Version 1
: Received: 27 May 2024 / Approved: 28 May 2024 / Online: 28 May 2024 (05:33:54 CEST)
How to cite:
McDonald, B. R.; Zhang, Q.; Nanzatov, A. Z.; Pena-Castillo, L.; Meruvia-Pastor, O. SmartVR Pointer: Using Smartphones and Gaze Orientation for Selection and Navigation in Virtual Reality. Preprints2024, 2024051815. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202405.1815.v1
McDonald, B. R.; Zhang, Q.; Nanzatov, A. Z.; Pena-Castillo, L.; Meruvia-Pastor, O. SmartVR Pointer: Using Smartphones and Gaze Orientation for Selection and Navigation in Virtual Reality. Preprints 2024, 2024051815. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202405.1815.v1
McDonald, B. R.; Zhang, Q.; Nanzatov, A. Z.; Pena-Castillo, L.; Meruvia-Pastor, O. SmartVR Pointer: Using Smartphones and Gaze Orientation for Selection and Navigation in Virtual Reality. Preprints2024, 2024051815. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202405.1815.v1
APA Style
McDonald, B. R., Zhang, Q., Nanzatov, A. Z., Pena-Castillo, L., & Meruvia-Pastor, O. (2024). SmartVR Pointer: Using Smartphones and Gaze Orientation for Selection and Navigation in Virtual Reality. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202405.1815.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
McDonald, B. R., Lourdes Pena-Castillo and Oscar Meruvia-Pastor. 2024 "SmartVR Pointer: Using Smartphones and Gaze Orientation for Selection and Navigation in Virtual Reality" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202405.1815.v1
Abstract
Some of the barriers preventing Virtual Reality (VR) from being widely adopted are the cost and unfamiliarity of VR systems. Here we propose that in many cases the specialized controllers shipped with most VR head-mounted displays can be replaced by a regular smartphone, cutting the cost of the system, and allowing users to interact in VR using a device they are already familiar with. To achieve this, we developed SmartVR Pointer, an approach that uses smartphones as a replacement for the specialized controllers for two essential operations in VR: selection and navigation by teleporting. In SmartVR Pointer a camera mounted on the head-mounted display (HMD) is tilted downwards so that it points to where the user will naturally be holding their phone in front of them. SmartVR Pointer supports three selection modalities: tracker-based,gaze-based, and combined/hybrid. In the tracker-based SmartVR pointer selection we use image-based tracking to track a QR code displayed on the phone screen and them map the phone’s position to a pointer shown within the field of view of the camera in the Virtual Environment. In the gaze-based selection modality the user places the pointer using their gaze and taps on the phone for selection. The combined technique is a hybrid between head-gaze-based interaction in VR and smartphone-based Augmented Reality. It allows the user to control a VR pointer that behaves like a mouse pointer by moving their smartphone to select objects within the virtual environment, and to interact with the selected objects using the smartphone’s touch screen. The touchscreen is used for selection and dragging. SmartVR Pointer is simple and requires no calibration and no complex hardware assembly or disassembly. We demonstrate successful interactive applications of SmartVR Pointer in a VR environment with a demo where the user navigates in the virtual environment using teleportation points on the floor and then solves a Tetris-style key-and-lock challenge.
Keywords
Smartphones; Virtual Reality; Head-Mounted Displays; HMD Interaction Techniques; Mobile Devices in VR; Image-Based Tracking; Human-Computer Interaction; Mobile Computing; Touch Input
Subject
Computer Science and Mathematics, Computer Vision and Graphics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
