Models for Rested Touchless Gestural Interaction

Abstract

Touchless mid-air gestural interaction has gained mainstream attention with the emergence of off-the-shelf commodity devices such as the Leap Motion and the Xbox Kinect. One of the issues with this form of interaction is fatigue, a problem colloquially known as the "Gorilla Arm Syndrome." However, by allowing interaction from a rested position, whereby the elbow is rested on a surface, this problem can be limited in its effect. In this paper we evaluate 3 possible methods for performing touchless mid-air gestural interaction from a rested position: a basic rested interaction, a simple calibrated interaction which models palm positions onto a hyperplane, and a more complex calibration which models the arm's interaction space using the angles of the forearm as input. The results of this work found that the two modeled interactions conform to Fitts's law and also demonstrated that implementing a simple model can improve interaction by improving performance and accuracy.

“I Want to Experience the Past”: Lessons from a Visitor Survey on How Immersive Technologies Can Support Historic Interpretation

“…Additionally, when crafting the interaction with immersive installations, designers need to avoid postures, gestures, or body movements that are perceived as strenuous or physically challenging [60]. A possible solution could be to allow interaction from a rested position to minimize fatigue [61].…”

The Semantic Meaning of Hand Shapes and Z-Dimension Movements of Freehand Distal Pointing on Large Displays

“…Similarly, a kinesphere model was proposed whereby, when a joint (e.g., wrist, elbow, or shoulder) is rested and the remaining joints are stretched, the user's fingertip will be approximately on a partial sphere centered on the joint [51]. Guinness et al [52] also used a similar sphere model to evaluate the kinematic trace of the hand in rested touchless gestural interaction. While the shoulder joint is fixed, a similar Z-dimension movement was found [53].…”

Remote Control by Body Movement in Synchrony with Orbiting Widgets

“…Research has highlighted how users desire instant control "right now" with minimal action, and "right here" without having to go out of their ways [18]. Freeman and Weissman were first to explore the idea of controlling a television using hand gestures over 20 years ago [10], observing fatigue issues now often referred to as "gorilla arm" [12,13]. More recent research on the topic has largely focussed on library-based gestural techniques [6,16,17] and highlighted issues with learning and remembering of gestures and gesture-to-function mappings [31].…”