PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

It has been more than 10 years since the first edition of 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice, and the field has certainly changed over that time. The original edition was highly regarded, but perhaps ahead of its time since 3D user interfaces were confined to university research labs and some industrial research labs. However, over the last 10 years with technological breakthroughs in both hardware and software, we see that the commercial sector has brought virtual and augmented reality displays, mobile devices, gaming consoles, and even robotic platforms to market that require 3D user interface technology to provide useful, powerful, and engaging user experiences in a variety of different application domains. Meanwhile, this commodity hardware and software has revitalized university research labs doing work with 3D user interfaces and is now making it more affordable to set up virtual and augmented reality labs in the classroom, making the technology much more accessible to students at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school levels. These developments make the content of this book more relevant than ever and more useful to a wider audience of researchers, developers, hobbyists, and students. Thus, we believe releasing a second edition now is timelier than ever.

Given the changes described above, we needed to significantly revamp the book to not only reflect current needs of our readers (both old and new), but to update the material given the plethora of research into 3D user interface hardware and software that has been performed over the last decade. In addition, we decided to make the book application agnostic, since 3D user interfaces can be applied almost anywhere, given appropriate sensors to determine someone or something’s position, orientation, and/or motion in space. We have made several changes in this edition that we feel make the book more inclusive and timely, while still maintaining its strength in discussing 3D user interface design from hardware to software to evaluation of 3D user interface techniques and applications.

This edition is organized into six distinct parts. Three chapters from the first edition—on wayfinding, symbolic input, and augmented reality—no longer stand on their own but have been fused into other parts of the book. We added two completely new chapters on human factors and general human-computer interaction to provide the reader with a more solid foundational background that can be used as base material for the 3D user interface chapters. We have also significantly revised each chapter with new material based on the latest research developments and findings. In addition, we felt it was important to have better cohesion between chapters from an application development perspective, so we decided to introduce two running case studies that describe a mobile augmented reality application and a first-person virtual reality gaming application. The content of these case studies will appear at the end of each chapter in Parts III, IV, and V of the book so the reader can see how the material can be utilized in these specific applications and how 3D user interface design is employed in each part of the 3D application.

In this edition, Part I has two chapters. The first is an introduction to the concepts of 3D user interfaces, while Chapter 2 provides a historical background into the field and lays out a roadmap for 3D user interfaces and how they relate to other fields. This is also where we introduce the two case studies that will be discussed throughout the book. Part II provides background material on the human factors aspects of interfaces in general and 3D user interfaces in particular, with emphasis on the human sensory system and human cognition (Chapter 3) and a general introduction to the field of human-computer interaction (Chapter 4) that can be used as a basis for understanding the various 3D user interface concepts and ideas we present in later parts of the book. Part III delves into 3D user interface hardware, including output devices for the visual, auditory, and haptic/tactile systems (Chapter 5), and input devices used in 3D user interfaces, with specific emphasis on obtaining 3D position and orientation and motion information about the user in physical space (Chapter 6). We consider Part IV the core of the book because its focus is on the fundamental 3D interaction tasks used in the majority of 3D user interfaces. In this part, Chapter 7 describes techniques for 3D object selection and manipulation while Chapter 8 delves into navigation and wayfinding techniques for moving through both virtual and physical spaces. Finally, Chapter 9 focuses on different system control techniques that can be used to change application state, issue commands and provide overall input to a 3D application. Part V describes strategies for 3D user interface design and evaluation, with Chapter 10 examining different design strategies for choosing and developing 3D user interfaces, and Chapter 11 covering the all-important aspects of 3D user interface evaluation, a critical component of the development of a 3D user interface technique or application. Finally, Part VI contains Chapter 12, which looks into the future of 3D user interfaces by providing a discussion of the open research problems that we need to solve to move the field forward.

As with the first edition, we offer numerous guidelines—practical and proven advice for the designer and developer. Guidelines are indicated in the text like this:

The second edition of 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice can be used in several different ways, depending on the reader’s goals and intentions. For the student with no experience in human-computer interaction, the entire book can be used in an introductory 3D user interface design course at the graduate or undergraduate level. Those students who have had some background in human-computer interaction could essentially skip Part II of the book without loss of generality to support a more detailed course on 3D user interfaces.

Developers and 3D application designers can use the book for inspiration and guidance in the design, implementation, and evaluation of applications with 3D UIs. In the design process, developers can choose appropriate hardware from Part III, choose specific interaction techniques from Part IV, and learn how to evaluate their techniques and applications from Part V. Developers can also get inspiration from Chapter 10 on how best to go about designing their 3D application. It is our hope that developers, especially in the virtual and augmented reality communities, will use this material so they don’t have to “reinvent the wheel” when developing their applications.

Finally, researchers can use the book as a comprehensive collection of related and prior work to help them understand what has been done in the field, ensure their research ideas are novel, get inspiration to tackle new problems in 3D user interfaces, and act as a one-stop shop for all things 3D UI. Chapter 12 would be especially useful for researchers who are looking for significantly challenging problems to explore.