Malekahana

Malekahana project was a case study of using real objects for UI purposes. In this case, we used a pair of real binoculars, added a motion tracker to it and used it to control the camera zoom of our virtual tour around a virtual island. From the paper, published at 2007 Tangible Space Interface Sympiosium:

"....Each subject was taken on a ten minute cruise around a virtualisland as shown in Figure. The 3D content was displayed on an 8 x 6 foot rear-projection screen. The subjects were seated very close to the screen approximating the experience of being in a vehicle cockpit. The position and orientation of the virtualboat were updated automatically so the subjects did not have to worry about navigation. While standing on the moving boat which was always oriented towards the center of the island, the subjects could redirect their view approximately 90 degrees horizontally and 45 degrees vertically. For this particular setting, orientation-only tracking of the binoculars was quite sufficient, as the relative displacement of the camera position (a few inches) was negligible compared with the size of the virtual scene (several hundred feet).

The user's goal was freestyle exploration of the island which included a variety attractions to keep one interested for the duration of the cruise. Birds, butterflies, dolphins, crabs, and other tropical creatures were present. Subjects could use the binoculars at will, with all its extensions as described in the previous sections. An informal competition to take the best pictures of the island's wildlife was announced. Incidentally, this component made the whole exercise somewhat similar to the once popular Pokemon Snap game for the Nintendo 64 video game console...."

For full details and more pictures, see the paper "View Enhancement Techniques for Scene Exploration and Object Selection in Virtual and Mixed Environments" [*]

Screenshots