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Design and Development of a Virtual Reality Application to Introduce Gesture-Based Interaction

Källberg, Johan LU (2016) MAMM01 20151
Ergonomics and Aerosol Technology
Abstract
This thesis provides insight into the development of Virtual Reality(VR) applications
with the purpose of introducing users to a new gesture interaction platform. Gesturebased
interaction and VR are two rapidly evolving technologies with a great potential to
complement each other.
The gestures used are based on a cognitive model of holding a sphere in your hands
and tapping on its surface. By using the hand tracker Leap Motion and the Head Mounted
Display Oculus Rift the sphere shaped controller is placed in the user's virtual hands. The
thesis is a collaboration with Erghis Technologies AB who developed the concept of the
sphere and software to track the gestures.
Gesture based interfaces are called natural user interfaces. But a... (More)
This thesis provides insight into the development of Virtual Reality(VR) applications
with the purpose of introducing users to a new gesture interaction platform. Gesturebased
interaction and VR are two rapidly evolving technologies with a great potential to
complement each other.
The gestures used are based on a cognitive model of holding a sphere in your hands
and tapping on its surface. By using the hand tracker Leap Motion and the Head Mounted
Display Oculus Rift the sphere shaped controller is placed in the user's virtual hands. The
thesis is a collaboration with Erghis Technologies AB who developed the concept of the
sphere and software to track the gestures.
Gesture based interfaces are called natural user interfaces. But a natural experience
should be easy to understand and meet the users' expectation to interactions. To meet
this design challenge the interface was broken down into the actions the user can perform
and making sure that they were conveyed to the user and reinforced with feedback. The

ow between user action and system feedback was ne tuned for every gesture to improve
the feeling of the interaction. When using the system the users are rst shown the gestures
on a video played in the virtual environment. After the short introduction they can form
an understanding about the gestures by interacting with the system.
For the interaction loop to
ow the gestures needs to be reliably tracked. The gestures
are easier to track when the hands are easy for the camera to see. This means that gesture
interfaces designed for the users to position their hands in a way that can easily bee seen
by the tracking camera will improve the user's experience.
By placing the tracking camera of the Leap Motion on the Oculus Rift the volumes of
their separate tracking systems can be calibrated to match in the real and virtual world.
This can be achieved by using a mount and software released during the development of
this thesis.
The move of the Leap Motion from the table to the HMD was an unforeseen requirement
found at the end of development. The change in orientation had a negative impact on
tracking reliability since the gestures of the sphere were poorly adapted to this new position
of the camera.
The developed application "Control Sphere" got a very positive response from user
evaluation and has seen more than 200 downloads. The gestures combined with the visual
feedback was seen as an engaging method of interaction. A version of the application was
created for a regular monitor and user tests conrmed that performing the gestures in VR
was a more natural experience. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Källberg, Johan LU
supervisor
organization
course
MAMM01 20151
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Design Development Virtual Reality Gesture-Based Interaction Hand Tracking
language
English
id
8870512
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 13:25:51
date last changed
2016-04-04 13:25:51
@misc{8870512,
  abstract     = {{This thesis provides insight into the development of Virtual Reality(VR) applications
with the purpose of introducing users to a new gesture interaction platform. Gesturebased
interaction and VR are two rapidly evolving technologies with a great potential to
complement each other.
The gestures used are based on a cognitive model of holding a sphere in your hands
and tapping on its surface. By using the hand tracker Leap Motion and the Head Mounted
Display Oculus Rift the sphere shaped controller is placed in the user's virtual hands. The
thesis is a collaboration with Erghis Technologies AB who developed the concept of the
sphere and software to track the gestures.
Gesture based interfaces are called natural user interfaces. But a natural experience
should be easy to understand and meet the users' expectation to interactions. To meet
this design challenge the interface was broken down into the actions the user can perform
and making sure that they were conveyed to the user and reinforced with feedback. The

ow between user action and system feedback was ne tuned for every gesture to improve
the feeling of the interaction. When using the system the users are rst shown the gestures
on a video played in the virtual environment. After the short introduction they can form
an understanding about the gestures by interacting with the system.
For the interaction loop to 
ow the gestures needs to be reliably tracked. The gestures
are easier to track when the hands are easy for the camera to see. This means that gesture
interfaces designed for the users to position their hands in a way that can easily bee seen
by the tracking camera will improve the user's experience.
By placing the tracking camera of the Leap Motion on the Oculus Rift the volumes of
their separate tracking systems can be calibrated to match in the real and virtual world.
This can be achieved by using a mount and software released during the development of
this thesis.
The move of the Leap Motion from the table to the HMD was an unforeseen requirement
found at the end of development. The change in orientation had a negative impact on
tracking reliability since the gestures of the sphere were poorly adapted to this new position
of the camera.
The developed application "Control Sphere" got a very positive response from user
evaluation and has seen more than 200 downloads. The gestures combined with the visual
feedback was seen as an engaging method of interaction. A version of the application was
created for a regular monitor and user tests conrmed that performing the gestures in VR
was a more natural experience.}},
  author       = {{Källberg, Johan}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Design and Development of a Virtual Reality Application to Introduce Gesture-Based Interaction}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}