Designing Disambiguation Techniques for Pointing in the Physical World

International audienceSeveral ways for selecting physical objects exist, including touching and pointing at them. Allowing the user to interact at a distance by pointing at physical objects can be challenging when the environment contains a large number of interactive physical objects, possibly occluded by other everyday items. Previous pointing techniques highlighted the need for disambiguation techniques. Addressing this challenge, this paper contributes a design space that organizes along groups and axes a set of options for designers to relevantly (1) describe, (2) classify, and (3) design disambiguation techniques. First, we have not found techniques in the literature yet that our design space could not describe. Second, all the techniques show a different path along the axes of our design space. Third, it allows defining of several new paths/solutions that have not yet been explored. We illustrate this generative power with the example of such a designed technique, Physical Pointing Roll (P2Roll)

Mobile Pointing Task in the Physical World: Balancing Focus and Performance while Disambiguating

International audienceWe address the problem of mobile distal selection of physical objects when pointing at them in augmented environments. We focus on the disambiguation step needed when several objects are selected with a rough pointing gesture. A usual disambiguation technique forces the users to switch their focus from the physical world to a list displayed on a handheld device's screen. In this paper, we explore the balance between change of users' focus and performance. We present two novel interaction techniques allowing the users to maintain their focus in the physical world. Both use a cycling mechanism, respectively performed with a wrist rolling gesture for P2Roll or with a finger sliding gesture for P2Slide. A user experiment showed that keeping users' focus in the physical world outperforms techniques that require the users to switch their focus to a digital representation distant from the physical objects, when disambiguating up to 8 objects

Interacting "Through the Display"

