Six Degree-of-Freedom Sphere Tracking for 3D Interaction

Interaction with 3D objects using standard computer input devices such as a mouse and keyboard is often a difficult task. For this reason, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) are developed to allow more natural 3D interaction by manipulating physical objects in a familiar way. We present a new TUI system that includes a passive optical tracking method to compute the six degree-offreedom pose of a sphere in a real-time video stream, and then apply the pose to a virtual object. The pose is accurately resolved under partial occlusions, allowing manipulation by hand without a tracking failure.