Hand Grip Input for Virtual Reality Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for interacting with virtual and augmented reality environments are cumbersome, inefficient, and create a significant cognitive burden on users, often requiring multiple inputs and providing insufficient feedback, which can lead to errors and energy wastage, especially in battery-operated devices.
Innovation Solution
The system enables efficient locomotion within three-dimensional environments by detecting user input, such as hand movements and gaze direction, to move the viewpoint or virtual objects, reducing the need for complex inputs and allowing intuitive navigation through the use of predefined hand grips and gaze inputs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If conventional input methods are used for interacting with virtual reality environments, then the system can process user inputs, but the interaction becomes cumbersome and creates significant cognitive burden on users
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides immediate visual feedback by displaying a representation of the user's hand within the virtual environment, showing the direct connection between physical input and virtual outcome. This feedback mechanism reduces cognitive burden by making the interaction model transparent and predictable, allowing users to understand exactly how their movements translate to virtual actions without requiring complex mental processing of multiple input steps.
2Productivity
If multiple inputs are required to achieve desired outcomes in virtual environments, then the system can perform complex operations, but the interaction takes longer and wastes energy
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and eliminates unnecessary intermediate input steps from the interaction sequence. By using direct hand movement control where the user's hand representation moves directly to the target location in the virtual environment, the system removes the need for multiple discrete inputs (such as selecting tools, confirming actions, or navigating menus), achieving complex outcomes in a single continuous gesture and significantly reducing interaction time.
3Adaptability or versatility
If head-mounted display devices are used to provide virtual reality experiences, then the system can create immersive environments, but the devices physically shield users from their surroundings and hinder social interaction
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements multi-functionality by enabling the hand representation to serve multiple interaction purposes within the virtual environment. The same hand representation can manipulate virtual objects, navigate interfaces, and communicate intent without requiring the user to remove or adjust the head-mounted display. This universal interaction method maintains immersion while facilitating natural social interaction through intuitive gestures that others can observe and understand.
Data Source
AI summary
At a computer system, in response to detecting a respective user input: if the respective user input meets first criteria requiring the one or both hands of the user maintain a first grip while a first type of movement of the one or both hands is detected, the computer system moves a virtual object in a three-dimensional environment relative to the three-dimensional environment in accordance with the movement of the one or both hands in the three-dimensional environment; and if the respective user input meets second criteria requiring the one or both hands of the user maintain a second grip while a second type of movement of the one or both hands is detected, the computer system replaces the view of the three-dimensional environment corresponding to a first viewpoint with a view of the three-dimensional environment corresponding to a second viewpoint different from the first viewpoint.