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3D user interfaces for virtual reality and games: 3D selection, manipulation, and spatial navigation
(2018)
In this course, we will take a detailed look at different topics in the field of 3D user interfaces (3DUIs) for Virtual Reality and Gaming. With the advent of Augmented and Virtual Reality in numerous application areas, the need and interest in more effective interfaces becomes prevalent, among others driven forward by improved technologies, increasing application complexity and user experience requirements. Within this course, we highlight key issues in the design of diverse 3DUIs by looking closely into both simple and advanced 3D selection/manipulation and spatial navigation interface design topics. These topics are highly relevant, as they form the basis for most 3DUI-driven application, yet also can cause major issues (performance, usability, experience. motion sickness) when not designed properly as they can be difficult to handle. Within this course, we build on top of a general understanding of 3DUIs to discuss typical pitfalls by looking closely at theoretical and practical aspects of selection, manipulation, and navigation and highlight guidelines for their use.
When navigating larger virtual environments and computer games, natural walking is often unfeasible. Here, we investigate how alternatives such as joystick- or leaning-based locomotion interfaces ("human joystick") can be enhanced by adding walking-related cues following a sensory substitution approach. Using a custom-designed foot haptics system and evaluating it in a multi-part study, we show that adding walking related auditory cues (footstep sounds), visual cues (simulating bobbing head-motions from walking), and vibrotactile cues (via vibrotactile transducers and bass-shakers under participants' feet) could all enhance participants' sensation of self-motion (vection) and involement/presence. These benefits occurred similarly for seated joystick and standing leaning locomotion. Footstep sounds and vibrotactile cues also enhanced participants' self-reported ability to judge self-motion velocities and distances traveled. Compared to seated joystick control, standing leaning enhanced self-motion sensations. Combining standing leaning with a minimal walking-in-place procedure showed no benefits and reduced usability, though. Together, results highlight the potential of incorporating walking-related auditory, visual, and vibrotactile cues for improving user experience and self-motion perception in applications such as virtual reality, gaming, and tele-presence.
Supported by their large size and high resolution, display walls suit well for different collaboration types. However, in order to foster instead of impede collaboration processes, interaction techniques need to be carefully designed, taking into regard the possibilities and limitations of the display size, and their effects on human perception and performance. In this paper we investigate the impact of visual distractors (which, for instance, might be caused by other collaborators' input) in peripheral vision on short-term memory and attention. The distractors occur frequently when multiple users collaborate in large wall display systems and may draw attention away from the main task, as such potentially affecting performance and cognitive load. Yet, the effect of these distractors is hardly understood. Gaining a better understanding thus may provide valuable input for designing more effective user interfaces. In this article, we report on two interrelated studies that investigated the effect of distractors. Depending on when the distractor is inserted in the task performance sequence, as well as the location of the distractor, user performance can be disturbed: we will show that distractors may not affect short term memory, but do have an effect on attention. We will closely look into the effects, and identify future directions to design more effective interfaces.
Head-mounted displays with dense pixel arrays used for virtual reality applications require high frame rates and low latency rendering. This forms a challenging use case for any rendering approach. In addition to its ability of generating realistic images, ray tracing offers a number of distinct advantages, but has been held back mainly by its performance. In this paper, we present an approach that significantly improves image generation performance of ray tracing. This is done by combining foveated rendering based on eye tracking with reprojection rendering using previous frames in order to drastically reduce the number of new image samples per frame. To reproject samples a coarse geometry is reconstructed from a G-Buffer. Possible errors introduced by this reprojection as well as parts that are critical to the perception are scheduled for resampling. Additionally, a coarse color buffer is used to provide an initial image, refined smoothly by more samples were needed. Evaluations and user tests show that our method achieves real-time frame rates, while visual differences compared to fully rendered images are hardly perceivable. As a result, we can ray trace non-trivial static scenes for the Oculus DK2 HMD at 1182 × 1464 per eye within the the VSync limits without perceived visual differences.
