Exploring Freehand Selection Techniques of Polyhedron Faces in VR Environments

Area of Science:

• Computer Graphics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Virtual Reality

Background:

• Virtual reality (VR) enables immersive 3D geometry interaction.
• Current VR selection methods primarily focus on whole objects, neglecting precise component selection.
• Selecting individual faces on polyhedra in VR is challenging due to the need for local manipulation while maintaining global structure.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the design space for selecting individual faces on polyhedra in VR.
• To develop and evaluate novel freehand techniques for polyhedral face selection.
• To provide guidelines for effective component selection in VR applications.

Main Methods:

• Introduced a design space with viewing strategy, disambiguation consistency, and interaction metaphor dimensions.
• Designed eight freehand techniques for polyhedral face selection.
• Conducted a within-subjects study evaluating techniques across varying polyhedral complexity and a follow-up study with realistic models.

Main Results:

• Identified three complementary top-performing techniques for polyhedral face selection.
• Revealed tradeoffs between viewing strategies and geometric preservation.
• Demonstrated the robustness and practical usability of selected techniques on complex models.

Conclusions:

• The study advances VR interaction beyond whole-object selection to precise component manipulation.
• Developed techniques offer actionable methods for 3D modeling, assembly, and texturing in VR.
• Guidelines are provided for selecting appropriate VR face selection techniques based on geometry and task requirements.