Chapter 6

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Chapter 6 Direct Manipulation and Virtual
Environments
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6.1 Introduction

• Good interfaces produce positive feelings
• Desirable
• Visibility of objects
• Visibility of actions
• Rapid, reversible, incremental actions
• Direct manipulation of objects of interest

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6.2 Examples of Direct Manipulation Interfaces

• Windows environment (Xerox, Apple, Microsoft)
• Air Traffic Control
• Automobile?
• WYSIWYG Word Processors
• Mapping and GIS
• Modern computer games
• CAD
• Programming of industrial robots by moving robot
  by hand (actions recorded)

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5.3 Explaining Direct Manipulation

• Beneficial attributes
• Novices learn quickly
• Experts work rapidly
• Intermittent users can retain concepts
• Error messages are rarely needed
• Users see if their actions are furthering their
  goals
• Users experience less anxiety
• Users gain confidence and mastery - encourages
  exploration

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Explaining Direct Manipulation

• Problems with direct manipulation
• Spatial or visual representations can be too
  spread out
• Users must learn the graphical representations
• The visual representation may be misleading
• Typing commands with the keyboard may actually be
  faster
• Choosing the right objects, actions, metaphors is
  not easy
• May need greater system resources
• History and other tracing may be difficult to
  maintain
• Visual impaired users may have difficulty

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Explaining Direct Manipulation

• Relationship to Object-Action Interface Model
• Objects of interest are displayed
• Interface actions are close to high level task
  domain

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Icons

• An icon is an image, picture, or symbol
  representing a concept
• Icon-specific guidelines
• Represent the object or action in a familiar
  manner
• Limit the number of different icons
• Make icons stand out from the background
• Consider three-dimensional icons
• Ensure a selected icon is visible from unselected
  icons
• Ensure harmony and distinctiveness
• Design the movement animation
• Add detailed information
• Explore combinations of icons to create new
  objects or actions

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Icons

• Five levels of icon design
• Lexical qualities
• Syntactics
• Semantics
• Pragmatics
• Dynamics
• Design starting with quick sketches
• Evaluate designs via testing with users

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Direct Manipulation Programming

• Robots Programmed by workers leading them through
  task once (e.g. painting motion)
• Excel macros programmed via doing the tasks by
  hand
• MS Access Query by Example

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Programming in the User Interface

• Five challenges of programming in the user
  interface
• Sufficient computational generality
• Access to the appropriate data structures and
  operators
• Ease in programming and editing programs
• Simplicity in invocation and assignment of
  arguments
• Low risk
• Possible alternative to Agents

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6.6 Home Automation

• Remote control of devices is being extended to
• Channel audio and video
• lawn watering
• video surveillance and burglar alarms
• Multiple-zone environmental controls
• Maintenance records
• Providing direct-manipulation with rich feedback
  is vital in these applications
• Many direct-manipulation actions take place on a
  display of the floor plan
• ON and OFF can have many representations and
  present problems with choosing the appropriate
  one
• Controlling complex home equipment by direct
  manipulation reshapes how we think of homes and
  residents

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6.7 Remote Direct Manipulation

• Examples
• Telemedicine
• Robotic Space exploration
• Home automation
• Complicating factors in the architecture of
  remote environments
• Time delays
• Incomplete feedback
• Feedback from multiple sources
• Unanticipated interferences

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6.8 Virtual Environments

• Virtual reality
• Augmented reality
• Situational awareness

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Virtual Reality

• Examples
• Architecture actually walk into building and
  look around (instead of more traditional direct
  manipulation looking at it from various
  directions and perspectives)
• Possible - medicine
• On the boundary real flight simulator

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Example Firefighter Training

• This system will simulate the progress of a fire
  in a single family dwelling
• will respond to actions made by the user to
  rescue occupants and put the fire out.
• The user of the VE will be a Fire Company Officer
  being trained or evaluated for his/her skills at
  commanding a fire crew.
• In the VE, the user will speak commands that are
  translated by an operator into a predetermined
  animation sequence in the virtual environment.
• As the fire company officer issues commands, the
  virtual fire crew will go through animations
  reflecting these commands,
• fire burns in response to virtual crew actions.

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Example Meditation Chamber

• The goal of this research is design and build an
  immersive virtual environment that uses visual,
  audio, and tactile cues to create, guide, and
  maintain a patient's guided relaxation and
  meditation experience. 
• The use of meditation and guided imagery is well
  established as helpful in the treatment and
  prevention of a number of diseases
• The possibility of increasing the effectiveness
  and repeatability of this type of therapy
• This project is aimed at creating a working
  prototype of this system

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Example Virtual Geographic Information System

• VGIS (Virtual Geographic Information System) is a
  large, multifaceted project to allow navigation
  of and interaction with very large and high
  resolution, dynamically changing databases while
  retaining real-time display and interaction.
• The system allows users to navigate accurate
  geographies with sustained frame rates of 15-20
  frames per second.
• The user can not only see these terrains from any
  viewing angle but also buildings, roads, high
  resolution imagery draped on the terrain, and
  other features    

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Example Virtual Reality Phobia Therapy

• Virtual Reality Exposure involves exposing the
  patient to a virtual environment containing the
  feared stimulus in place of taking the patient
  into a real environment or having the patient
  imagine the stimulus, which is what traditional
  exposure therapy usually involves.

