Design and evaluation of an interaction technique for volume selection in a 3D point cloud
Adrien Hamelin, Emmanuel Dubois · 2015
A fundamental task needed when using a 3D virtual environment is the ability to select. This is necessary to perform local treatments, such as translating an object. While classical techniques, such as ray-casting, works well for large objects it becomes more difficult when the need for precision is greater and almost impossible for a point selection. To select a set of points in a point cloud we created a novel selection technique. It allows to select complex shapes while remaining simple to use. Using our technique relies on three principles: 1) selecting points consists in progressively elaborating a cylinder-like shape (the worm) through the sequential definition of several sections; 2) a section is defined between two contours linked together with straight lines; 3) each contour is a freely drawn closed line. A user study reveals that our technique is significantly faster than a classical selection mechanism based on predefined volumes such as spheres or cuboids while maintaining a comparable level of precision and recall.