Buttonless clicking: Intuitive select and pick-release through gesture analysis

Clicking is a key feature any interaction input system needs to provide. In the case of 3D input devices, such a feature is often difficult to provide (e.g. vision-based, or tracking systems for free-hand interaction do not natively provide any button). In this work, we show that it is actually possible to build an application that provides two classical interaction tasks (selection, and pick-release), without any button-like feature. Our method is based on trajectory and kinematic gesture analysis. In a preliminary study we exhibit the principle of the method. Then, we detail an algorithm to discriminate selection, pick and release tasks using kinematic criteria. We present a controlled experiment that validates our method with an average success rate equal to 90.1% across all conditions.