Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

This research program investigates touch-based interfaces for three dimensions (3D). This includes both user interfaces that use 3D input, as well as user interfaces for interaction with 3D scenes. Working towards the vision of 3D user interfaces that are almost as easy-to-use as 2D ones, it involves two main thrusts. The first targets human pointing and the second focuses on 3D manipulation and content creation. 3D user interfaces are important for many sectors, including industrial planning and design, architecture, urban planning, simulation, training, animation, and the game and entertainment industry. The first thrust investigates how humans point at or touch targets in 3D in virtual reality systems. Through the use of different technical systems and experiments, we will not only generate accurate measurements of the effect of various technological factors on performance, but also uncover fundamental insights into human behaviors and capabilities. This in turn can be used not only to create new input devices and better systems for 3D, but also informs other fields and applications, such as sensorimotor actions and rehabilitation. The second thrust targets new multi-touch 3D manipulation and content creation techniques, i.e. it is directed at systems where user interaction happens through touch. The novel 3D user interface techniques proposed here cover all necessary operations to manipulate, generate, and edit 3D virtual objects and environments. In the long-term, multi-touch user interfaces for 3D animation will developed. Together, this constitutes a breakthrough in terms of the accessibility of 3D modeling, as it combines the immediacy and easy-of-use of multi-touch tablets with recent and novel 3D user interfaces. This will greatly accelerate the adoption of 3D content manipulation and creation applications by the public. Canada will benefit from this research program through many globally competitive HQP in touch-based user interface design and 3D graphics and potentially a startup. After all, 3D content creation and gaming are core strengths of Canada. Also, the results will increase interest in science and technical disciplines.