Comparative study of collaborative methods to control rotation of shared objects

Although collaborative interaction techniques play a key role in the manipulation of objects in virtual collaborative environments, very few studies investigated their effects on the working efficiency. This paper studies different collaborative manipulation techniques which are inspired by different mechanical joints. Each mechanical joint introduces a different way to control the rotation of the shared object. An experimental study was carried out, with tasks presenting different types of constraints, in order to highlight the features of each method. The results show that manipulation based on ball and socket joins is the most natural and the fastest method to collaboratively manipulate an object. However, the manipulation method based on hinge joint constraint is more accurate in situation requiring translation and rotation simultaneously.