ViewCube: A 3D Orientation Indicator and Controller

Azam Khan, Igor Mordatch, George Fitzmaurice, Justin Matejka, Gordon Kurtenbach

January 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games (I3D)

Abstract

Literally hundreds of thousands of users of 2D computer-aided design (CAD) tools are in the difficult process of transitioning to 3D CAD tools. A common problem for these users is disorientation in the abstract virtual 3D environments that occur while developing new 3D scenes. To help address this problem, we present a novel in-scene 3D widget called the ViewCube as a 3D orientation indicator and controller. The ViewCube is a cube-shaped widget placed in a corner of the window. When acting as an orientation indicator, the ViewCube turns to reflect the current view direction as the user re-orients the scene using other tools. When used as an orientation controller, the ViewCube can be dragged, or the faces, edges, or corners can be clicked on, to easily orient the scene to the corresponding view. We conducted a formal experiment to measure the performance of the ViewCube comparing: (1) ArcBall-style dragging using the ViewCube for manual view switching, (2) clicking on face/edge/corner elements of the ViewCube for automated view switching and (3) clicking on a dedicated row of buttons for automated view switching. The results indicate that users prefer and are almost twice as fast at using the ViewCube with dragging compared to clicking techniques, independent of a number of ViewCube representations that we examined.

DOI PDF

Figures

Figure 1. The ViewCube: clicking on the “front” face of the cube rotates the cube and the 3D scene to the front view.

Figure 2. Standard Views (a) are accessible on the ViewCompass (b) where users can click the cones to view the scene from that point of view. Clicking the cube itself would move the camera to the stan

Figure 3. The Glass Cube has a complex set of controls: 14 selectable viewpoints (green arrows) and when “face on” edge segments are selectable and roll the view clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Figure 4. Split view diagram of the ViewCube from a % view explicitly showing all currently selectable views (in this case 19 views are accessible).

Figure 5. ViewCube Selection Feedback. As the cursor moves over the ViewCube, the piece that would be selected if the user clicked the mouse button is highlighted.

Figure 6. Before (left) and after (right): The dashed outline becomes solid to indicate that the camera is exactly at one of the fixed viewpoints.

Figure 7. When moving the viewpoint using the application’s Orbit tool, the cube rotates to match the scene orientation. The current closest fixed view is highlighted. Here, the scene is orbited slightly from almost Front (left) to almost Front-Top- Right (right).

Figure 8. ViewCube Design. Components are the large center cube with selectable faces, edges, and corners, the triangles pointing “around the edges” to orthogonal faces, the “home” button in the top-

Figure 9. Before (left) and after (right): Clockwise and counter-clockwise controls are shown when at a face view. Clicking the bottom (clockwise) arrow rotates the scene and the cube 90°.

Figure 10. Expanded hit areas for boundary buttons and additional buttons on the ViewCube. Clicking anywhere within the green regions will select the corresponding button.

Figure 11. View proxy images in Google Sketchup.

Figure 12. Label Schemes: text, 2D proxy image, 3D proxy model, and no label.

Figure 13. (a) Top: experiment screen. (b) Bottom: the List condition for (left to right) 6 Views with Text Labels, 6 Views with 2D Image Labels, 26 Views with Text Labels, and 26 Views with 2D Image

Figure 14. Mean (All Users): List and ClickCube had little difference but the ArcBall was almost twice as fast at the List method.

Figure 15. Subject Preferences: the ArcBall and the 3D Model label type were preferred, and the Image buttons were favored over the Text buttons.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{10.1145/1342250.1342253,
 abstract = {Literally hundreds of thousands of users of 2D computer-aided design (CAD) tools are in the difficult process of transitioning to 3D CAD tools. A common problem for these users is disorientation in the abstract virtual 3D environments that occur while developing new 3D scenes. To help address this problem, we present a novel in-scene 3D widget called the ViewCube as a 3D orientation indicator and controller. The ViewCube is a cube-shaped widget placed in a corner of the window. When acting as an orientation indicator, the ViewCube turns to reflect the current view direction as the user re-orients the scene using other tools. When used as an orientation controller, the ViewCube can be dragged, or the faces, edges, or corners can be clicked on, to easily orient the scene to the corresponding view. We conducted a formal experiment to measure the performance of the ViewCube comparing: (1) ArcBall-style dragging using the ViewCube for manual view switching, (2) clicking on face/edge/corner elements of the ViewCube for automated view switching and (3) clicking on a dedicated row of buttons for automated view switching. The results indicate that users prefer and are almost twice as fast at using the ViewCube with dragging compared to clicking techniques, independent of a number of ViewCube representations that we examined.},
 address = {New York, NY, USA},
 author = {Khan, Azam and Mordatch, Igor and Fitzmaurice, George and Matejka, Justin and Kurtenbach, Gordon},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2008 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games},
 doi = {10.1145/1342250.1342253},
 isbn = {9781595939838},
 keywords = {desktop 3D environments, 3D widgets, 3D navigation, virtual camera},
 location = {Redwood City, California},
 numpages = {9},
 pages = {17–25},
 publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
 series = {I3D '08},
 title = {ViewCube: A 3D Orientation Indicator and Controller},
 url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/1342250.1342253},
 year = {2008}
}