A Motion Sensor-based User Interface for Construction Drawings Navigation
Mehdi Nourbakhsh, R. D. Stevenson, Javier Irizarry · Construction Research Congress 2014 · 2014
Today, most viewing of electronic drawings on construction sites takes place on mobile devices with limited screen size. Most of the current software interfaces still use a static display method, scaling drawings to fit the screen. Even though there are limitations because of small screen size on mobile devices, they have the benefit of being equipped with a variety of sensors, such as magnetometers, accelerometers, and gyroscopes. Some studies have looked at the use of these sensors to enhance further user interaction in areas such as gaming and texting. However, no study has considered the design of a user interface for construction drawing navigation using these sensors. To this end, the objective of this study is to develop a touch-free interface to navigate construction drawings using motion sensing. The interface was developed on Apple Inc.'s iOS platform and tested on an iPad tablet device. Motion sensor data, from the accelerometer and gyroscope, were used to pan and zoom the document with spatial movements. This study provides an innovative means to navigate large, layered drawings on small tablet devices. The algorithm used to develop the interface can be embedded in different applications for better navigation of layered construction drawings.