ALCOVE: design and implementation of an object-centric virtual environment

Author

Meyer, Mark ; Barr, Alan H.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

fYear

1999

fDate

13-17 Mar 1999

Firstpage

46

Lastpage

52

Abstract

We present a new interaction metaphor for object-centric tasks in the form of a prototype VR system, ALCOVE. Through analytic calculations, we quantitatively demonstrate the benefits of restructuring the interaction volume offered by current systems. Our metrics show that many applications´ interaction volume increases by 1.5 to 2.6 times when using the ALCOVE system. We also offer an informal user task analysis and evaluations of previous VR systems that qualitatively support this improved interaction volume as well as demonstrate the need for a shift from room and desk-sized systems to desktop units. We present some testbed applications which benefit from this object-centric design and discuss some of the advantages and shortcomings of our system

Keywords

data visualisation; object-oriented programming; software metrics; user centred design; virtual reality; ALCOVE; analytic calculations; informal user task analysis; interaction metaphor; interaction volume; object-centric virtual environment; testbed applications; Computer science; Displays; Electrical capacitance tomography; Read only memory; System testing; Virtual environment; Virtual prototyping; Virtual reality; Visual system; Visualization;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Virtual Reality, 1999. Proceedings., IEEE

Conference_Location

Houston, TX

ISSN

1087-8270

Print_ISBN

0-7695-0093-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/VR.1999.756922

Filename

756922