A platform for developing and fine tuning inclusive 3D navigation techniques for the immersive web
- Ahmed Kamal – Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
- Carlos Andujar – Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
CATEGORY. Long Paper
KEYWORDS. Virtual Reality, WebXR, Navigation, 3D Interaction Techniques
ABSTRACT. Navigating through a virtual environment is one of the major user tasks in the 3D web. Although hundreds of interaction techniques have been proposed to navigate through 3D scenes in desktop, mobile and VR headset systems, 3D navigation still poses a high entry barrier for many potential users. In this paper we discuss the design and implementation of a test platform to facilitate the creation and fine-tuning of interaction techniques for 3D navigation. We support the most common navigation metaphors (walking, flying, teleportation). The key idea is to let developers specify, at runtime, the exact mapping between user actions and virtual camera changes, for any of the supported metaphors. We demonstrate through many examples how this method can be used to ease navigation to various people including persons with no previous 3D navigation skills, elderly people, and people with disabilities.