From cdshaw@umbilicus.artsci.washington.edu Sun Jun 14 21:26:02 1998 Received: from burdell.cc.gatech.edu (root@burdell.cc.gatech.edu [130.207.3.207]) by lennon.cc.gatech.edu (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id VAA14148 for ; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 21:26:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (dwMANE7q9WZ6MbSGVE8/wn7tfR+MEa0Z@[128.95.73.60]) by burdell.cc.gatech.edu (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id VAA19695 for ; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 21:25:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: from umbilicus.artsci.washington.edu (umbilicus.artsci.washington.edu [128.95.248.206]) by wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (8.8.8/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA24395 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:25:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cdshaw@localhost) by umbilicus.artsci.washington.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/8.6.10) id SAA22285 for 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:25:48 -0700 From: Chris Shaw Message-Id: <199806150125.SAA22285@umbilicus.artsci.washington.edu> Subject: Re: input devices To: 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu (3D UI List) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:25:48 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <199806101930.PAA04116@lennon.cc.gatech.edu> from "Doug Bowman" at Jun 10, 98 03:30:05 pm Reply-To: cdshaw@cs.URegina.ca X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO All, My device rant is as follows: Gloves suck Gesture recognition sucks Wires hanging off the user suck Probably everybody agrees with #3, but wires at least serve a useful purpose. Wires help you find the device when it has been misplaced. I can't tell you how many times the phrase "Where's the Phone?" has been uttered at my place. Thankfully, my portable phone has a "show yourself" feature (the base station has a ring button). My rant against gloves is that they are tied to the user, and they don't measure a definite event. The dream with gloves is that the user can mime manipulations of the real world. The problem is that people use their tactile sense to manipulate objects, and the tactile sense is not engaged. Pinch gloves are an acknowledgement that the tactile sense is necessary, but since they operate as 3-4 buttons, why bother with a glove? My other problem with gloves is that the sensor is mounted on the back of the hand. The 3D spatial map of one's body is not as detailed in the back of the hand as it is in the fingertips. My favorite device is a Polhemus sensor with 3 buttons attached in a curve parallel to the X axis. The X axis is in line with the wire. This arrangement makes the bat either-handed, and the thumb or forefinger can hit 2 of the 3 buttons each. The sensor are small and light, so moving them about by the FINGERTIPS is easy. The small size affords a precision grip. The precision grip allows movement of the device while the hand is stable. The fingertips move the device. The various 3D mice are too large to be manipulated by the fingertips alone. They require the fingers to be somewhat outstretched to accomodate the object, and this puts your hand in a power grip. With the power grip, fingertip motion has limited effect. I like buttons because they are definite. Buttons are successful, and we should keep them. User complaints about my favorite device are that some men feel that the device is too small. This is good news, because it enlarges the volume budget, with the potential of making room for more electronics. The other problem is that the button arrangement sometimes allows for accidental opposing-force clicks of the button opposing the one intended. The diagram below shows the button layout (profile view). The buttons are mounted on planes perpendicular to the screen. Sometimes, opposing forces on 1 & 3 can result in both unintentionally being hit (indicated by the arrows on 1 & 3). 2 ___ | \ ->1| \3 <- <-X axis |_____\_______ -- Chris Shaw University of Regina cdshaw@cs.URegina.ca Assistant Professor http://www.cs.uregina.ca/~cdshaw