Journal of Computing Science and Engineering

Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers (한국정보과학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Z-Clutching: Interaction Technique for Navigating 3D Virtual Environment Using a Generic Haptic Device

  • Song, Deok-Jae (School of Computing, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)) ;
  • Kim, Seokyeol (School of Computing, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)) ;
  • Park, Jinah (School of Computing, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST))
  • Received : 2016.02.06
  • Accepted : 2016.03.06
  • Published : 2016.03.30
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

Navigating a large 3D virtual environment using a generic haptic device can be challenging since the haptic device is usually bounded by its own physical workspace. On the other hand, mouse interaction easily handles the situation with a clutching mechanism-simply lifting the mouse and repositioning its location in the physical space. Since the haptic device is used for both input and output at the same time, in many cases, its freedom needs to be limited in order to accommodate such a situation. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism called Z-Clutching for 3D navigation of a virtual environment by using only the haptic device without any interruption or sacrifice in the given degrees of freedom of the device's handle. We define the clutching state which is set by pulling the haptic handle back into space. It acts similarly to lifting the mouse off the desk. In this way, the user naturally feels the haptic feedback based on the depth (z-direction), while manipulating the haptic device and moving the view as desired. We conducted a user study to evaluate the proposed interaction technique, and the results are promising in terms of the usefulness of the proposed mechanism.

Keywords

References

  1. A. Fischer and J. M. Vance, "Phantom haptic device implemented in a projection screen virtual environment," in Proceedings of the Workshop on Virtual Environments 2003, Zurich, Swetzland, 2003, pp. 225-229.
  2. L. Dominjon, A. Lecuyer, J. M. Burkhardt, and S. Richir, "A comparison of three techniques to interact in large virtual environments using haptic devices with limited workspace," in Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Advances in Computer Graphics, Hangzhou, China, 2006, pp. 288-299.
  3. M. Isshiki, T. Sezaki, K. Akahane, N. Hashimoto, and M. Sato, "A proposal of a clutch mechanism for 6DOF haptic devices," in Proceedings of 18th International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence (ICAT2008), Yokohama, Japan, 2008, pp. 57-63.
  4. S. K. Card, W. K. English, and B. J. Burr, "Evaluation of mouse, rate-controlled isometric joystick, step keys, and text keys for text selection on a CRT," Ergonomics, vol. 21, no. 8, pp. 601-613, 1978. https://doi.org/10.1080/00140137808931762
  5. S. Grange, F. Conti, P. Helmer, P. Rouiller, and C. Baur, "Delta haptic device as a nanomanipulator," in Intelligent Systems and Advanced Manufacturing (Proceedings of SPIE vol. 4568), Bellingham, WA: International Society for Optics and Photonics, pp. 100-111.
  6. F. Gosselin, C. Andriot, F. Bergez, and X. Merlhiot, "Widening 6-DOF haptic devices workspace with an additional degree of freedom," in Proceedings of the 2nd Joint Eurohaptics Conference and Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, Tsukuba, Japan, 2007, pp. 452-457.
  7. I. Garlington, "Expanding the usable workspace of a haptic device by placing it on a moving base," M.S. thesis, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 2012.
  8. F. Conti and O. Khatib, "Spanning large workspaces using small haptic devices," in Proceedings of the 1st Joint Eurohaptics Conference and Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, Pisa, Italy, 2005, pp. 183-188.
  9. L. Dominjon, A. Lecuyer, J. M. Burkhardt, G. Andrade-Barroso, and S. Richir, "The "bubble" technique: interacting with large virtual environments using haptic devices with limited workspace," in Proceedings of the 1st Joint Eurohaptics Conference and Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, Pisa, Italy, 2005, pp. 639-640.
  10. R. A. Pavlik and J. M. Vance, "Expanding haptic workspace for coupled-object manipulation," in Proceedings of ASME 2011 World Conference on Innovative Virtual Reality, Milan, Italy, 2011, pp. 293-299.
  11. G. Casiez, D. Vogel, Q. Pan, and C. Chaillou, "RubberEdge: reducing clutching by combining position and rate control with elastic feedback," in Proceedings of the 20th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, Newport, RI, 2007, pp. 129-138.
  12. D. J. Song and J. Park, "Anyhaptics: a haptic plug-in for existing interactive 3D graphics applications," in Proceedings of the 20th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2014, pp. 27-30.
  13. M. Nancel, D. Vogel, and E. Lank, "Clutching is not (necessarily) the enemy," in Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Seoul, Korea, 2015, pp. 4199-4202.