3D User Interfaces Using Tracked Multi-touch Mobile Devices

Abstract

Multi-touch mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous due to the proliferation of smart phone platforms such as the iPhone and Android. Recent research has explored the use of multi-touch input for 3D user interfaces on displays including large touch screens, tablets, and mobile devices. This research explores the benefits of adding six-degree-of-freedom tracking to a multi-touch mobile device for 3D interaction. We analyze and propose benefits of using tracked multi-touch mobile devices (TMMDs) with the goal of developing effective interaction techniques to handle a variety of tasks within immersive 3D user interfaces. We developed several techniques using TMMDs for virtual object manipulation, and compared our techniques to existing best-practice techniques in a series of user studies. We did not, however, find performance advantages for TMMD-based techniques. We discuss our observations and propose alternate interaction techniques and tasks that may benefit from TMMDs.