From: owner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu on behalf of Robert W. Lindeman
[gogo@seas.gwu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2000 1:22 PM
To: Ernst Kruijff
Cc: 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu
Subject: Re: system control - techniques and guidelines

Hi Ernst,

Wie geht's? I'm looking forward to the tutorial at VR2K!

I have some comments about Question 1 (as I hunker down in the snows of
Washington, DC, unable to move from my home...slowly...going...crazy...
got...to...keep...control...)

> ----------------Question 1
> 
> First of all, I would like to ask if someone knows about "unusual" system
> control techniques used in virtual environments. I have been
> looking around through publications and projects and have come to a
> preliminary (rough) categorization of system control techniques and would
> like to see if it really works... You can find the categorization at:
> http://www.uni-weimar.de/~kruijff/systemcontrol.gif
> Any comment is appreciated! Useful publications or project links which
> might be applicable (next to the "obvious" ones I have from Mine, Conner,
> and so on) are therefor also very welcome! 

I'm not sure if you already looked at it, but I developed some
taxonomy stuff for my thesis where I struggled with the same
questions (I think you have the video tape of some of it, right?)
Anyway, my dissertation (and other, shorter papers) can be found at:

  http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~gogo/gogopubs.html

One of the difficulties I encountered was separating the action from
the interface device/method. For instance, Gestures are used to both
"grab-and-drop" objects directly, as well as to access menus using
a virtual laser-pointer.

A second issue has to do with locomotion vs. manipulation. If we need
to both locomote in the environment, as well as manipulate objects,
how can we best design or combine techniques that will allow us to do
both effectively?

I know locomotion techniques and manipulation techniques have
traditionally been addressed separately, but I have been thinking for
the past year or so about more holistic approaches.
(Dirk Gently any one? ;-)

-Rob

---
Dr. Robert W. Lindeman                The George Washington University
Department of Computer Science         Institute for Computer Graphics
E-Mail: gogo@seas.gwu.edu          Web: http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~gogo/

               "Chi non risico, non-rosica."