Despite the ever increasing performance of computer hardware, single machines are not always capable of processing complex tasks in reasonable time, if at all. At the same time, the amount of data to be generated or processed by computer systems increases at a similar rate. Generating images using algorithms from computer graphics is a good example for such scenarios. Because visual analysis of data can greatly benefit from the usage of large, tiled display systems, and techniques to render images become more and more complex in order to generate visually pleasing results, using a single machine is often not sufficient to enable reasonable workflows. In this paper, we introduce CRaP, a framework for cluster-based rendering and postprocessing. Distributing the generation and post-processing of images to a cluster of machines allows to speed up these tasks. In particular, we aim at rendering images at high resolutions, e.g. for large display walls. To our knowledge, no other framework for distributed rendering is capable of postprocessing images in a distributed fashion without being limited to frame tiles. We present a software design that provides a simple interface for creating render sessions, enabling arbitrary applications to delegate the generation of images to a cluster. In addition to a simple configuration process, we intend to support platform interoperability. We focus on the design of a flexible and modular architecture in order to make the framework independent of rendering techniques and scheduling algorithms. Thus, these components should be interchangeable to enable a variety of use cases. The same applies to the integration of postprocessing methods.
In this article, we report on a user study investigating the effects of multisensory cues on triggering the emotional response in immersive games. Yet, isolating the effect of a specific sensory cue on the emotional state is a difficult feat. The performed experiment is a first of a series that aims at producing usable guidelines that can be applied to reproducing similar emotional responses, as well as the methods to measure the effects. As such, we are interested in methodologies to both design effective stimuli, and assess the quality and effect thereof. We start with identifying main challenges and the followed methodology. Thereafter, we closely analyze the study results to address some of the challenges, and identify where the potential is for improving the induced stimuli (cause) and effect, as well as the analytical methods used to pinpoint the extent of the effect.
Large, high-resolution displays demonstrated their effectiveness in lab settings for cognitively demanding tasks in single user and collaborative scenarios. The effectiveness is mostly reached through inherent displays' properties - large display real estate and high resolution - that allow for visualization of complex datasets, and support of group work and embodied interaction. To raise users' efficiency, however, more sophisticated user support in the form of advanced user interfaces might be needed. For that we need profound understanding of how large, tiled displays impact users work and behavior. We need to extract behavioral patterns for different tasks and data types. This paper reports on study results of how users, while working collaboratively, process spatially fixed items on large, tiled displays. The results revealed a recurrent pattern showing that users prefer to process documents column wise rather than row wise or erratic.
Recent studies have shown that through a careful combination of multiple sensory channels, so called multisensory binding effects can be achieved that can be beneficial for collision detection and texture recognition feedback. During the design of a new pen-input device called Tactylus, specific focus was put on exploring multisensory effects of audiotactile cues to create a new, but effective way to interact in virtual environments with the purpose to overcome several of the problems noticed in current devices.
In diesem Artikel wird darüber berichtet, ob die Glaubwürdigkeit von Avataren als mögliches Modulationskriterium für die virtuelle Expositionstherapie von Agoraphobie in Frage kommt. Dafür werden mehrere Glaubwürdigkeitsstufen für Avatare, die hypothetisch einen Einfluss auf die virtuelle Expositionstherapie von Agoraphobie haben könnten sowie ein potentielles Expositionsszenario entwickelt. Die Arbeit kann innerhalb einer Studie einen signifikanten Einfluss der Glaubwürdigkeitsstufen auf Präsenz, Kopräsenz und Realismus aufzeigen.
A wide field of view augmented reality display is a special type of head-worn device that enables users to view augmentations in the peripheral visual field. However, the actual effects of a wide field of view display on the perception of augmentations have not been widely studied. To improve our understanding of this type of display when conducting divided attention search tasks, we conducted an in depth experiment testing two view management methods, in-view and in-situ labelling. With in-view labelling, search target annotations appear on the display border with a corresponding leader line, whereas in-situ annotations appear without a leader line, as if they are affixed to the referenced objects in the environment. Results show that target discovery rates consistently drop with in-view labelling and increase with in-situ labelling as display angle approaches 100 degrees of field of view. Past this point, the performances of the two view management methods begin to converge, suggesting equivalent discovery rates at approximately 130 degrees of field of view. Results also indicate that users exhibited lower discovery rates for targets appearing in peripheral vision, and that there is little impact of field of view on response time and mental workload.
