v-Glove: A 3D Virtual Touch Interface

Traditional interaction devices such as mouse and keyboard do not adapt very well to immersive environments, since they were not ergonomically designed for it. The user may be standing or in movement and these devices were projected to work on desks. Moreover, in the current interaction model for immersive environments, which is based on wands and 3D mice, a change of context is necessary every time to execute a non-immersive task. These constant context changes from immersive to 2D desktops introduce a rupture in the user interaction with the application. The objective of this work is to develop a device that maps a touch interface in a virtual reality immersive environment. In order to interact in 3D virtual reality immersive environments a wireless glove (v-Glove) was created, which has two main functionalities: tracking the position of the user´s index finger and vibrate the fingertip when it reaches an area mapped in the interaction space to simulate a touch feeling. Quantitative and qualitative analysis were performed with users to evaluate the v-Glove, comparing it with a gyroscopic 3D mouse.