The Smart Pin: An effective tool for object manipulation in immersive virtual reality environments

In this paper, we present a novel method for object manipulation in immersive virtual environments. The proposed technique exploits a novel widget, called “Smart Pin”, to enable the user to select, translate, rotate and scale objects relying entirely on the positional tracking of a single hand. It is, therefore, suitable for several real-world applications where handheld devices are not available, the surrounding environmental conditions make orientation tracking hard, and the non-dominant hand may be involved in different tasks. We evaluated the method with users on two classical tasks such as detail search and docking, comparing it with a successful two-handed manipulation technique (Handlebar). The measured execution efficiency obtained with the two methods was similar, but most users preferred the Smart Pin for its gestural comfort and ease of use.