Computing Object Selection Difficulty in VR using Run-time Contextual Analysis

PubDate: November 2020

Teams: University of Würzburg

Writers: Chris Zimmerer；Ronja Heinrich；Martin Fischbach；Jean-Luc Lugrin；Marc Erich Latoschik

PDF: Computing Object Selection Difficulty in VR using Run-time Contextual Analysis

Abstract

This paper introduces a method for computing the difficulty of selection tasks in virtual environments using pointing metaphors by operationalizing an established human motor behavior model. In contrast to previous work, the difficulty is calculated automatically at run-time for arbitrary environments. We present and provide the implementation of our method within Unity 3D. The difficulty is computed based on a contextual analysis of spatial boundary conditions, i.e., target object size and shape, distance to the user, and occlusion. We believe our method will enable developers to build adaptive systems that automatically equip the user with the most appropriate selection technique according to the context. Further, it provides a standard metric to better evaluate and compare different selection techniques.