Fabio Marco Caputo

Evaluation of basic object manipulation modes for low-cost immersive Virtual Reality

Object manipulation is a fundamental task in several applications of 3D and Virtual Reality (VR) interactive applications, like scientific or medical visualization tools, simulators and games and the development of effective metaphors and tools for its practical implementation is extremely important for their success. In this paper we present the result of a usability test performed to compare different paradigms and implementations for atomic gesture effects (rotation and translation) in an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) setup. The setup is based on low cost devices, e.g. the Oculus DK2 for scene display and a Leap Motion controller for gesture interaction. Four different manipulation modalities using different combinations of the translation and rotation paradigms have been compared both in terms of task completion efficiency and user acceptance. Experimental results can be used to derive useful suggestions for effective interaction design for VR applications based on similar low cost hardware devices.

Comparing 3D trajectories for simple mid-air gesture recognition

Abstract User interfaces based on mid-air gesture recognition are expected to become popular in the near future due to the increasing diffusion of virtual, mixed reality applications and smart devices. The design of this kind of interfaces would be clearly helped by the availability of simple and effective methods to compare short 3D trajectories, allowing fast and accurate recognition of command gestures given a few examples. This approach, quite popular in 2D touch-based interfaces with the so-called “dollar” algorithm family, has not been deeply investigated for 3D mid-air gestures. In this paper, we explore several metrics that can be used for mid-air gesture comparison and present experimental tests performed to analyze their effectiveness on practical tasks. By adopting smart choices in gesture traces processing and comparing, it was possible to obtain very good results in the retrieval and recognition of simple command gestures, from complete or even partial hand trajectories. The approach was also extended in order to recognize gestures characterized by both hand and finger motions and tested on a recent benchmark, reaching state of the art performances.

Shape Retrieval and 3D Gestural Interaction

Despite the emerging importance of Virtual Reality and immersive interaction research, no papers on application of 3D shape retrieval to this topic have been presented in recent 3D Object Retrieval workshops. In this paper we discuss how geometric processing and geometric shape retrieval methods could be extremely useful to implement effective natural interaction systems for 3D immersive virtual environments. In particular, we will discuss how the reduction of complex gesture recognition tasks to simple geometric retrieval ones could be useful to solve open issue in gestural interaction. Algorithms for robust point description in trajectories data with learning of inter-subject invariant features could, for example, solve relevant issues of direct manipulation algorithms, and 3D object retrieval methods could be used as well to build dictionaries and implement guidance system to maximize usability of natural gestural interfaces.

The Smart Pin: An effective tool for object manipulation in immersive virtual reality environments

Abstract In this paper, we present a novel method for object manipulation in immersive virtual environments. The proposed technique exploits a novel widget, called “Smart Pin”, to enable the user to select, translate, rotate and scale objects relying entirely on the positional tracking of a single hand. It is, therefore, suitable for several real-world applications where handheld devices are not available, the surrounding environmental conditions make orientation tracking hard, and the non-dominant hand may be involved in different tasks. We evaluated the method with users on two classical tasks such as detail search and docking, comparing it with a successful two-handed manipulation technique (Handlebar). The measured execution efficiency obtained with the two methods was similar, but most users preferred the Smart Pin for its gestural comfort and ease of use.

The smart pin: a novel object manipulation technique for immersive virtual environments

In this paper we describe a demo setup showing the potential usefulness of a novel single-handed manipulation technique, designed to be used with immersive Virtual Environments. The technique allows manipulation control over objects in the scene through the use of a single 3D widget, allowing easy and separated control of translation, rotation and scaling actions. The goal is to provide an intuitive, easy-to-use and accurate way to perform simple manipulation tasks using only one hand. User tests demonstrated that the widget is intuitive and effective.

Shape retrieval and 3D gestural interaction: position paper

Despite the emerging importance of Virtual Reality and immersive interaction research, no papers on application of 3D shape retrieval to this topic have been presented in recent 3D Object Retrieval workshops. In this paper we discuss how geometric processing and geometric shape retrieval methods could be extremely useful to implement effective natural interaction systems for 3D immersive virtual environments. In particular, we will discuss how the reduction of complex gesture recognition tasks to simple geometric retrieval ones could be useful to solve open issue in gestural interaction. Algorithms for robust point description in trajectories data with learning of inter-subject invariant features could, for example, solve relevant issues of direct manipulation algorithms, and 3D object retrieval methods could be used as well to build dictionaries and implement guidance system to maximize usability of natural gestural interfaces.

Position paper: Shape Retrieval and 3D Gestural Interaction

Despite the emerging importance of Virtual Reality and immersive interaction research, no papers on application of 3D shape retrieval to this topic have been presented in recent 3D Object Retrieval workshops. In this paper we discuss how geometric processing and geometric shape retrieval methods could be extremely useful to implement effective natural interaction systems for 3D immersive virtual environments. In particular, we will discuss how the reduction of complex gesture recognition tasks to simple geometric retrieval ones could be useful to solve open issue in gestural interaction. Algorithms for robust point description in trajectories data with learning of inter-subject invariant features could, for example, solve relevant issues of direct manipulation algorithms, and 3D object retrieval methods could be used as well to build dictionaries and implement guidance system to maximize usability of natural gestural interfaces.