Rapporto tecnico, 2014, ENG

Generalized trackball for surfing over surfaces

Malomo L., Cignoni P., Scopigno R.

Computer Science Department, University of Pisa, Italy; CNR-ISTI, Pisa, Italy; CNR-ISTI, Pisa, Italy;

We present a friendly, efficient 3D interaction technique that, generalizing the well known trackball approach, unifies and blends the two common interaction mechanisms known as panning and orbiting. The approach allows to inspect a virtual object by navigating over its surrounding space, remaining at a chosen distance and performing a sort of automatic panning over its surface. This generalized trackball allows an intuitive navigation of topologically complex shapes, by enabling unexperienced users to visit hard-to-be-reached parts better and faster than with standard GUI components. The approach is based on the construction of multiple smooth approximations of the model under inspection and, at rendering time, it constrains the camera to stay at a given distance to these approximations. The approach is designed to require negligible preprocessing and memory overhead and works well for both mouse-based and touch interfaces. A user study confirms the impact of the proposed technique.

Keywords

HCI, 3D, Navigation, Inspection

CNR authors

Cignoni Paolo, Malomo Luigi, Scopigno Roberto

CNR institutes

ISTI – Istituto di scienza e tecnologie dell'informazione "Alessandro Faedo"

ID: 281728

Year: 2014

Type: Rapporto tecnico

Creation: 2014-07-03 14:01:21.000

Last update: 2021-01-04 14:52:27.000

External links

OAI-PMH: Dublin Core

OAI-PMH: Mods

OAI-PMH: RDF

External IDs

CNR OAI-PMH: oai:it.cnr:prodotti:281728