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1. Summary

For my master thesis I researched how people manipulate virtual 3D objects and thought of possible improvements. I developed an application that allowed for 3D object manipulation with two alternatives: hand gestures and the mouse (widgets). 39 users participated in an experiment where they had to perform 3D object manipulations with both methods in the developed application. The speed and accuracy as well as usability aspects were analyzed. The conclusion was that hand gestures are faster, more user friendly and as accurate as mouse interaction for 3D object manipulation.

2. Application

To acquire the required data that needed to be analyzed for my research, an application was created where the user could manipulate 3D objects with the mouse and with hand gestures (Leap Motion). The application showed one gray and one red object with equal shape. However, their position, rotation, and scale were different from each other. The user could manipulate the object with either the mouse (widgets) or hand gestures. For each input method, there were four phases, namely: the translation, rotation, scaling and compound phase. For each phase, the user had to manipulate the gray object such that its position, rotation, and scale matched the red object 7 times. After each phase usability statements needed to be rated. During the experiment, the speed and accuracy of matching task was recorded. Eventually, the data was analyzed with statistical methods such as multivariate repeated measure analysis of variance, regression analysis, and Wilcoxon signed ranked tests. The conclusion was that hand gestures are faster, more user friendly and as accurate as mouse interaction for 3D object manipulation.

3. Background Information

For the Game and Media Technology master, I had to do a master thesis research lasting nine months. I did a research and wrote a paper which we are currently trying to publish. My final score was a 8.5 for the paper and a 9.0 for my master thesis defense.

4. Paper

The paper can be found here: Coming Soon.

Media: Video