The increasing availability of displays at lower costs has led to a proliferation of such in our everyday lives. Additionally, mobile devices are ready to hand and have been proposed as interaction devices for external screens. However, only their input mechanism was taken into account without considering three additional factors in environments hosting several displays: first, a connection needs to be established to the desired target display (modality). Second, screens in the environment may be re-arranged (flexibility). And third, displays may be out of the user’s reach (distance). In our research we aim to overcome the problems resulting from these characteristics. The overall goal is a new interaction model that allows for (1) a non-modal connection mechanism for impromptu use on various displays in the environment, (2) interaction on and across displays in highly flexible environments, and (3) interacting at variable distances. In this work we propose a new interaction model called through the display interaction which enables users to interact with remote content on their personal device in an absolute and direct fashion. To gain a better understanding of the effects of the additional characteristics, we implemented two prototypes each of which investigates a different distance to the target display: LucidDisplay allows users to place their mobile device directly on top of a larger external screen. MobileVue on the other hand enables users to interact with an external screen at a distance. In each of these prototypes we analyzed their effects on the remaining two criteria – namely the modality of the connection mechanism as well as the flexibility of the environment. With the findings gained in this initial phase we designed Shoot & Copy, a system that allows the detection of screens purely based on their visual content. Users aim their personal device’s camera at the target display which then appears in live video shown in the viewfinder. To select an item, users take a picture which is analyzed to determine the targeted region. We further extended this approach to multiple displays by using a centralized component serving as gateway to the display environment. In Tap & Drop we refined this prototype to support real-time feedback. Instead of taking pictures, users can now aim their mobile device at the display resulting and start interacting immediately. In doing so, we broke the rigid sequential interaction of content selection and content manipulation. Both prototypes allow for (1) connections in a non-modal way (i.e., aim at the display and start interacting with it) from the user’s point of view and (2) fully flexible environments (i.e., the mobile device tracks itself with respect to displays in the environment). However, the wide-angle lenses and thus greater field of views of current mobile devices still do not allow for variable distances. In Touch Projector, we overcome this limitation by introducing zooming in combination with temporarily freezing the video image. Based on our extensions to taxonomy of mobile device interaction on external displays, we created a refined model of interacting through the display for mobile use. It enables users to interact impromptu without explicitly establishing a connection to the target display (non-modal). As the mobile device tracks itself with respect to displays in the environment, the model further allows for full flexibility of the environment (i.e., displays can be re-arranged without affecting on the interaction). And above all, users can interact with external displays regardless of their actual size at variable distances without any loss of accuracy.Die steigende Verfügbarkeit von Bildschirmen hat zu deren Verbreitung in unserem Alltag geführt. Ferner sind mobile Geräte immer griffbereit und wurden bereits als Interaktionsgeräte für zusätzliche Bildschirme vorgeschlagen. Es wurden jedoch nur Eingabemechanismen berücksichtigt ohne näher auf drei weitere Faktoren in Umgebungen mit mehreren Bildschirmen einzugehen: (1) Beide Geräte müssen verbunden werden (Modalität). (2) Bildschirme können in solchen Umgebungen umgeordnet werden (Flexibilität). (3) Monitore können außer Reichweite sein (Distanz). Wir streben an, die Probleme, die durch diese Eigenschaften auftreten, zu lösen. Das übergeordnete Ziel ist ein Interaktionsmodell, das einen nicht-modalen Verbindungsaufbau für spontane Verwendung von Bildschirmen in solchen Umgebungen, (2) Interaktion auf und zwischen Bildschirmen in flexiblen Umgebungen, und (3) Interaktionen in variablen Distanzen erlaubt. Wir stellen ein Modell (Interaktion durch den Bildschirm) vor, mit dem Benutzer mit entfernten Inhalten in direkter und absoluter Weise auf ihrem Mobilgerät interagieren können. Um die Effekte der hinzugefügten Charakteristiken besser zu verstehen, haben wir zwei Prototypen für unterschiedliche Distanzen implementiert: LucidDisplay erlaubt Benutzern ihr mobiles Gerät auf einen größeren, sekundären Bildschirm zu legen. Gegensätzlich dazu ermöglicht MobileVue die Interaktion mit einem zusätzlichen Monitor in einer gewissen Entfernung. In beiden Prototypen haben wir dann die Effekte der verbleibenden zwei Kriterien (d.h. Modalität des Verbindungsaufbaus und Flexibilität der Umgebung) analysiert. Mit den in dieser ersten Phase erhaltenen Ergebnissen haben wir Shoot & Copy entworfen. Dieser Prototyp erlaubt die Erkennung von Bildschirmen einzig über deren visuellen Inhalt. Benutzer zeigen mit der Kamera ihres Mobilgeräts auf einen Bildschirm dessen Inhalt dann in Form von Video im Sucher dargestellt wird. Durch die Aufnahme eines Bildes (und der darauf folgenden Analyse) wird Inhalt ausgewählt. Wir haben dieses Konzept zudem auf mehrere Bildschirme erweitert, indem wir eine zentrale Instanz verwendet haben, die als Schnittstelle zur Umgebung agiert. Mit Tap & Drop haben wir den Prototyp verfeinert, um Echtzeit-Feedback zu ermöglichen. Anstelle der Bildaufnahme können Benutzer nun ihr mobiles Gerät auf den Bildschirm richten und sofort interagieren. Dadurch haben wir die strikt sequentielle Interaktion (Inhalt auswählen und Inhalt manipulieren) aufgebrochen. Beide Prototypen erlauben bereits nicht-modale Verbindungsmechanismen in flexiblen Umgebungen. Die in heutigen Mobilgeräten verwendeten Weitwinkel-Objektive erlauben jedoch nach wie vor keine variablen Distanzen. Mit Touch Projector beseitigen wir diese Einschränkung, indem wir Zoomen in Kombination mit einer vorübergehenden Pausierung des Videos im Sucher einfügen. Basierend auf den Erweiterungen der Klassifizierung von Interaktionen mit zusätzlichen Bildschirmen durch mobile Geräte haben wir ein verbessertes Modell (Interaktion durch den Bildschirm) erstellt. Es erlaubt Benutzern spontan zu interagieren, ohne explizit eine Verbindung zum zweiten Bildschirm herstellen zu müssen (nicht-modal). Da das mobile Gerät seinen räumlichen Bezug zu allen Bildschirmen selbst bestimmt, erlaubt unser Modell zusätzlich volle Flexibilität in solchen Umgebungen. Darüber hinaus können Benutzer mit zusätzlichen Bildschirmen (unabhängig von deren Größe) in variablen Entfernungen interagieren

