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Multiscale traveling: crossing the boundary between space and scale

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Abstract

Adding multiscale interaction capabilities to 3D virtual environments may permit work with huge virtual worlds that might otherwise be too large to manage. Multiscale technology has shown potential to support user interactions. This paper reports an experimental study of two multiscale traveling techniques. Our results show that while allowing a flexible control on travel speed and accuracy is beneficial, directly traversing the space-scale could be a challenge for users, probably due to difficulties in perceiving scalable virtual space and executing scaling operations. The results suggest that more research is needed to improve the understanding of the coupling of space and scale in multiscale user interface and to harness the full potentials of multiscale traveling techniques.

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Acknowledgments

The author likes to thank George Furnas for his help on this research and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions and comments. This research was supported, in part, by Microsoft Research.

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  1. The Pennsylvania State University, 307D IST Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Xiaolong (Luke) Zhang

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Correspondence to Xiaolong (Luke) Zhang.

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Zhang, X. Multiscale traveling: crossing the boundary between space and scale. Virtual Reality 13, 101–115 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-009-0114-5

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