Worlds in Miniature

Also known as WIM, World-in-Miniature

A hand-held miniature of a virtual environment provides linked proxies for selecting and manipulating objects and changing viewpoint.

How it works

Hold a small copy of the scene in one hand and touch or grab an object in the copy with the other hand; the full-size object is selected.

Papers

Richard Stoakley, Matthew J. Conway, Randy Pausch (1995). Virtual reality on a WIM: interactive worlds in miniature. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '95 doi:10.1145/223904.223938
Adriel Yeo, Benjamin W. J. Kwok, Angelene Joshna, Kan Chen, Jeannie S. A. Lee (2024). Entering the Next Dimension: A Review of 3D User Interfaces for Virtual Reality. Electronics doi:10.3390/electronics13030600
Ferran Argelaguet, Carlos Andujar (2013). A survey of 3D object selection techniques for virtual environments. Computers & Graphics doi:10.1016/j.cag.2012.12.003
Jaemoon Jung, Hanjun Park, Dongwook Hwang, Minseok Son, Donghyun Beck, Juhee Park, Woojin Park (2014). A Review on Interaction Techniques in Virtual Environments. Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management link
Susu Huang, Daqing Qi, Jiabin Yuan, Huawei Tu (2019). Review of studies on target acquisition in virtual reality based on the crossing paradigm. Virtual Reality & Intelligent Hardware doi:10.3724/sp.j.2096-5796.2019.0006
Difeng Yu, Tilman Dingler, Eduardo Velloso, Jorge Goncalves (2024). Object Selection and Manipulation in VR Headsets: Research Challenges, Solutions, and Success Measurements. ACM Computing Surveys doi:10.1145/3706417
Matthias Weise, Raphael Zender, Ulrike Lucke (2019). A Comprehensive Classification of 3D Selection and Manipulation Techniques. Proceedings of Mensch und Computer 2019 doi:10.1145/3340764.3340777
Douglas A. Bowman (1999). Interaction Techniques for Common Tasks in Immersive Virtual Environments: Design, Evaluation, and Application. PhD thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology link
Doug A. Bowman, Ernst Kruijff, Joseph J. LaViola Jr., Ivan Poupyrev (2004). 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice. Addison-Wesley, Boston (ISBN 0-201-75867-9)