Center for Innovative Computer Applications

CICA's Eric Wernert is collaborating with Prof. Andy Hanson from Computer Science to explore methods and paradigms for constraining user navigation through 3D environments. The overall goal of this research is to focus the user's attention on designer-specified objects or regions of interest while balancing the extremes of an unconstrained interface with seven degrees-of-freedom (7th = camera FOV) and a completely constrained "movie" with one degree of freedom (time parameter.)

Categories:	Visualization, User Interface Design
Participants:	* Andrew Hanson - Computer Science * Eric Wernert - CICA
Dates:	November 1996 - present
Resources:	* Iris Explorer with custom Explorer modules * Open Inventor code * CAVE library and simulator
Publications:	* "Constrained 3D Navigation with 2D Controllers", by Andrew J. Hanson and Eric A. Wernert, to appear in Proceedings of IEEE Visualization '97, October 1997 * (an earlier version appears as IU Computer Science Technical Report #479).

Productions

* Planar Constraint Surface * Fixed Camera Orientation
* Planar Constraint Surface * Modulated Camera Orientation
* Complex Constraint Surface * Modulated Camera Orientation

The grid designer may include Virtual Vista Points(TM) to give the user overviews of the entire environment or close-ups of a specific area.

Virtual Overlook
Virtual Point of Interest

The techniques may be applied to a wide variety of VR and visualization applications. Below is an example of a constraint field being used for molecular structure visualization.

* Camera constrained to surface of torus * Modulated camera orientation

Maintained by: ewernert@cica.indiana.edu
Last modified: 3/12/97