A typical virtual environment setup consists of a workbench display allowing an outside-in exocentric view of a data set, or a room display for fully immersive, inside-out egocentric views of life-sized, walkthrough data sets. Through SCAPE, we have explored a framework that combines and promotes both these interaction paradigms symmetrically and concurrently. However, often times the two discrete views provided by the workbench and wall displays alone are insufficient. For example, in the immersive view, the data set might appear overwhelmingly detailed or zoomed in, whereas on the workbench, the same visualization might appear at an inadequately low resolution, or otherwise look too zoomed out to distinguish notable characteristics. In such instances, a continuous range of intermediary scales and levels of detail is highly desirable to fine-tune the visualization for the given task.<\/p>\n
We recently are exploring tangible Magic Lens interfaces in 3D augmented and virtual environments, to augment the bi-modal (micro- and macro-scales, exocentric and egocentric perspectives) visualization concept in SCAPE.<\/p>\n
It allows zooming, clipping, and layering a 3D object selected by free-hand gesture. This was upgraded from our preliminary “Magnifier” implementation (UIST 2003 paper). Compared to the 2003 implementation which only had magnification function, we identified \u00a0multiple generic functions we consider applicable to many domains (i.e. zooming, clipping, and layering), implemented interface controls. Besides functional upgrades, we also revised the rendering algorithm for more accurate registration and depth perception as well as easier user adaptation.<\/p>\n