Manipulating objects in virtual worlds: Categorization and empirical evaluation of interaction techniques

The acceptance of virtual environment (VE) technology requires scrupulous o ptimization of the most basic interactions to maximize user performance and provide efficient and enjoyable virtual interfaces. Motivated by insuffici ent understanding of human factors implications in the design of interactio n techniques for object manipulation in virtual worlds, this paper presents results of a formal study that evaluated two basic interaction metaphors f or virtual manipulation-virtual pointer and virtual hand-in object selectio n and positioning tasks. In this work, we survey and categorize current vir tual manipulation techniques according to their basic design metaphors, con duct experimental studies of the most basic techniques, and derive guidelin es to aid designers in the practical development of VE applications. (C) 19 99 Academic Press.