Spatial Interaction for Immersive Mixed-Reality Visualizations

Growing amounts of data, both in personal and professional settings, have caused an increased interest in data visualization and visual analytics. Especially for inherently three-dimensional data, immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality and advanced, natural interaction techniques have been shown to facilitate data analysis. Furthermore, in such use cases, the physical environment often plays an important role, both by directly influencing the data and by serving as context for the analysis. Therefore, there has been a trend to bring data visualization into new, immersive environments and to make use of the physical surroundings, leading to a surge in mixed-reality visualization research. One of the resulting challenges, however, is the design of user interaction for these often complex systems. In my thesis, I address this challenge by investigating interaction for immersive mixed-reality visualizations regarding three core research questions: 1) What are promising types of immersive mixed-reality visualizations, and how can advanced interaction concepts be applied to them? 2) How does spatial interaction benefit these visualizations and how should such interactions be designed? 3) How can spatial interaction in these immersive environments be analyzed and evaluated? To address the first question, I examine how various visualizations such as 3D node-link diagrams and volume visualizations can be adapted for immersive mixed-reality settings and how they stand to benefit from advanced interaction concepts. For the second question, I study how spatial interaction in particular can help to explore data in mixed reality. There, I look into spatial device interaction in comparison to touch input, the use of additional mobile devices as input controllers, and the potential of transparent interaction panels. Finally, to address the third question, I present my research on how user interaction in immersive mixed-reality environments can be analyzed directly in the original, real-world locations, and how this can provide new insights. Overall, with my research, I contribute interaction and visualization concepts, software prototypes, and findings from several user studies on how spatial interaction techniques can support the exploration of immersive mixed-reality visualizations.Zunehmende Datenmengen, sowohl im privaten als auch im beruflichen Umfeld, führen zu einem zunehmenden Interesse an Datenvisualisierung und visueller Analyse. Insbesondere bei inhärent dreidimensionalen Daten haben sich immersive Technologien wie Virtual und Augmented Reality sowie moderne, natürliche Interaktionstechniken als hilfreich für die Datenanalyse erwiesen. Darüber hinaus spielt in solchen Anwendungsfällen die physische Umgebung oft eine wichtige Rolle, da sie sowohl die Daten direkt beeinflusst als auch als Kontext für die Analyse dient. Daher gibt es einen Trend, die Datenvisualisierung in neue, immersive Umgebungen zu bringen und die physische Umgebung zu nutzen, was zu einem Anstieg der Forschung im Bereich Mixed-Reality-Visualisierung geführt hat. Eine der daraus resultierenden Herausforderungen ist jedoch die Gestaltung der Benutzerinteraktion für diese oft komplexen Systeme. In meiner Dissertation beschäftige ich mich mit dieser Herausforderung, indem ich die Interaktion für immersive Mixed-Reality-Visualisierungen im Hinblick auf drei zentrale Forschungsfragen untersuche: 1) Was sind vielversprechende Arten von immersiven Mixed-Reality-Visualisierungen, und wie können fortschrittliche Interaktionskonzepte auf sie angewendet werden? 2) Wie profitieren diese Visualisierungen von räumlicher Interaktion und wie sollten solche Interaktionen gestaltet werden? 3) Wie kann räumliche Interaktion in diesen immersiven Umgebungen analysiert und ausgewertet werden? Um die erste Frage zu beantworten, untersuche ich, wie verschiedene Visualisierungen wie 3D-Node-Link-Diagramme oder Volumenvisualisierungen für immersive Mixed-Reality-Umgebungen angepasst werden können und wie sie von fortgeschrittenen Interaktionskonzepten profitieren. Für die zweite Frage untersuche ich, wie insbesondere die räumliche Interaktion bei der Exploration von Daten in Mixed Reality helfen kann. Dabei betrachte ich die Interaktion mit räumlichen Geräten im Vergleich zur Touch-Eingabe, die Verwendung zusätzlicher mobiler Geräte als Controller und das Potenzial transparenter Interaktionspanels. Um die dritte Frage zu beantworten, stelle ich schließlich meine Forschung darüber vor, wie Benutzerinteraktion in immersiver Mixed-Reality direkt in der realen Umgebung analysiert werden kann und wie dies neue Erkenntnisse liefern kann. Insgesamt trage ich mit meiner Forschung durch Interaktions- und Visualisierungskonzepte, Software-Prototypen und Ergebnisse aus mehreren Nutzerstudien zu der Frage bei, wie räumliche Interaktionstechniken die Erkundung von immersiven Mixed-Reality-Visualisierungen unterstützen können

