Poster: Brush, lasso, or magic wand? Picking the right tool for large-scale multiple object selection tasks

Selection of multiple objects is a frequent interaction task in virtual environments. Accomplishing this task efficiently and intuitively is difficult, especially in cases where there are a very large number of objects to be selected. In this work, we seek to investigate two well-known techniques, a spherical brush and a box-shaped lasso for multiple object selection (MOS), and compare them to a new MOS technique, which we have named the magic wand. This new technique automates a lot the work, which the user would normally have to do manually. The comparison is made through a user study, where users are presented with a range of different geometric layouts of selection targets, to investigate the pros and cons of each of the MOS techniques. The evaluation shows that the magic wand is significantly faster to use than the other techniques, however the quality of the magic wand´s selections is highly dependent on the geometric scenario. The spherical brush proved to be a good overall technique, whereas the box lasso proved slow and inaccurate even in geometric scenarios specifically designed for the lasso.