Occlusion Management in Immersive and Desktop 3D Virtual Environments: Theory and Evaluation

—We present an empirical usability experiment studying the relative strengths and weaknesses of three different occlusion management techniques for discovering and accessing objects in information-rich 3D virtual environments. More specifically, the study compares standard 3D navigation, generalized fisheye techniques using object scaling and transparency, and the BalloonProbe interactive 3D space distortion technique. Subjects are asked to complete a number of representative tasks, including counting, pattern recognition, and object relation, in different kinds of environments and on both immersive and desktop-based VR systems. The environments a free-space abstract 3D environment and a virtual 3D walkthrough application for a simple building floor. Our results confirm the general guideline that each task calls for a specialized interaction—no single technique performed best across all tasks and worlds. The results also indicate a clear trade-off between speed and accuracy: simple...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: IJVR
• Authors: Niklas Elmqvist, Mihail Eduard Tudoreanu
• Keywords: Abstract 3D Environment, IJVR 2007, Occlusion Management Techniques, Standard 3D Navigation