In most virtual reality simulations the virtual world is larger than the real walking workspace. The workspace is often bounded by the tracking area or the display devices. This paper describes a novel interaction metaphor called the Magic Barrier Tape, which allows a user to navigate in a potentially infinite virtual scene while confined to a restricted walking workspace. The technique relies on the barrier tape metaphor and its "do not cross" implicit message by surrounding the walking workspace with a virtual barrier tape in the scene. Therefore, the technique informs the user about the boundaries of his walking workspace, providing an environment safe from collisions and tracking problems. It uses a hybrid position/rate control mechanism to enable real walking inside the workspace and rate control navigation to move beyond the boundaries by "pushing" on the virtual barrier tape. It provides an easy, intuitive and safe way of navigating in a virtual scene, without break of immersion. Two experiments were conducted in order to evaluate the Magic Barrier Tape by comparing it to two state-of-the-art navigation techniques. Results showed that the Magic Barrier Tape was faster and more appreciated than the compared techniques, while being more natural and less tiring. Considering it can be used in many different virtual reality systems, it is an interaction metaphor suitable for many different applications, from the entertainment field to training simulations scenarios.

http://www.gmrv.es/~gcirio/pdf/MagicBarrierTape_VRST2009.pdf

The magic barrier tape: a novel metaphor for infinite navigation in virtual worlds with a restricted walking workspace

Position control devices enable precise selection, but significant clutching degrades performance. Clutching can be reduced with high control-display gain or pointer acceleration, but there are human and device limits. Elastic rate control eliminates clutching completely, but can make precise selection difficult. We show that hybrid position-rate control can outperform position control by 20% when there is significant clutching, even when using pointer acceleration. Unlike previous work, our RubberEdge technique eliminates trajectory and velocity discontinuities. We derive predictive models for position control with clutching and hybrid control, and present a prototype RubberEdge position-rate control device including initial user feedback.

/pdf/rubberedge-reducing-clutching-by-combining-position-and-rate-36e83fen4b.pdf

RubberEdge: reducing clutching by combining position and rate control with elastic feedback

Proteins take on their function in the cell by interacting with other proteins or biomolecular complexes. To study this process, computational methods, collectively named protein docking, are used to predict the position and orientation of a protein ligand when it is bound to a protein receptor or enzyme, taking into account chemical or physical criteria. This process is intensively studied to discover new biological functions for proteins and to better understand how these macromolecules take on these functions at the molecular scale. Pharmaceutical research also employs docking techniques for a variety of purposes, most notably in the virtual screening of large databases of available chemicals to select likely molecular candidates for drug design. The basic hypothesis of our work is that Virtual Reality (VR) and multimodal interaction can increase efficiency in reaching and analysing docking solutions, in addition to fully a computational docking approach. To this end, we conducted an ergonomic analysis of the protein–protein current docking task as it is carried out today. Using these results, we designed an immersive and multimodal application where VR devices, such as the three-dimensional mouse and haptic devices, are used to interactively manipulate two proteins to explore possible docking solutions. During this exploration, visual, audio, and haptic feedbacks are combined to render and evaluate chemical or physical properties of the current docking configuration.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01753897/document

Multisensory VR interaction for protein-docking in the CoRSAIRe project

Molecular simulations allow researchers to obtain complementary data with respect to experimental studies and to overcome some of their limitations. Current experimental techniques do not allow to observe the full dynamics of a protein at atomic detail. In return, experiments provide the structures, i.e. the spatial atomic positions, for numerous biomolecular systems, which are often used as starting point for simulation studies. In order to predict, to explain and to understand experimental results, researchers have developed a variety of biomolecular representations and algorithms. They allow to simulate the dynamic behavior of macromolecules at different scales, ranging from detailed models using quantum mechanics or classical molecular mechanics to more approximate representations. These simulations are often controlled a priori by complex and empirical settings. Most researchers visualise the result of their simulation once the computation is finished. Such post-simulation analysis often makes use of specific molecular user interfaces, by reading and visualising the molecular 3D configuration at each step of the simulation. This approach makes it difficult to interact with a simulation in progress. When a problem occurs, or when the researcher does not achieve to observe the predicted behavior, the simulation must be restarted with other settings or constraints. This can result in the waste of an important number of compute cycles, as some simulations last for a long time: several days to weeks may be required to reproduce a short timespan, a few nanoseconds, of molecular reality. Moreover, several biomolecular processes, like folding or large conformational changes of proteins, occur on even longer timescales that are inaccessible to current simulation techniques. It can thus be necessary to impose empirical constraints in order to accelerate a simulation and to reproduce

/pdf/advances-in-human-protein-interaction-interactive-and-59mf2oa632.pdf

Advances in Human-Protein Interaction - Interactive and Immersive Molecular Simulations

Freehand gesture interaction has long been proposed as a ‘natural’ input method for Augmented Reality (AR) applications, yet has been little explored for intensive applications like multiscale navigation. In multiscale navigation, such as digital map navigation, pan and zoom are the predominant interactions. A position-based input mapping (e.g. grabbing metaphor) is intuitive for such interactions, but is prone to arm fatigue. This work focuses on improving digital map navigation in AR with mid-air hand gestures, using a horizontal intangible map display. First, we conducted a user study to explore the effects of handedness (unimanual and bimanual) and input mapping (position-based and rate-based). From these findings we designed DiveZoom and TerraceZoom, two novel hybrid techniques that smoothly transition between position- and rate-based mappings. A second user study evaluated these designs. Our results indicate that the introduced input-mapping transitions can reduce perceived arm fatigue with limited impact on performance.

/pdf/augmented-reality-map-navigation-with-freehand-gestures-581ib6f9vb.pdf

Augmented Reality Map Navigation with Freehand Gestures

The "Bubble" technique is a novel interaction technique to interact with large virtual environments (VE) using a haptic device with a limited workspace. It is based on a hybrid position/rate control which enables both accurate interaction and coarse positioning in a large VE. The haptic workspace is displayed visually using a semi-transparent sphere (looking like a bubble) that surrounds the manipulated cursor. When the cursor is located inside the bubble, its motion is position-controlled. When the cursor is outside, it is rate-controlled. The user may also "feel" the inner surface of the bubble, since the spherical workspace is "haptically" displayed by applying an elastic force-feedback when crossing the surface of the bubble.

/pdf/the-bubble-technique-interacting-with-large-virtual-4pm64rhs7y.pdf

The "Bubble" technique: interacting with large virtual environments using haptic devices with limited workspace

This paper describes a new interaction technique called haptic hybrid rotations to overcome the physical angular limitations of force-feedback devices when manipulating virtual objects. This technique is based on a hybrid control of the object manipulated with the device. When approaching the angular mechanical stops of the device, the control mode switches from angular position-control to rate-control. The forcefeedback of the device is used to simulate the use of an elastic device in the rate-control mode. An experiment was carried out to compare this technique with two other common alternatives that are used when manipulating virtual objects with force-feedback devices: rotations scaling, and the clutching technique. Our results showed that haptic hybrid rotations were both the fastest and the most appreciated technique for the proposed experiment.

/pdf/haptic-hybrid-rotations-overcoming-hardware-angular-rys1brj18o.pdf

L. Dominjon

Papers

The "Bubble" technique: interacting with large virtual environments using haptic devices with limited workspace

Haptic Hybrid Rotations: Overcoming Hardware Angular Limitations of Force-Feedback Devices