Abstract
The vision of ubiquitous computing as it was first outlined by Mark Weiser in the
late 1980s seems now, 30 years later to have turned into reality. Users have access to an extensively growing number and variety of interconnected devices such as laptops, smartphones, augmented and mixed reality headsets or tablets and many modern meetings rooms are equipped with large-scale touch-enabled wall screens to support teams during collaboration on complex tasks. The interaction between those devices is however not always as seamless as it was envisioned by Weiser. Collaborative tasks within co-located teams frequently suffer from the awkwardness of manipulating, sharing, and displaying information across multiple devices.
One way to break these barriers that is increasingly found in literature is to apply
concepts of spatial awareness for cross-device interaction. By utilizing proxemics between co-located devices such as distance and orientation, new ways of interaction can be developed. This thesis applies those concepts to a real-world scenario with a large-scale, touch-enabled wall screen and multiple tablet devices being used for the collaborative analysis of a supply-chain network visualized as a graph.
To support group activities in this scenario, two spatially-aware cross-device interactions simplifying content transmission between wall screen and tablets were designed and implemented: Details-on-Demand and Tablet-to-Wall-Screen.While Details-on-Demand enables users to retrieve additional information of selected nodes on the wall screen on their tablets, Tablet-to-Wall-Screen can be used to share the current tablet content on the wall screen with an intuitive tilting gesture.
A novel approach was followed concerning the required device tracking technology. Unlike many high-fidelity tracking systems, virtual reality hardware such as the HTC Vive series offers consumer-ready, room-scaled tracking that is easy to set up and sold for comparatively low cost. It was therefore examined whether Vive trackers although being designed for VR applications can be utilized to provide sufficient device tracking in the real-environment by mounting them on tablet devices in this scenario.
A technical evaluation collecting measures about accuracy, precision and reliability of the implemented tracking solution as well interaction recall rates and latency measures was conducted. During this evaluation, two different tracker mounting positions were tested, the first with the tracker at the top edge of the tablet, the second with the tracker on the backside of the tablet. Results showed that the Vive tracking provides generally a high quality of tracking for both interactions in the real environment. Results for the top mounting position of the tracker showed that there was no noticeable decline in tracking quality compared to the results when only the tracker was used. The backside mounting position proved to be not sufficient in this scenario.
late 1980s seems now, 30 years later to have turned into reality. Users have access to an extensively growing number and variety of interconnected devices such as laptops, smartphones, augmented and mixed reality headsets or tablets and many modern meetings rooms are equipped with large-scale touch-enabled wall screens to support teams during collaboration on complex tasks. The interaction between those devices is however not always as seamless as it was envisioned by Weiser. Collaborative tasks within co-located teams frequently suffer from the awkwardness of manipulating, sharing, and displaying information across multiple devices.
One way to break these barriers that is increasingly found in literature is to apply
concepts of spatial awareness for cross-device interaction. By utilizing proxemics between co-located devices such as distance and orientation, new ways of interaction can be developed. This thesis applies those concepts to a real-world scenario with a large-scale, touch-enabled wall screen and multiple tablet devices being used for the collaborative analysis of a supply-chain network visualized as a graph.
To support group activities in this scenario, two spatially-aware cross-device interactions simplifying content transmission between wall screen and tablets were designed and implemented: Details-on-Demand and Tablet-to-Wall-Screen.While Details-on-Demand enables users to retrieve additional information of selected nodes on the wall screen on their tablets, Tablet-to-Wall-Screen can be used to share the current tablet content on the wall screen with an intuitive tilting gesture.
A novel approach was followed concerning the required device tracking technology. Unlike many high-fidelity tracking systems, virtual reality hardware such as the HTC Vive series offers consumer-ready, room-scaled tracking that is easy to set up and sold for comparatively low cost. It was therefore examined whether Vive trackers although being designed for VR applications can be utilized to provide sufficient device tracking in the real-environment by mounting them on tablet devices in this scenario.
A technical evaluation collecting measures about accuracy, precision and reliability of the implemented tracking solution as well interaction recall rates and latency measures was conducted. During this evaluation, two different tracker mounting positions were tested, the first with the tracker at the top edge of the tablet, the second with the tracker on the backside of the tablet. Results showed that the Vive tracking provides generally a high quality of tracking for both interactions in the real environment. Results for the top mounting position of the tracker showed that there was no noticeable decline in tracking quality compared to the results when only the tracker was used. The backside mounting position proved to be not sufficient in this scenario.
| Original language | English |
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| Qualification | Master of Science |
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| Publication status | Published - Nov 2020 |