Accurate Molecular Atom Selection in VR

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Date
2022
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Eurographics Association
Abstract
Target acquisition is a basic task that is part of almost any high-level interaction in 3D environments. Therefore, providing accurate selection is a necessity for most applications and games. When targets are small and scenes are cluttered, selection becomes inaccurate. This may lead to selecting the wrong elements which, apart from the time consumed, may become a frustrating experience. Besides the unintentional tremor, the button/trigger press for effectively selecting an element further reduces our stability, increasing the probability of an incorrect target acquisition. In this paper, we focus on molecular visualization and address the problem of selecting atoms, which are rendered as small spheres. We build upon previous progressive selection algorithms and present two alternatives that accelerate the selection of neighbors after an initial selection. We have implemented and analyzed such techniques through a formal user study and found that they were highly appreciated by the users. These selection methods may be suitable for other crowded environments beyond molecular visualization.
Description

CCS Concepts: Human-centered computing -> Interaction design process and methods; Activity centered design

        
@inproceedings{
10.2312:stag.20221257
, booktitle = {
Smart Tools and Applications in Graphics - Eurographics Italian Chapter Conference
}, editor = {
Cabiddu, Daniela
 and
Schneider, Teseo
 and
Allegra, Dario
 and
Catalano, Chiara Eva
 and
Cherchi, Gianmarco
 and
Scateni, Riccardo
}, title = {{
Accurate Molecular Atom Selection in VR
}}, author = {
Molina, Elena
 and
Vázquez, Pere-Pau
}, year = {
2022
}, publisher = {
The Eurographics Association
}, ISSN = {
2617-4855
}, ISBN = {
978-3-03868-191-5
}, DOI = {
10.2312/stag.20221257
} }
Citation