Design and Evaluation of Menu Systems for Immersive Virtual Environments

Interfaces for system control tasks in virtual environments (VEs) have not been extensively studied. This paper focuses on various types of menu systems to be used in such environments. We describe the design of the TULIP menu, a menu system using Pinch Gloves™, and compare it to two common alternatives: floating menus and pen and tablet menus. These three menus were compared in an empirical evaluation. The pen and tablet menu was found to be significantly faster, while users had a preference for TULIP. Subjective discomfort levels were also higher with the floating menus and pen and tablet

Use of 3D body motion to freeform surface design

This paper presents a novel surface modelling approach by utilising a 3D motion capture system. For designing a large-sized surface, a network of splines is initially set up. Artists or designers wearing motion markers on their hands can then change shapes of the splines with their hands. Literarily they can move their bodies freely to any positions to perform their tasks. They can also move their hands in 3D free space to detail surface characteristics by their gestures. All their design motions are recorded in the motion capturing system and transferred into 3D curves and surfaces correspondingly. This paper reports this novel surface design method and some case studies

Get a Grip:Evaluating Grip Gestures for VR Input Using a Lightweight Pen

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) in applications such as data analysis, artistic creation, and clinical settings requires high precision input. However, the current design of handheld controllers, where wrist rotation is the primary input approach, does not exploit the human fingers' capability for dexterous movements for high precision pointing and selection. To address this issue, we investigated the characteristics and potential of using a pen as a VR input device. We conducted two studies. The first examined which pen grip allowed the largest range of motion---we found a tripod grip at the rear end of the shaft met this criterion. The second study investigated target selection via 'poking' and ray-casting, where we found the pen grip outperformed the traditional wrist-based input in both cases. Finally, we demonstrate potential applications enabled by VR pen input and grip postures

A human computer interactions framework for biometric user identification

Computer assisted functionalities and services have saturated our world becoming such an integral part of our daily activities that we hardly notice them. In this study we are focusing on enhancements in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) that can be achieved by natural user recognition embedded in the employed interaction models. Natural identification among humans is mostly based on biometric characteristics representing what-we-are (face, body outlook, voice, etc.) and how-we-behave (gait, gestures, posture, etc.) Following this observation, we investigate different approaches and methods for adapting existing biometric identification methods and technologies to the needs of evolving natural human computer interfaces

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

Some NASA contributions to human factors engineering: A survey

This survey presents the NASA contributions to the state of the art of human factors engineering, and indicates that these contributions have a variety of applications to nonaerospace activities. Emphasis is placed on contributions relative to man's sensory, motor, decisionmaking, and cognitive behavior and on applications that advance human factors technology

Dynamical systems analysis of fluid transport in time-periodic vortex ring flows

It is known that the stable and unstable manifolds of dynamical systems theory provide a powerful tool for understanding Lagrangian aspects of time-periodic flows. In this work we consider two time-periodic vortex ring flows. The first is a vortex ring with an elliptical core. The manifolds provide information about entrainment and detrainment of irrotational fluid into and out of the volume transported with the ring. The likeness of the manifolds with features observed in flow visualization experiments of turbulent vortex rings suggests that a similar process might be at play. However, what precise modes of unsteadiness are responsible for stirring in a turbulent vortex ring is left as an open question. The second situation is that of two leapfrogging rings. The unstable manifold shows striking agreement with even the fine features of smoke visualization photographs, suggesting that fluid elements in the vicinity of the manifold are drawn out along it and begin to reveal its structure. We suggest that interpretations of these photographs that argue for complex vorticity dynamics ought to be reconsidered. Recently, theoretical and computational tools have been developed to locate structures analogous to stable and unstable manifolds in aperiodic, or finite-time systems. The usefulness of these analogs is demonstrated, using vortex ring flows as an example, in the paper by Shadden, Dabiri, and Marsden [Phys. Fluids 18, 047105 (2006)]