Evaluating consumer interaction interfaces for 3D sketching in virtual reality

Since its introduction, 3D mid-air sketching in immersive Virtual Reality (VR) proved to be a very powerful tool for many creative applications. However, common VR sketching suites rely on the standard hand controllers bundled with home VR systems, which are non-optimal for this kind of tasks. To deal with this issue, some research works proposed to use dedicated pen-shaped interfaces tracked with external motion-capture systems. Regrettably, these solutions are generally rather expensive, cumbersome and unsuitable for many potential end- users. Hence, lots of challenges regarding interfaces for 3D sketching in VR still exist. In this paper, a newly proposed sketching-oriented input device (namely, a VR stylus) compatible with the tracking technology of a consumer-grade VR system is compared with a standard hand con- troller from the same system. In particular, the paper reports the results of a user study whose aim was to evaluate, in both objective and subjective terms, aspects like, among others, sketching accuracy, ease of use, efficiency, comfort, control and naturalness.