Efficient 3D Pointing Selection in Cluttered Virtual Environments

In this article, we study the impact of such eye-hand visibility mismatch on selection tasks performed with hand-rooted pointing techniques. We propose a new mapping for ray control, called Ray Casting from the Eye (RCE), which attempts to overcome this mismatch's negative effects. In essence, RCE combines the benefits of image-plane techniques (the absence of visibility mismatch and continuity of the ray movement in screen space) with the benefits of ray control through hand rotation (requiring less physical hand movement). This article builds on a previous study on the impact of eye-to-hand separation on 3D pointing selection. Here, we provide empirical evidence that RCE clearly outperforms classic ray casting (RC) selection, both in sparse and cluttered scenes.