HeadRay: A Pointing Technique for the Myo in VR

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2018Apr 8

I developed as part of my master thesis at the Technical University of Munich a pointing technique for VR, which can be used with the Myo. This armband has eight EMG sensors to detect gestures and an IMU to measure the orientation of the arm. Abstract Master Thesis: One of the primary goals in the mixed reality continuum is it to create interaction techniques that feel as natural and immersive as possible. However, it is unclear to which degree this naturalism can be achieved and whether it is always a desirable goal. In the past, many selection techniques have prioritized high accuracy and usability but on modern hardware devices, like the leap motion controller, more natural and bare-handbased interactions have been designed. What is still lacking is a test of these techniques outside of desktop-based environments. With this thesis, we contribute to the discussion around new selection methods in three ways. (1) We introduce the HeadRay, a relative pointing technique for VR, which does not depend on the precise position of the hand, and which therefore is very well suited for use with gesture-based input devices like the Myo armband. We show in a user survey that our technique is a well-working selection method that substantially increases immersion. At the same time, it still suffers from inconsistency in the gesture recognition of the Myo that hamper the usability. (2) We show that it is possible to design test scenarios that fully utilize the virtual space around the user and still allow to make measurements that highly correlate with objective performance and subjective ratings by the user. (3) We demonstrate that the Depth Marker proposed by Grossman et al. is a good way to handle occlusion in VR. The thesis can be found under this link: