Gestures and direct manipulation for immersive virtual reality. (Gestes et manipulation directe pour la réalité virtuelle immersive)

Virtual reality is a technology with applications in numerous fields (medical, automo-tive, etc.). This thesis focuses on immersive virtual spaces, and aims at studying the effects of thetwo major types of interfaces proposed (6 degree of freedom flystick, and finger-trackingsystem) on the user experience, and specifically for 3D object manipulation. We are in-terested in parameters such as ease of use, sense of presence, speed and precision offered.To do so, we design experiments to evaluate these parameters via tasks with measurablesuccess, and which are not field specific. In a first experiment, we study complex general purpose tasks, combining skills re-quired in everyday manipulations, such as grabbing, releasing, translating, rotating, andbalancing objects while walking. We then refine our study by observing the effects ofthose interfaces on the movements themselves, by decomposing them into individual andgrouped degrees of freedom. Lastly, we evaluate the applicability of our direct manip-ulation system in the context of a preliminary study on the use of virtual reality for thetreatment of Alzheimer’s disease.These studies analyze the properties of these interfaces to provide guidelines to thechoice of the most appropriate interface for future experiments.