This paper introduces a novel zooming interface deploying a pico projector that, instead of a second visual display, leverages audioscapes for contextual information. The technique enhances current flashlight metaphor approaches, supporting flexible usage within the domain of spatial augmented reality to focus on object or environment-related details. Within a user study we focused on quantifying the projection limitations related to depiction of details through the pico projector and validated the interaction approach. The quantified results of the study correlate pixel density, detail and proximity, which can greatly aid to design more effective, legible zooming interfaces for pico projectors - the study can form an example testbed that can be applied well for testing aberrations with other projectors. Furthermore, users rated the zooming technique using audioscapes well, showing the validity of the approach. The studies form the foundation for extending our work by detailing out the audio-visual approach and looking more closely in the role of real-world features on interpreting projected content.
In this paper, we report on novel zooming interface methods that deploy a small handheld projector. Using mobile projections to visualize object/environment related information on real objects introduces new aspects for zooming interfaces. Different approaches are investigated that focus on maintaining a level of context while exploring detail in information. Doing so, we propose methods that provide alternative contextual cues within a single projector, and deploy the potential of zoom lenses to support a multi-level zooming approach. Furthermore, we look into the correlation between pixel density, distance to target and projection size. Alongside these techniques, we report on multiple user studies in which we quantified the projection limitations and validated various interactive visualization approaches. Thereby, we focused on solving issues related to pixel density, brightness and contrast that affect the design of more effective, legible zooming interfaces for handheld projectors.
Human beings spend much time under the influence of artificial lighting. Often, it is beneficial to adapt lighting to the task, as well as the user’s mental and physical constitution and well-being. This formulates new requirements for lighting - human-centric lighting - and drives a need for new light control methods in interior spaces. In this paper we present a holistic system that provides a novel approach to human-centric lighting by introducing simulation methods into interactive light control, to adapt the lighting based on the user's needs. We look at a simulation and evaluation platform that uses interactive stochastic spectral rendering methods to simulate light sources, allowing for their interactive adjustment and adaption.
Enhancing touch screen interfaces through non-visual cues has been shown to improve performance. In this paper we report on a novel system that explores the usage of a forcesensitive motion-platform enhanced tablet interface to improve multi-modal interaction based on visuo-haptic instead of tactile feedback. Extending mobile touch screen with force-sensitive haptic feedback has potential to enhance performance interacting with GUIs and to improve perception of understanding relations. A user study was performed to determine the perceived recognition of different 3D shapes and the perception of different heights. Furthermore, two application scenarios are proposed to explore our proposed visuo-haptic system. The studies show the positive stance towards the feedback, as well as the found limitations related to perception of feedback.
In particular driven by today’s game console technology, the number of 3D interaction techniques that integrate multiple modalities is steadily increasing. However, many developers do not fully explore and deploy the sensorimotor possibilities of the human body, partly because of methodological and knowledge limitations. In this paper, we propose a design approach for 3D interaction techniques, which considers the full potential of the human body. We show how “human potential” can be analyzed and how such analysis can be instrumental in designing new or alternative multi-sensory and potentially full body interfaces.
Within this article, we offer a new design perspective for the analysis, creation, and validation of 3D user interfaces using assistive technology as source of inspiration. While 3DUI design has matured over the last decade, many open issues remain to be solved. An assistive technology design perspective can aid: it can offer a stringent test environment to uncover issues and provides a different view on design by looking at human potential. Subsequently, we will look at major fields of interest, identifying pitfalls in 3DUI design and how assistive technology can be used to overcome these issues, outlining particular fields of research, or research directions, that deserve further attention.
