Enhanced 3D interaction with additional visual information

Abstract

As 3D graphics environment becomes the standards for most computer systems, it is natural to seek a 3D input device for manipulating an object in a 3D virtual world. Unlike 2D interface, however, 3D interface creates perceptual mismatches including depth perception problem. We argue that the source of the problem comes from the visual representation of the 3D world. In the preliminary research, to discover the sources of the problems, we performed a set of experiments demonstrating the effect of viewing parameters and identified that the one of the source of the depth perception problem is the visual limitation of virtual environment. The objective of our research is to enhance depth perception and 3D interaction by providing additional views based on the components like field of view, peripheral vision, depth context, region of interest and Focus+Context. In this thesis, we designed two additional views: Basic Additional View and Compound View; and implemented two behaviors of the additional view: Interactive Resizing and Holding Z. Our hypothesis is that these additional cues enhance depth perception with respect to 3D interaction. Through a set of user performance tests, we have concluded that Basic Additional View with Interactive Resizing and additional Compound View made statistically significant improvement on the performance of 3D interaction using 3D input device by enhancing depth perception.