Enhanced device-based 3D object manipulation technique for handheld mobile augmented reality

3D object manipulation is one of the most important tasks for handheld mobile Augmented Reality (AR) towards its practical potential, especially for realworld assembly support. In this context, techniques used to manipulate 3D object is an important research area. Therefore, this study developed an improved device based interaction technique within handheld mobile AR interfaces to solve the large range 3D object rotation problem as well as issues related to 3D object position and orientation deviations in manipulating 3D object. The research firstly enhanced the existing device-based 3D object rotation technique with an innovative control structure that utilizes the handheld mobile device tilting and skewing amplitudes to determine the rotation axes and directions of the 3D object. Whenever the device is tilted or skewed exceeding the threshold values of the amplitudes, the 3D object rotation will start continuously with a pre-defined angular speed per second to prevent over-rotation of the handheld mobile device. This over-rotation is a common occurrence when using the existing technique to perform large-range 3D object rotations. The problem of over-rotation of the handheld mobile device needs to be solved since it causes a 3D object registration error and a 3D object display issue where the 3D object does not appear consistent within the user’s range of view. Secondly, restructuring the existing device-based 3D object manipulation technique was done by separating the degrees of freedom (DOF) of the 3D object translation and rotation to prevent the 3D object position and orientation deviations caused by the DOF integration that utilizes the same control structure for both tasks. Next, an improved device-based interaction technique, with better performance on task completion time for 3D object rotation unilaterally and 3D object manipulation comprehensively within handheld mobile AR interfaces was developed. A pilot test was carried out before other main tests to determine several pre-defined values designed in the control structure of the proposed 3D object rotation technique. A series of 3D object rotation and manipulation tasks was designed and developed as separate experimental tasks to benchmark both the proposed 3D object rotation and manipulation techniques with existing ones on task completion time (s). Two different groups of participants aged 19-24 years old were selected for both experiments, with each group consisting sixteen participants. Each participant had to complete twelve trials, which came to a total 192 trials per experiment for all the participants. Repeated measure analysis was used to analyze the data. The results obtained have statistically proven that the developed 3D object rotation technique markedly outpaced existing technique with significant shorter task completion times of 2.04s shorter on easy tasks and 3.09s shorter on hard tasks after comparing the mean times upon all successful trials. On the other hand, for the failed trials, the 3D object rotation technique was 4.99% more accurate on easy tasks and 1.78% more accurate on hard tasks in comparison to the existing technique. Similar results were also extended to 3D object manipulation tasks with an overall 9.529s significant shorter task completion time of the proposed manipulation technique as compared to the existing technique. Based on the findings, an improved device-based interaction technique has been successfully developed to address the insufficient functionalities of the current technique

Touch-Move-Release: Studies of Surface and Motion Gestures for Mobile Augmented Reality

Recent advancements in both hardware and software for mobile devices have allowed developers to create better mobile Augmented Reality (AR) experiences, which has led to an increase in the number of mobile AR applications and users engaging in these experiences. However, despite a broad range of mobile AR applications available to date, the majority of these applications that we surveyed still primarily use surface gestures, i.e., gesturing on the touch screen surface of the device, as the default interaction method and do not utilise the affordance of three-dimensional user interaction that AR interfaces support. In this research, we have investigated and compared two methods of gesture interaction for mobile AR applications: Surface Gestures, which are commonly used in mainstream applications, and Motion Gestures, which take advantage of the spatial information of the mobile device. Our goal is to determine if motion gestures are comparable or even superior to surface gestures for mobile AR applications. To achieve this, we have conducted two user studies: an elicitation study 15 and a validation study. The first study recruited twenty-one participants and elicited two sets of 16 gestures, surface and mobile gestures, for twelve everyday mobile AR tasks. This yielded a total 17 of five hundred and four gestures. The two sets of gestures were classified and compared in terms of goodness, ease of use, and engagement. As expected, the participants’ elicited surface gestures are familiar and easy to use, while motion gestures were found more engaging. Using design patterns derived from the elicited motion gestures, we proposed a novel interaction technique called ”TMR” (Touch-Move-Release). We developed a mobile AR game similar to Pokemon GO to validate this new technique and implemented a selected gesture chosen from ´ the two gesture sets. A validation study was conducted with ten participants, and we found that the motion gesture enhanced engagement and provided a better game experience. In contrast, the surface gesture provided higher precision resulting in higher accuracy and was easier to use. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings and give our design recommendations for using the elicited gestures

