Thursday, January 21, 2010

Distant Freehand Pointing and Clicking on Very Large, High Resolution Displays

This paper deals with trying to using hand motions to interact with a large screen from a long or short distance (up to touching the screen). They determined 5 characteristics of a device to be used with the display
1. accuracy
2. acquisition speed
3. pointing and selection speed
4. comfortable use
5. smooth transition between interaction distances

Then, they discussed previous work with handheld indirect pointers, laser pointers, eye, hand, and body tracking device. They discussed the problems faced by each of these methods, so they implemented their own clicking and pointing techniques.

Clicking
1. AirTap
2. ThumbTrigger

Pointing
1. RayCasting
2. Relative Pointing with Clutching
3. hybrid RayToRelative pointing

They did some tests and determined that RayCasting was poor in accuracy and comfort for the subject. The actual experiment involved selecting various targets in sequence.

Commentary

This research would do well in finding ways to replace the mouse. Since computer screens are getting bigger, a mouse would not be feasible especially if the screen takes up the whole wall. Obviously there is much more work to be done, like trying to find a balance between comfort for the user and accuracy and reliability of the device and software. Also, unless they're using a mac, they would need a second click (right click). I'm sure that other tracking systems mentioned in the previous work can also help out in this area.

3 comments:

  1. I would have also liked to have seen a right-click feature. I think the system would be pretty limited if such a feature were not available.

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  2. Would eliminating right click feature help us get closer to an ideal touch based interface rather than an extension to a mouse based interface.

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  3. I think a right click feature would still be good. I'm not sure about right click being an extension of the mouse. A mouse has a right click button, but that is not the definition of a mouse.

    Anyway, I do really like this as a replacement of the mouse or other pointers for large displays. I have tried using a mouse on a large projection screen, and it just doesn't feel right and is more difficult to use.

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