Extending Movable Surfaces with Touch Interaction Using the VirtualTablet: An Extended View

Immersive output and natural input are two core aspects of a virtual reality experience. Current systems are frequently operated by a controller or gesture-based approach. However, these techniques are either very accurate but require an effort to learn, or very natural but miss haptic feedback for optimal precision. We transfer ubiquitous touch interaction with haptic feedback into a virtual environment. To validate the performance of our implementation, we performed a user study with 28 participants. As the results show, the movable and cheap real world object supplies an accurate touch detection that is equal to a laserpointer-based interaction with a controller. Moreover, the virtual tablet can extend the functionality of a real world tablet. Additional information can be displayed in mid-air around the touchable area and the tablet can be turned over to interact with both sides. Therefore, touch interaction in virtual environments allows easy to learn and precise system interaction and can even augment the established touch metaphor with new paradigms.