Conceitos e métodos para apoio ao desenvolvimento e avaliação de colaboração remota utilizando realidade aumentada

Remote Collaboration using Augmented Reality (AR) shows great potential to establish a common ground in physically distributed scenarios where team-members need to achieve a shared goal. However, most research efforts in this field have been devoted to experiment with the enabling technology and propose methods to support its development. As the field evolves, evaluation and characterization of the collaborative process become an essential, but difficult endeavor, to better understand the contributions of AR. In this thesis, we conducted a critical analysis to identify the main limitations and opportunities of the field, while situating its maturity and proposing a roadmap of important research actions. Next, a human-centered design methodology was adopted, involving industrial partners to probe how AR could support their needs during remote maintenance. These outcomes were combined with literature methods into an AR-prototype and its evaluation was performed through a user study. From this, it became clear the necessity to perform a deep reflection in order to better understand the dimensions that influence and must/should be considered in Collaborative AR. Hence, a conceptual model and a humancentered taxonomy were proposed to foster systematization of perspectives. Based on the model proposed, an evaluation framework for contextualized data gathering and analysis was developed, allowing support the design and performance of distributed evaluations in a more informed and complete manner. To instantiate this vision, the CAPTURE toolkit was created, providing an additional perspective based on selected dimensions of collaboration and pre-defined measurements to obtain “in situ” data about them, which can be analyzed using an integrated visualization dashboard. The toolkit successfully supported evaluations of several team-members during tasks of remote maintenance mediated by AR. Thus, showing its versatility and potential in eliciting a comprehensive characterization of the added value of AR in real-life situations, establishing itself as a generalpurpose solution, potentially applicable to a wider range of collaborative scenarios.Colaboração Remota utilizando Realidade Aumentada (RA) apresenta um enorme potencial para estabelecer um entendimento comum em cenários onde membros de uma equipa fisicamente distribuídos precisam de atingir um objetivo comum. No entanto, a maioria dos esforços de investigação tem-se focado nos aspetos tecnológicos, em fazer experiências e propor métodos para apoiar seu desenvolvimento. À medida que a área evolui, a avaliação e caracterização do processo colaborativo tornam-se um esforço essencial, mas difícil, para compreender as contribuições da RA. Nesta dissertação, realizámos uma análise crítica para identificar as principais limitações e oportunidades da área, ao mesmo tempo em que situámos a sua maturidade e propomos um mapa com direções de investigação importantes. De seguida, foi adotada uma metodologia de Design Centrado no Humano, envolvendo parceiros industriais de forma a compreender como a RA poderia responder às suas necessidades em manutenção remota. Estes resultados foram combinados com métodos da literatura num protótipo de RA e a sua avaliação foi realizada com um caso de estudo. Ficou então clara a necessidade de realizar uma reflexão profunda para melhor compreender as dimensões que influenciam e devem ser consideradas na RA Colaborativa. Foram então propostos um modelo conceptual e uma taxonomia centrada no ser humano para promover a sistematização de perspetivas. Com base no modelo proposto, foi desenvolvido um framework de avaliação para recolha e análise de dados contextualizados, permitindo apoiar o desenho e a realização de avaliações distribuídas de forma mais informada e completa. Para instanciar esta visão, o CAPTURE toolkit foi criado, fornecendo uma perspetiva adicional com base em dimensões de colaboração e medidas predefinidas para obter dados in situ, que podem ser analisados utilizando o painel de visualização integrado. O toolkit permitiu avaliar com sucesso vários colaboradores durante a realização de tarefas de manutenção remota apoiada por RA, permitindo mostrar a sua versatilidade e potencial em obter uma caracterização abrangente do valor acrescentado da RA em situações da vida real. Sendo assim, estabelece-se como uma solução genérica, potencialmente aplicável a uma gama diversificada de cenários colaborativos.Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Informátic