Case Studies in Building Custom Input Devices for Virtual Environment
Interaction
Joseph J. LaViola Jr.
Daniel F. Keefe Robert C. Zeleznik Daniel Acevedo Feliz
Brown University
Dept. of Computer Science, Box 1910
Providence, RI, 02912, USA
{jjl,dfk,bcz,daf}@cs.brown.edu
Abstract
We present examples of four different custom built in-
put devices and discuss their benefits to virtual environment
interfaces. In each case, we describe the underlying moti-
vation behind the device’s creation and present interaction
techniques that were made possible by each device’s unique
characteristics.
1 Introduction
In virtual environment (VE) applications, users must ex-
press their intentions through various input devices. At
Brown University, an important research focus has been the
development of custom built input devices for improving a
user’s expressive power when interacting in VEs. These de-
vices often inspire new interaction techniques, improve the
interface in specific VE applications, provide more interac-
tion styles, and improve upon existing techniques. In this
paper, we present four different custom built input devices,
the FingerSleeve, the CavePainting Table, the Interaction
Slippers, and Flex and Pinch input as examples of custom
built input devices used in the development of our VE ap-
plications and interface research. For each device, we also
describe some of the interaction techniques developed using
them.
2 FingerSleeve
Building custom input devices often provides inspiration
and creativity in the development of novel interaction tech-
niques. The FingerSleeve is an example of such a device
that explored how the concept of pop-through buttons could
be used to improve upon traditional button based devices[9].
Pop-through buttons have two clearly distinguished activa-
tion states corresponding to light and firm finger pressure.
Figure 1. The FingerSleeve device mounts
two small pop through buttons on an elas-
tic frame, with the tracker placed on the back
of the sleeve.
This design adds functionality withou