3D Selection Vault

Pop-up Depth Views

Also known as Depth views

When a 3D cursor driven by a stylus slows down near its goal, small magnified top and side views of the space around it pop up next to it, so the user can judge depth and place the cursor exactly on a 3D target.

How it works

The cursor follows a Phantom Omni stylus in absolute mode on a stereo projection screen. When it moves slower than 35 units/s for 0.4 s, two opaque inset views appear beside it: a top view and a side view of its neighbourhood, magnified 15×, each a third the size of the scene and tilted 45°. They vanish when the cursor speeds up, so they do not hide the scene during fast movements, and only small eye movements are needed to read them. A mouse click with the other hand confirms. With 12 participants placing the cursor in spherical targets, stylus plus stereo plus pop-up views was fastest (4.25, 3.12 and 2.51 s for small, medium and large targets) against a mouse with four orthographic views (4.41, 3.31 and 2.95 s), with slightly more errors and a throughput of 1.55 against 1.46 bits/s.

Papers