From t-jeffp@microsoft.com Mon Jun 15 14:20:09 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 OAA29505 for ; Mon, 15 Jun 1998 14:20:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (C2nnvF1b/JU7pli0wuI8pmClr6pyTV3S@[128.95.73.60]) by burdell.cc.gatech.edu (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id OAA16079 for ; Mon, 15 Jun 1998 14:20:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mail2-b.microsoft.com (mail2-b.microsoft.com [131.107.3.124]) by wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (8.8.8/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA07463 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Mon, 15 Jun 1998 11:19:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: by mail2-b.microsoft.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2166.0) id ; Mon, 15 Jun 1998 11:19:21 -0700 Message-ID: <61AC5C9A4B9CD11181A200805F57CD5404326B54@red-msg-44.dns.microsoft.com> From: Jeff Pierce To: 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu Subject: RE: input devices Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 11:18:59 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2166.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Status: RO > -----Original Message----- > From: Chris Shaw [mailto:cdshaw@umbilicus.artsci.washington.edu] > Sent: Sunday, June 14, 1998 6:26 PM > To: 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu > Subject: Re: input devices > > All, > > My device rant is as follows: > > Gloves suck > Gesture recognition sucks > Wires hanging off the user suck > [...] > 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? I have to agree with Chris that I've been completely unimpressed by any gestural glove input device that I've seen. However, I'm going to dissent with his evaluation of pinch gloves. I can make the same evaluation of buttons: why should I make the user juggle 3-4 buttons when I can just have him pinch his fingers together? Of course, there's an issue of task mapping here: if pushing a button maps naturally to the task at hand and you don't mind filling your user's hands, then by all means use the button. But if the user is performing tasks where a pinching gesture makes sense (picking up objects, for instance), then I think pinch gloves map better to the task. The Head Crusher interaction technique is a lot more fun with the gloves. Two of the world's from Randy's Building Virtual Worlds course made great use of pinch gloves: playing Godzilla and destroying Pittsburgh (you could pick up people and eat them, and grab helicopters and tanks and throw them around), and playing Spiderman (they added new sensors so you could do the traditional web-cast pinch - middle and ring fingers to palm). So yes, pinch gloves can suck if you apply them to the wrong task. But so can buttons. Incidentally, cool input device created in the class: the DataBlow. Imagine a paddle wheel made of light cardboard and suspended from the HMD in front of your mouth, with some simple electronics to measure and report how fast the wheel is rotating. Allowed you to breath fire in the Godzilla world. =) Jeff