From bowman@cc.gatech.edu Tue Oct 6 10:52:29 1998 Received: from burdell.cc.gatech.edu (root@burdell.cc.gatech.edu [130.207.3.207]) by lennon.cc.gatech.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA11011 for ; Tue, 6 Oct 1998 10:52:26 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (IDENT:k4qwCehhF5ij7WmYYnLT8yx4UF9MeD+Z@[128.95.73.60]) by burdell.cc.gatech.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA05330 for ; Tue, 6 Oct 1998 10:54:13 -0400 (EDT) Received: from burdell.cc.gatech.edu (root@burdell.cc.gatech.edu [130.207.3.207]) by wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (8.8.8/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA16142 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Tue, 6 Oct 1998 07:53:46 PDT Received: from lennon.cc.gatech.edu (bowman@lennon.cc.gatech.edu [130.207.7.134]) by burdell.cc.gatech.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA05222 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Tue, 6 Oct 1998 10:53:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from bowman@localhost) by lennon.cc.gatech.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id KAA10998 for 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu; Tue, 6 Oct 1998 10:51:51 -0400 (EDT) From: bowman@cc.gatech.edu (Doug Bowman) Message-Id: <199810061451.KAA10998@lennon.cc.gatech.edu> Subject: Chat notes To: 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu (3D UI List) Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 10:51:51 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Status: RO Hi everyone, We had our first official 3DUI chat on Friday. The turnout was a little low - 2 people came! :-) A couple of others tried to make it, but apparently the Yahoo chat applets are a little buggy. However, Ernst and I did have a productive talk, and I wanted to share with the rest of you some of the things we discussed. We started with the question, "What do VE application designers/developers need to know about 3D interaction?" This topic is crucial to the tutorial we plan to present in March at VR '99. -We noted that interaction in the real world is not usually completely 3D. For example, walking or writing is 2D, or at most 2-1/2-D. This means that most people's 3D skills (motor, cognitive, perceptual) may not be as well developed as we tend to think. -We talked about the powerful idea of using constraints in 3D interaction, in combination with the use of our natural proprioceptive (body) sense. This was the topic of Mark Mine's doctoral thesis, as well as a SIGGRAPH paper of his. This leads to a guideline for designers to use constraints and body-centric tools as much as possible. -Speaking of guidelines, we discussed how that might be a good unifying theme for the tutorial. We would not only present 3D interaction research, but also relate the research to specific guidelines for designers - the "take-home message". We discussed how there would likely be some general guidelines and also specific guidelines for specific interaction tasks such as travel, selection, and manipulation. In fact, a paper by Joe LaViola had exactly this format, and thus would be an important resource. Another source of guidelines would be the archives of the 3DUI and CVDE mailing lists. -Another example guideline: "Interaction techniques must be chosen with respect to application requirements - it's not likely that we'll find a single technique that is optimal for every situation." -We also discussed how another interesting theme for the tutorial might be to go over some common myths about 3D interaction. Exploding myths often helps people to understand important issues. For example, "VE interaction should always be as natural (similar to real-world interaction) as possible." This is obvious once you see the performance gains from being able to go beyond real-world interaction (e.g. the magic arm in the go-go technique), but many people still implicitly assume that VEs should act just like the real world because it's never been presented to them in that way. In order to reduce the "temporal limitations" of our chat, feel free to join in at this point. We invite any comments or criticisms or additions to the above. We'll also be scheduling another chat soon. I've promised Ivan that he can schedule this one on Japanese time. :) --Doug -- Doug Bowman, Ph.D. Candidate College of Computing, GVU Center, Georgia Tech Room 388 CRB, (404) 894-5104 bowman@cc.gatech.edu http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Phd/Doug.Bowman/