MagicPad HD: The spatial user interface

Abstract

This paper presents the research of inventing a novel and natural spatial human-system interface – MagicPad HD that is to be used in a fully immersive virtual environment. With the advance in Virtual Reality (VR) technology, modern computer systems are capable of immersing users into a synthetic environment. Based on the previous innovations of MagicPad Light and MagicPad AR, MagicPad HD is designed and implemented. It uses a high resolution tablet and capacitive pen to bring the best of both designs. The high resolution tablet compensates the limited resolution of projected images normally found in most VR systems and the capacitive pen provides a flexible tool for writing on the tablet and interacting with 3D virtual objects simultaneously. User study suggests that MagicPad HD user interface is highly effective and intuitive. It also provides strong evidence to the effectiveness of use familiar objects as the tangible devices as the 3D User Interface in an immersive virtual reality system.