A Comparative Usability Study of Bare Hand Three-Dimensional Object Selection Techniques in Virtual Environment

Xiaozhou Zhou,Weiye Xiao,Lesong Jia,Chengqi Xue,Hao Qin

doi:10.3390/sym12101723

Abstract

Object selection is the basis of natural user–computer interaction (NUI) in a virtual environment (VE). Among the three-dimensional object selection techniques employed in virtual reality (VR), bare hand-based finger clicking interaction and ray-casting are two convenient approaches with a high level of acceptance. This study involved 14 participants, constructed a virtual laboratory environment in VR, and compared the above two finger-based interaction techniques in terms of aspects of the task performance, including the success rate, total reaction time, operational deviation, and accuracy, at different spatial positions. The results indicated that the applicable distance range of finger clicking interaction and finger ray-casting was 0.2 to 1.4 m and over 0.4 m, respectively. Within the shared applicable distance, the finger clicking interaction achieved a shorter total reaction time and higher clicking accuracy. The performance of finger clicking interaction varied remarkably at the center and edge of the horizontal field of view, while no significant difference was found among ray-casting at various horizontal azimuths. The current findings could be directly applied to the application of bare-hand interaction in VR environments.

Highlights

With the popularization of low-cost gesture recognition and tracking technologies, and the rapid increasing of virtual reality commercial applications, the natural user–computer interaction (NUI) in a virtual environment (VE) has become a hot topic
It could be found that the suitable depth range for direct finger clicking interaction is 0.2 to 1.8 m, the suitable depth range for finger ray-casting is above 0.4 m, and 0.4 to 1.8 m is the suitable depth range for both interaction techniques
In the virtual reality (VR)-based 3D object selection interaction, finger clicking interaction and finger ray-casting based on bare hands are highly accepted and convenient interaction techniques

Summary

Introduction

With the popularization of low-cost gesture recognition and tracking technologies, and the rapid increasing of virtual reality commercial applications, the natural user–computer interaction (NUI) in a virtual environment (VE) has become a hot topic. The grasping metaphor is based on virtual-hand technology, which directly maps the movement of the physical hand to the movement of the virtual hand to realize the target selection [2]. Since grasping and clicking interaction are confined to the users’ physical limits, some studies have attempted to adopt nonlinear mapping techniques to break through the limitations [4]. Ray-based pointing is an intuitive and natural interaction technique [5], which is analogous to the techniques integrated by home entertainment systems [6]

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