Evaluation of basic object manipulation modes for low-cost immersive Virtual Reality

Object manipulation is a fundamental task in several applications of 3D and Virtual Reality (VR) interactive applications, like scientific or medical visualization tools, simulators and games and the development of effective metaphors and tools for its practical implementation is extremely important for their success.In this paper we present the result of a usability test performed to compare different paradigms and implementations for atomic gesture effects (rotation and translation) in an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) setup. The setup is based on low cost devices, e.g. the Oculus DK2 for scene display and a Leap Motion controller for gesture interaction. Four different manipulation modalities using different combinations of the translation and rotation paradigms have been compared both in terms of task completion efficiency and user acceptance. Experimental results can be used to derive useful suggestions for effective interaction design for VR applications based on similar low cost hardware devices.