In this paper, we describe a user study comparing five different locomotion interfaces for virtual reality locomotion. We compared a standard non-motion cueing interface, Joystick (Xbox), with four motion cueing interfaces, NaviChair (stool with springs), MuvMan (sit/stand active stool), Head-Directed (Oculus Rift DK2), and Swivel Chair (everyday office chair with leaning capability). Each interface had two degrees of freedom to move forward/backward and rotate using velocity (rate) control. The aim of this mixed methods study was to better understand relevant user experience factors and guide the design of future locomotion interfaces. This study employed methods from HCI to provide an understanding of why users behave a certain way while using the interface and to unearth any new issues with the design. Participants were tasked to search for objects in a virtual city while they provided talk-aloud feedback and we logged their behaviour. Subsequently, they completed a post-experimental questionnaire on their experience. We found that the qualitative themes of control, usability, and experience echoed the results of the questionnaire, providing internal validity. The quantitative measures revealed the Joystick to be significantly more comfortable and precise than the motion cueing interfaces. However, the qualitative feedback and interviews showed this was due to the reduced perceived controllability and safety of the motion cueing interfaces. Designers of these interfaces should consider using a backrest if users need to lean backwards and avoid using velocity-control for rotations when using HMDs.
The study of locomotion in virtual environments is a diverse and rewarding research area. Yet, creating effective and intuitive locomotion techniques is challenging, especially when users cannot move around freely. While using handheld input devices for navigation may often be good enough, it does not match our natural experience of motion in the real world. Frequently, there are strong arguments for supporting body-centered self-motion cues as they may improve orientation and spatial judgments, and reduce motion sickness. Yet, how these cues can be introduced while the user is not moving around physically is not well understood. Actuated solutions such as motion platforms can be an option, but they are expensive and difficult to maintain. Alternatively, within this article we focus on the effect of upper-body tilt while users are seated, as previous work has indicated positive effects on self-motion perception. We report on two studies that investigated the effects of static and dynamic upper body leaning on perceived distances traveled and self-motion perception (vection). Static leaning (i.e., keeping a constant forward torso inclination) had a positive effect on self-motion, while dynamic torso leaning showed mixed results. We discuss these results and identify further steps necessary to design improved embodied locomotion control techniques that do not require actuated motion platforms.
Environment monitoring using multiple observation cameras is increasingly popular. Different techniques exist to visualize the incoming video streams, but only few evaluations are available to find the best suitable one for a given task and context. This article compares three techniques for browsing video feeds from cameras that are located around the user in an unstructured manner. The techniques allow mobile users to gain extra information about the surroundings, the objects and the actors in the environment by observing a site from different perspectives. The techniques relate local and remote cameras topologically, via a tunnel, or via bird's eye viewpoint. Their common goal is to enhance spatial awareness of the viewer, without relying on a model or previous knowledge of the environment. We introduce several factors of spatial awareness inherent to multi-camera systems, and present a comparative evaluation of the proposed techniques with respect to spatial understanding and workload.
In this paper, we present an Augmented Reality (AR) system for aiding field workers of utility companies in outdoor tasks such as maintenance, planning or surveying of underground infrastructure. Our work addresses these issues using spatial interaction and visualization techniques for mobile AR applications and as well as for a new mobile device design. We also present results from evaluations of the prototype application for underground infrastructure spanning various user groups. Our application has been driven by feedback from industrial collaborators in the utility sector, and includes a translation tool for automatically importing data from utility company databases of underground assets.
We report on two experiments that deploy low-frequency audio and strong vibrations to induce haptic-like sensations throughout the human body. Vibration is quite frequently deployed in immersive systems, for example to provide collision feedback, but its actual effects are not well understood [Kruijff & Pander 2005; Kruijff et al. 2015]. The starting point of our experiments was a study by Rasmussen [Rasmussen 1982], which found that different vibration frequencies were experienced differently throughout the body. We will show how vibrations affect sensations throughout the body and may provide some directional cues to some parts of the body, yet also illustrate the difficulties.
In this paper, we report on four generations of display-sensor platforms for handheld augmented reality. The paper is organized as a compendium of requirements that guided the design and construction of each generation of the handheld platforms. The first generation, reported in [17]), was a result of various studies on ergonomics and human factors. Thereafter, each following iteration in the design-production process was guided by experiences and evaluations that resulted in new guidelines for future versions. We describe the evolution of hardware for handheld augmented reality, the requirements and guidelines that motivated its construction.
This paper provides a classification of perceptual issues in augmented reality, created with a visual processing and interpretation pipeline in mind. We organize issues into ones related to the environment, capturing, augmentation, display, and individual user differences. We also illuminate issues associated with more recent platforms such as handhelds or projector-camera systems. Throughout, we describe current approaches to addressing these problems, and suggest directions for future research.
