Design and Implementation of Virtual Roaming Control Method Based on Pen Tablet

Abstract

A natural game interaction method can bring a good game experience to users, but pen-type interaction, which is one of the natural human-computer interaction methods, rarely appears in games, especially three-dimensional games. The main reason is that most pen-type interactive devices are developed for two-dimensional applications such as writing and painting. Whether the pen-based interaction can be extended from two-dimensional to three-dimensional is the key to whether the pen-based interaction can become one of the leading interactive methods of the game. The pen tablet is one of the most widely used pen-type interactive devices, and a virtual tour is an essential part of the game. Therefore, this paper takes this as a breakthrough and proposes a virtual roaming control method based on the pen tablet. First, we analyze the performance characteristics of the pen tablet and get the data information available for the pen tablet. Then, we design various virtual roaming actions such as walking, running, jumping, viewing angle rotation, view zooming, space-free displacement, acceleration, and deceleration and establish an association with the operation of the pen tablet. At the same time, the maximum likelihood function constraint was added to improve the error tolerance rate of viewing angle rotation. Finally, two games were developed to verify their effectiveness. The experimental results show that the pen tablet performs well in completing virtual roaming tasks, especially when users need to achieve similar writing and roaming tasks without switching devices back and forth. This maintains the user’s habit of writing with pen and paper and improves the interactive experience. The method is a new exploration of the application of pen-based interaction in games, which lays the foundation for future game development based on pen-based interaction.