A PDA-based See-through Interface within an Immersive Environment

Abstract

With the use of an immersive display system such as the CAVE, the user is able to perceive a 3D environment realistically. However, the interaction on such systems faces inherent difficulties such as inaccurate tracking, lack of depth cues, and unstable spatial manipulation without the sense of touch. In this paper, we propose a see-through lens interface using a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) for supporting spatial manipulation within an immersive display. Compared to related techniques, a PDA-based see-through lens interface includes the following advantages, which we believe will provide more natural and flexible manipulation and interaction schemes in an immersive environment: physical contact of the screen surface for easy 2D manipulation in 3D space, built-in controls for immediate command execution, and a built-in display for a flexible GUI (graphical user interface). This paper describes the basic ideas and implementation details of the proposed system and some functionalities provided with the interface, such as image-based selection of a 3D object.