Logical Model

A miniaturised physical model of the logical model (ISS International Space Station) will be located next to the operator, allowing the operator to quickly select a different subsystem, and allowing the operator go back to the top level of the logical model in one step. This mechanism allows the user to rapidly access the whole system hierarchy.

Tracker Emitter

For the three dimensional interaction tasks we have designed a two-handed interface to enhance the interaction performance. The interface uses a simple metaphor of a pen and a virtual prop. The pen is used with the dominant hand as a gerneral pointing device for both three dimensional selection and manipulation and two dimensional desktop operations. Pointing with a pen is part of our everyday life, so no additional user skills have to be trained to use this part of the interface. While the dominant hand performs fine grained and precise interaction, the non-dominant hand is employed to hold a virtual prop for simple rotations, translations and zooming operations. The prop designed as part of the interface should be an invariant device (e.g. a sphere) so that it could be used for the relevant transformations on every displayed object, without destroying the cognitive correspondence. Both pen and prop are implemented as position and orientation tracked devices, using state-of -the-art magnetic tracking technology. As the workspace is limited to a relatively small space in front of the operator, the inherent precision of the magnetic tracking technology is sufficient. Interference with the CRT-display must be examined for the given hardware.

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