusnäytön avulla tapahtuvaa vuorovaikutusta. Näihin liittyen väitöskirjassa esitetään sekä kvantitatiivisia tuloksia että uutta kartoittavia löydöksiä. Erityisesti työ tarkastelee tahatonta kosketusnäytön käyttöä, kosketusnäytön lukitusta, stereoskooppisia kosketusnäyttöjä ja pikoprojektoreiden hyödyntämistä. Lisäksi kartoitetaan uusia vuorovaikutustapoja, jotka liittyvät sormien identifioimiseen vuorovaikutuksen yhteydessä, ja fyysisiin, liikettä ohjaaviin rakenteisiin kosketusnäytöllä. Kosketusnäytön käyttöä autossa sekä osana älykästä käsilaukkua tarkastellaan esimerkkeinä käyttökonteksteista. Väitöskirjassa esitetään vuorovaikutussuunnittelun viitekehys, joka laajentaa kosketusnäyttöjen kautta tapahtuvaa vuorovaikutusta mobiililaitteen kanssa, ja johon työssä esitellyt, uudet vuorovaikutustavat voidaan sijoittaa. Väitöskirja yhdistää kosketusnäyttöihin liittyviä käyttöliittymäsuunnittelun ratkaisuja laajalta alueelta. Työ esittelee potentiaalisia suuntaviivoja tulevaisuuden tutkimuksille ja tuo uutta tutkimustietoa, jota mobiililaitteiden vuorovaikutuksen tutkijat ja käyttöliittymäsuunnittelijat voivat hyödyntää

Crossmodal displays : coordinated crossmodal cues for information provision in public spaces

PhD ThesisThis thesis explores the design of Crossmodal Display, a new kind of display-based interface that aims to help prevent information overload and support information presentation for multiple simultaneous people who share a physical space or situated interface but have different information needs and privacy concerns. By exploiting the human multimodal perception and utilizing the synergy of both existing public displays and personal displays, crossmodal displays avoid numerous drawbacks associated with previous approaches, including a reliance on tracking technologies, weak protection for user‟s privacy, small user capacity and high cognitive load demands. The review of the human multimodal perception in this thesis, especially multimodal integration and crossmodal interaction, has many design implications for the design of crossmodal displays and constitutes the foundation for our proposed conceptual model. Two types of crossmodal display prototype applications are developed: CROSSFLOW for indoor navigation and CROSSBOARD for information retrieval on high-density information display; both of these utilize coordinated crossmodal cues to guide multiple simultaneous users‟ attention to publicly visible information relevant to each user timely. Most of the results of single-user and multi-user lab studies on the prototype systems we developed in this research demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of crossmodal displays and validate several significant advantages over the previous solutions. However, the results also reveal that more detailed usability and user experience of crossmodal displays as well as the human perception of crossmodal cues should be investigated and improved. This thesis is the first exploration into the design of crossmodal displays. A set of design suggestions and a lifecycle model of crossmodal display development have been produced, and can be used by designers or other researchers who wish to develop crossmodal displays for their applications or integrate crossmodal cues in their interfaces

Augmented Reality Assistance for Surgical Interventions using Optical See-Through Head-Mounted Displays

Augmented Reality (AR) offers an interactive user experience via enhancing the real world environment with computer-generated visual cues and other perceptual information. It has been applied to different applications, e.g. manufacturing, entertainment and healthcare, through different AR media. An Optical See-Through Head-Mounted Display (OST-HMD) is a specialized hardware for AR, where the computer-generated graphics can be overlaid directly onto the user's normal vision via optical combiners. Using OST-HMD for surgical intervention has many potential perceptual advantages. As a novel concept, many technical and clinical challenges exist for OST-HMD-based AR to be clinically useful, which motivates the work presented in this thesis. From the technical aspects, we first investigate the display calibration of OST-HMD, which is an indispensable procedure to create accurate AR overlay. We propose various methods to reduce the user-related error, improve robustness of the calibration, and remodel the calibration as a 3D-3D registration problem. Secondly, we devise methods and develop hardware prototype to increase the user's visual acuity of both real and virtual content through OST-HMD, to aid them in tasks that require high visual acuity, e.g. dental procedures. Thirdly, we investigate the occlusion caused by the OST-HMD hardware, which limits the user's peripheral vision. We propose to use alternative indicators to remind the user of unattended environment motion. From the clinical perspective, we identified many clinical use cases where OST-HMD-based AR is potentially helpful, developed applications integrated with current clinical systems, and conducted proof-of-concept evaluations. We first present a "virtual monitor'' for image-guided surgery. It can replace real radiology monitors in the operating room with easier user control and more flexibility in positioning. We evaluated the "virtual monitor'' for simulated percutaneous spine procedures. Secondly, we developed ARssist, an application for the bedside assistant in robotic surgery. The assistant can see the robotic instruments and endoscope within the patient body with ARssist. We evaluated the efficiency, safety and ergonomics of the assistant during two typical tasks: instrument insertion and manipulation. The performance for inexperienced users is significantly improved with ARssist, and for experienced users, the system significantly enhanced their confidence level. Lastly, we developed ARAMIS, which utilizes real-time 3D reconstruction and visualization to aid the laparoscopic surgeon. It demonstrates the concept of "X-ray see-through'' surgery. Our preliminary evaluation validated the application via a peg transfer task, and also showed significant improvement in hand-eye coordination. Overall, we have demonstrated that OST-HMD based AR application provides ergonomic improvements, e.g. hand-eye coordination. In challenging situations or for novice users, the improvements in ergonomic factors lead to improvement in task performance. With continuous effort as a community, optical see-through augmented reality technology will be a useful interventional aid in the near future