Investigation and evaluation of pointing modalities for interactive stereoscopic 3D TV

The recent proliferation of stereoscopic three dimensional (3D) video technology has fostered a large body of research into 3D video capture, production, compression and delivery. However, little research has been dedicated to the design practices of stereoscopic 3D video interaction. Interaction tasks such as pointing and selection are critical to the consumer's experience of the 3D video technology. This paper presents investigation of pointing modalities in the context of stereoscopic 3D television (TV). Adopting the ISO 9241-9 standard for multi-directional tapping task, the conducted user study compares and evaluates three pointing modalities: standard mouse-based interaction, virtual laser pointer implemented using Wiimote, and hand movement modality using Kinect. The results suggest that the virtual laser pointer modality is more advantageous than other modalities in terms of user performance and user comfort. In addition, this paper discusses the impact of disparity levels on the pointing tasks.