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Example Helping Burn Patients Cope with Pain

• using immersive VR for pain control (in addition
  to pain medicine).
• Their first virtual world used was SpiderWorld.
  Spiderworld was originally designed to treat
  spider phobics, but has also proved quite
  distracting for burn patients.
• now developing several new virtual environments
  specifically designed for treating pain (e.g.,
  especially attention-grabbing virtual
  environments).
• SnowWorld has been developed with support from
  the Paul Allen Foundation for Medical Research.
• Patients fly through an icy canyon with a river
  and frigid waterfall. Patients shoot snowballs at
  snowmen and igloos (with animated impacts).
• Since patients often report re-living their
  original burn experience during wound care,
  SnowWorld was designed to help put out the fire.

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ExampleVirtual Gorilla Exhibit

• being developed to explore techniques for using
  Virtual Reality to present information to users
  experientially that would otherwise be difficult
  for them to learn.
• Based upon actual data from the Zoo Atlanta
  gorilla exhibit,
• modeling an environment where the user can
  explore areas that are normally off limits to the
  casual visitor.

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Maybe not quite virtual reality

• "Macys.com gets rights to 3-D model software" by
  Reuters, CNET News.com, September 2, 1999
• Software developer Broderbund, sell its new
  Cosmopolitan Fashion Makeover software
  exclusively through Macys.com.
• With the Cosmopolitan software women can create
  their own three-dimensional model based on their
  own body measurements and digitally try on''
  brand name clothing.
• Users can also link via the makeover software
  directly to the Macys.com online shopping site,
  where they can buy the clothing online.

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Virtual Reality Headgear
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(1999)
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Alternative to Headgear
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Exploring using the CAVE
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Virtual Environments

• Successful virtual environments depend on the
  smooth integration of
• Visual Display
• Head position sensing
• Hand-position sensing
• Force feedback
• Sound input and output
• Other sensations
• Cooperative and competitive virtual reality

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U Washington Virtual Reality Projects
31. Engineering Study of an Endoscope Design31.
Virtual Mirrors31. Starship31. Human-Computer
Symbiote31. Virtual Chess36. 4d mouse36.
collaborative mixed reality36. VR Interaction
Techniques39. Collaboration through
Wearables39. Phobia Desensitization41. VRD 41.
architecture and virtual reality 41. Multimodal
Interfaces41. situation awareness41. Medical
Robotic Interfaces46. VRD Emulator46.
laparoscopic surgical simulator48. Flicker
Sensitivity48. knowledge base project 48. /48.
self-motion perception52. Design for a Low
Vision Aid52. PRISM54. LIMIT54. Interface
Sickness54. design for a low vision aid using a
scanned laser display57. visual-inertial
nulling cross-over asymmetry57. design for a
low vision aid57. Measures for Presence60.
functional effects of refractive surgery on
driving performance
1. Virtual Retinal Display (VRD)2. Shared
Space3. Learning in Virtual Environments4. PAIN
MAN5. Virtual Motion Controller6. Interactive
VRD7. Virtual Pilot8. Greenspace9. Virtual
Chess10. Starship11. New Media11. Expert
Surgical Assistant13. Tactile Augmentation13.
Geoscientific Visualization13. Motion
Sickness16. FLIGHT17. Blocksmith18. SS Working
Group19. Parkinson's Project20. SS Working
Group21. Driving Simulator22. Two-Handed User
Interface22. Motion Sickness24. Wearable
Interfaces25. Virtual Classroom26. Situation
Awareness27. CEDeS Lab27. Endoscopic Surgery
Simulator27. Virtual Playground27. Virtual
Reality Toolkit
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Progress on Visual Display

• The Virtual Retinal Display (VRD) team has been
  focused on developing improvements to the current
  prototype systems and on creating the parts
  needed for future prototypes. The VRD, based on
  the concept of scanning an image directly on the
  retina of the viewer's eye, was invented at the
  HIT Lab in 1991. The development program began in
  November 1993 with the goal of producing a full
  color, wide field-of-view, high resolution, high
  brightness, low cost virtual display.
• http//www.hitl.washington.edu/research/vrd/projec
  t.html

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Progress on Movement Sensing

• For some applications, a hands-free,
  body-operated walking interface is ideal
• the UW HIT Lab has been developing prototypes of
  "sufficient-motion" interfaces, which allow the
  user to interact by using a subset of the
  real-world kinesthetic inputs.
• Though the ranges of motion are less than full,
  these inputs are sufficient to convince the user
  that he or she is moving in the virtual world.
• Development of these interface devices is called
  the Virtual Motion Controller (VMC) Project.

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Virtual Motion Controller

• The HIT Lab's VMC working prototype measures
  body position over the working surface with an
  arrangement of four weight sensors
• The curved working surface provides important
  feedback to the user about his or her physical
  location, and therefore body locomotion input to
  the device.

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Progress on Cooperative Augmented Reality

• The Shared Space interface demonstrates how
  augmented reality, the overlaying of virtual
  objects on the real world, can radically enhance
  face-to-face and remote collaboration.
• For remote collaboration, system allows
  life-sized live virtual video images of remote
  user to be overlaid on the local real
  environment, supporting spatial cues and removing
  the need to be physically present at a desktop
  machine to conference.
• computer vision techniques are used to precisely
  register virtual images with physical objects,
  extending the currently popular "Tangible
  Interface" metaphor.
• work in the context of a collaborative card-game
  application that allows face-to-face and remote
  users to collaboratively interact with each other
  and virtual animations.
• http//www.hitl.washington.edu/research/shared_spa
  ce/

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Science Fiction?

• Most of this stuff wont be in an office near you
  next year
• But the future comes quickly in computer science !

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End Chapter 6