[06] HoloSketch: A Virtual Reality Sketching/Animation Tool (Deering – 1995)

Current Mood: clinicly retarded

Blogs I Commented On:

• Brandon Paulson
• Josh Peschel
• Aaron Wolin

Rant:
I noticed that, at the time of this post, Brandon's the only one who's completely up-to-date on his blog posts. Why? Because he h4x.

Summary:
Virtual reality (VR) is considered the next generation man-machine interface, but the interface is not widespread and also limited to being proof-of-concept prototypes. The goal of the paper is to test the hypothesis that VR can have mass market appeal. Thus, the author proposed HoloSketch, a 3D sketching system which can create and edit shapes in the air. Some previous “direct interaction” 3D construction systems resort to a 2D mouse for input, which only takes advantage of two out of six variables of control (hands control variables of xyz positions and three axes of rotation). Systems that do use full six-axis input devices are restricted with being in relative mode (i.e., not being at the visual site of object creation), having limited visual resolution with head-mounted devices (HMDs). In addition, all those systems built VR objects with a 2D system or text editors.

HoloSketch makes the claim of resolving the above problems. Designed to work with multiple and different VR environments, the display of focus in the paper is a “fish-tank stereo” display with an augmented 3D mouse shaped to a six-axis wand or “one-fingered data glove.” Furthermore, the display system employs highly accurate absolute (i.e., highly equivalent to real-world) measurements using relatively fat CRTs. The design philosophy for HoloSketch was to extend 2D sketching functionality into 3D. Some problems they encountered when shifting to 3D were increased screen real estate cost, suffering from the 3D consequences of Fitts’ Law, and facing rendering-resource limitations. Their solutions included shifting all main menu controls to buttons on the wand, which then displayed as a 3D pie.

HoloSketch was intended as a general-purpose 3D sketching and simple animation system. To test it, they employed a computer/traditional artist for a month. Positive comments on the system involved having the immediacy of 3D environments and increased productivity over traditional models, while negative comments included having a learning curve, having difficulty making fine adjustments with the wand, and requiring a richer interface to do other types of projects. Some limitations by the author with the system was it having less complex imagery due to hardware limitations, a less robust six-axis tracking, a software package comparable to simple 2D systems, and a less optimal 3D interface.

Discussion:
This paper was written over a decade ago, and during that time I haven’t really seen any equivalent system in widespread use at the moment. The technology’s definitely there, especially compared to back then. Graphics are more than capable of achieving the type of environment from next-gen hardware, and input devices can also achieve the type of functionality as can be see from the Wiimote. This may partly be attributed to the fact that this type of interface isn't being embraced as any more than a novelty. For what the system is, it’s an interesting concept that does a reasonable job in making sketching appear to seamlessly work in the third dimension. Since the technology is possible, I would have rather preferred seeing more focus on improving on Fitts’ law in a 3D environment instead of demonstrating unique input actions. Besides that, the techniques used to implement the various actions in the system were quite informative.