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Together with Frank Althoff from
the Technical University Munich I wrote a paper that
describes a generic architecture for interfacing various input devices to VRML browsers.
Besides semantic higher level input modalities like speech recognition or hand gestures
the architecture supports haptic input devices like the ordinary 2D mouse, the joy stick
or special 3D input devices like the space mouse.
The user may select the device that
best fits their needs when performing navigation tasks in virtual 3D environments.
Scenarios where the user controlls the speed and direction of movement by manipulating
the input device or supplying voice commands are supported as well as where the user
clicks on an object and specifies whether they want to move to that object, use the
specified point as the center of rotation or do something else with it.
The paper is titled "A Generic Approach for Interfacing VRML Browsers to Various
Input Devices and Creating Customizable 3D Applications". We've submitted it
to the Web3D consortium where we presented it at the
Web3D conference in February 2002.
The abstract of the paper:
In this work we present a generic architecture for interfacing
various input devices to VRML browsers. Concentrating on
the aspect of navigation, our system supports the full range
of potential input devices from conventional haptic devices
like keyboard and mouse over special Virtual-Reality devices
like spacemouse and joystick to, as a special feature,
semantically higher level input like speech and gesture
recognition. The communication between the individual components
of the system is based on a context free grammar, allowing
abstract modeling of the various devices and handling both
discrete and continuous navigation information. Two new node
extensions support the VRML author in creating highly
customizable 3D applications: The DeviceSensor node allows
grabbing arbitrary user input in a systematic way and the
Camera node gives full control over the scene view by
specifying velocity vectors and thus enabling arbitrary
navigation modes. Finally, the proof of concept is given by
a prototypical implementation in VRML.
To the
PDF version of the paper (200 K Byte).
Table of contents:
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. System Architecture
2.1 Input Modules
2.2 Discrete Integrator
2.3 Navigator
2.4 Continuous Integrator
3. Communication Formalism
3.1 Movement Commands
3.2 Position Oriented Commands
3.3 Control Commands
3.4 Status Feedback
4. Implementation Details
4.1 DeviceSensor Node
4.2 Camera Node
5. Customizable Application
5.1 Sample Implementation in VRML
5.2 Usage of DeviceSensor and Camera Node
5.3 Application Scenarios
6. Potential Extensions
6.1 Positional Devices
6.2 Adding Communication Formalism to the Camera Node
6.3 Extension to the Manipulation Paradigm
7. Conclusion
References
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end of document
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