A demonstration of tablet-based interaction panels for immersive environments

Our demo deals with the need in immersive virtual reality for devices that support expressive and adaptive interaction in a low-cost, eyes-free manner. Leveraging rapid prototyping techniques for fabrication, we have developed a variety of panels that can be overlaid on multi-touch tablets and smartphones. The panels are coupled with an app running on the multi-touch device that exchanges commands and state information over a wireless network with the virtual reality application. Sculpted features of the panels provide tactile disambiguation of control widgets and an onscreen heads-up display provides interaction state information. A variety of interaction mappings can be provided through software to support several classes of interaction techniques in virtual environments. We foresee additional uses for applications where eyes-free use and adaptable interaction interfaces can be beneficial.

[1]  Kenneth R. Moser,et al.  Improvements in visually directed walking in virtual environments cannot be explained by changes in gait alone , 2012, SAP.

[2]  Andrew Jones,et al.  Achieving eye contact in a one-to-many 3D video teleconferencing system , 2009, ACM Trans. Graph..

[3]  Mark Bolas,et al.  Redirected Walking in Mixed Reality Training Applications , 2013 .

[4]  Mark T. Bolas,et al.  Spatial Misregistration of Virtual Human Audio: Implications of the Precedence Effect , 2012, IVA.

[5]  Mark T. Bolas,et al.  Tablet-based interaction panels for immersive environments , 2014, 2014 IEEE Virtual Reality (VR).

[6]  Mark T. Bolas,et al.  Augmented reality using personal projection and retroreflection , 2011, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[7]  Jing Liu,et al.  An autostereoscopic projector array optimized for 3D facial display , 2013, SIGGRAPH '13.

[8]  Mark T. Bolas,et al.  A design for a smartphone-based head mounted display , 2011, 2011 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference.

[9]  Mark T. Bolas,et al.  Immersive training games for smartphone-based head mounted displays , 2012, 2012 IEEE Virtual Reality Workshops (VRW).

[10]  Mark T. Bolas,et al.  Comparability of narrow and wide field-of-view head-mounted displays for medium-field distance judgments , 2012, SAP.

[11]  Hannes Kaufmann,et al.  Flexible spaces: Dynamic layout generation for infinite walking in virtual environments , 2013, 2013 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI).

[12]  Albert A. Rizzo,et al.  FAAST: The Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit , 2011, 2011 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference.