The Personal Space Station: Bringing Interaction Within Reach

Near-field virtual reality allows users to interact with virtual objects within arm’s reach of the user. Environments for near-field VR are well suited for direct precise interaction by taking advantage of the user’s hand-eye co-ordination. We discuss the design and initial experience of a near-field virtual environment, the Personal Space Station (PSS). In this system, all interactive 3D tasks are realized directly with the hands or by using task specific graspable input devices. The primary motivations for building the system are to provide an environment that can be used under normal office working conditions, that allows for direct natural interaction, and that is low cost. The PSS consists of a mirror in which stereoscopic images are reflected. The user reaches under the mirror to interact with the virtual world. The principle differences between the PSS and other near-field systems are that interaction is based on optical tracking, the system is configurable to adapt to various application requirements, and the PSS is a low-cost, complete desktop VR system. Two cameras are used to track the space in which the interaction takes place. Robust and low latency optical tracking paves the way for versatile and graspable 3D interfaces supporting direct interaction.