Investigating the effect of targets’ spatial distribution on the performance of gesture interaction in virtual reality environment

Abstract: The primary task of human-computer interaction is to point to graphical elements. Selecting the targets precisely is an important part of interactive tasks such as virtual simulation and virtual assembly. In actual application conditions, especially in virtual reality(VR) environment, how to accurately and effectively select target objects has already been a popular research topic in recent years. As one of the most crucial interaction technologies in human-computer interaction, gesture interaction is widely used in VR environment. Based on the gesture interaction with ray-casting feedback, this paper conducted a multi-factor experiment in VR environment to explore the effects on the performance of target selection tasks under different depths and different perspectives. Three depth levels of 1 m, 2.5 m, and 6 m were set in the experiment. The positions of 9 circular target objects were determined at 20° intervals in the horizontal and vertical viewing angle, and the vertical plane in front of the participants was divided into nine areas. The size of the target at different depth levels remains the same. Participants need to click on circular target objects in different viewing angle areas at different depth levels. We used the HTC-Vive head-mounted display and Noitom HI5 gloves as the experimental equipment and recruited 14 participants with normal vision in the experiment. The results show that the higher the depth level, the higher the pointing accuracy of gesture interaction with ray-casting feedback, and the closer the target object is to the visual center, the higher the pointing accuracy. In addition, the results show that the spatial distribution of the ray-casting interactive pointing deviation, the participants’ actual point position is lower than the target point position, and the deviation of the actual point position on the right side of the viewing angle is significantly higher than that on the left and middle positions. The research results have reference value for the spatial distribution of targets for gesture interactive tasks in VR environment.

Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction, Gesture Interaction, Spatial Distribution, Virtual Reality

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe100976

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