Titulo Estágio
Feet Are Not Just For Walking: Feet Interactions for 360º Virtual Reality
Áreas de especialidade
Sistemas de Informação
Engenharia de Software
Local do Estágio
DEI
Enquadramento
Interaction in Virtual Reality (VR) systems is most often accomplished through standard controller devices. However, considering other forms of input is important in order to study alternative solutions for situations where standard controllers cannot be used or simply because we may want to provide a different user experience. For example, Müller et al. [1] considered using foot-taps as a form of direct and indirect interaction in VR. Feet interactions could have a high potential for smartphone mobile VR where controllers are not always available. Müller et al. [1] considered only feet interactions with semi-circular menus. Other possibilities for foot interaction beyond locomotion are possible, for example: using feet to point to objects inside the 3D environment, using feet to control knobs and sliders, using feet to kick or touch moving 3D objects (e.g., in games), etc.
Objetivo
In this project, the we wish to build on the idea of feet interactions for VR and apply it to 360º photo-based VR. In addition, we wish this project to contribute to the open-source Web-based VR framework A-Frame [2]. The results of this project could be applied to and take advantage of the content resulting from a project that is currently digitizing the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra [3].
Although feet detection can be accomplished through several mechanisms, in this project the aim is not to develop any feet detection mechanism. Instead, the student should take advantage of the tracking functionality of the HCT Vive headset available in the Interactive Media Lab of CISUC and attach a tracker to the user’s foot.
The objectives of this project are:
- implement a feet interaction mechanism for the A-Frame VR framework and make it available as an open-source A-Frame component. Different kinds of feet interactions should be considered (tapping, pointing, absolute positioning)
- evaluate the implemented component from the perspective of application programmers (how easy is it to use, consistency of the interface, completeness of documentation, etc.)
- explore the design space of feet interaction for 360º VR by implementing different interactive functionalities in a 360º virtual tour -- e.g., navigation, object selection, time-based media control, etc. -- using the component. These functionalities should target the digitized content from the Monastery of Santa Cruz.
- evaluate the usability and user experience of the implemented functionalities
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 1
- Study the feet interaction in HCI, beyond VR.
- Study the architecture of A-Frame and how to contribute new components to it.
- Implement a prototype for feet interaction in A-Frame.
- Write intermediate report
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 2
- Implement the proposed component and demo applications
- Evaluate the system with users (application users and application developers)
- Write the results as a scientific publication and dissertation
Condições
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Observações
Required student profile
Good programming skills, passion for HCI/interaction design
References
[1] Müller, F., McManus, J., Günther, S., Schmitz, M., Mühlhäuser, M., & Funk, M. (2019). Mind the Tap. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ’19 (pp. 1–13). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300707
[2] A-Frame. https://aframe.io/
[3] Projeto Santa Cruz CES/UC/FCT https://ces.uc.pt/pt/investigacao/projetos-de-investigacao/projetos-financiados/santacruz
Orientador
Jorge C. S. Cardoso
jorgecardoso@dei.uc.pt 📩