Anchored navigation: coupling panning operation with zooming and tilting based on the anchor point on a map

ABSTRACT

We propose two novel map navigation techniques, called Anchored Zoom (AZ) and Anchored Zoom and Tilt (AZT). In these techniques, the zooming and tilting of a virtual camera are automatically coupled with users' panning displacements so that the anchor point determined by users always remains in a viewport. This allows users to manipulate a viewport without mode-switching among pan, zoom, and tilt while maintaining a sense of distance and direction from the anchor point.

We conducted an experiment to evaluate AZ and AZT and compare them with Pan & Zoom (PZ) [17] and Speed-dependent Automatic Zooming (SDAZ) [10] in off-screen target acquisition tasks and spatial recognition tests. Results showed that our proposed techniques were more effective than those of competitors in reducing time to reach off-screen objects while maintaining users' sense of distance and direction as well as PZ.

References

1. Baudisch, P. and Rosenholtz, R. Halo: a technique for visualizing off-screen objects. Proc. ACM CHI '03, 481--488, 2003.
2. Cockburn, A., Savage, J., and Wallace, A. Tuning and testing scrolling interfaces that automatically zoom. Proc. ACM CHI '05, 71--80, 2005.
3. Cockburn, A., Karlson, A., and Bederson, B. A review of overview+detail, zooming, and focus+context interfaces. ACM Comput. Surv., 41, 1, 1--31, 2008.
4. Furnas, G. W. Generalized fisheye views. Proc. ACM CHI '86, 16--23, 1986.
5. Furnas, G. W. and Bederson, B. Space-scale diagrams: understanding multiscale interfaces. Proc. ACM CHI '95, 234--241, 1995.
6. Guiard, Y., Beaudouin-Lafon, M., Du, Y., Appert, C., Fekete, J. D., and Chapuis, O. Shakespeare's complete works as a benchmark for evaluating multiscale document navigation techniques. Proc. ACM BELIV '06, 1--6, 2006.
7. Guiard, Y., Chapuis, O., Du, Y., and Beaudouin-Lafon, M Allowing camera tilts for document navigation in the standard GUI: a discussion and an experiment. Proc. ACM AVI '06, 241--244, 2006.
8. Guiard, Y., Du, Y., and Chapuis, O. Quantifying degree of goal directedness in document navigation: application to the evaluation of the perspective-drag technique. Proc. ACM CHI '07, 327--336, 2007.
9. Gustafson, S., Baudisch, P., Gutwin, C., and Irani, P. Wedge: clutter-free visualization of off-screen locations. Proc. ACM CHI '08, 787--796, 2008.
10. Igarashi, T. and Hinckley, K. Speed-dependent automatic zooming for browsing large documents. Proc. ACM UIST '00, 139--148, 2000.
11. Irani, P., Gutwin, C., and Yang, X. D. Improving selection of off-screen targets with hopping. Proc. ACM CHI '06, 299--308, 2006.
12. Irani, P., Gutwin, C., Patridge, G., and Nezhadasl, M. Techniques for interacting with off-screen content. Proc. INTERACT '07, 234--249, 2007.
13. Jones, S., Jones, M., Marsden, G., Patel, D., and Cockburn, A. An evaluation of integrated zooming and scrolling on small screens. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 63, 3, 271--303, 2005.
14. Khan, A., Komalo, B., Stam, Jos., Fitzmaurice, G., and Kurtenbach, G. HoverCam: interactive 3D navigation for proximal object inspection. Proc. ACM I3D '05, 73--80, 2005.
15. Moscovich, T., Chevalier, F., Henry, N., Pietriga, E., and Fekete, J. D. Topology-aware navigation in large networks. Proc. ACM CHI '09, 2319--2328, 2009.
16. Olwal, A., Feiner, S., and Heyman, S. Rubbing and tapping for precise and rapid selection on touch-screen displays. Proc. ACM CHI '08, 295--304, 2008.
17. Perlin, K. and Fox, D. Pad: an alternative approach to the computer interface. Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH '93, 57--64 1993.
18. Rekimoto, J. Tilting operations for small screen interfaces. Proc. ACM UIST '96, 167--168, 1996.
19. Savage, J. and Cockburn, A. Comparing automatic and manual zooming methods for acquiring off-screen targets. People and Computers XIX: Proc. the 2005 British HCI Conference, 439--454, 2005.
20. Takashima, K., Subramanian, S., Tsukitani, T., Kitamura, Y., and Kishino, F. Acquisition of off-screen object by predictive jumping, Proc. Asia-Pacific Conference on Computer Human Interaction (APCHI), Springer LNCS 5068, 301--310, 2008.
21. Tan, D. S., Robertson, G. G., and Czerwinski, M. Exploring 3D navigation: combining speed-coupled flying with orbiting. Proc. ACM CHI '01, 418--425, 2001.
22. van Wijk, J. J. and Nuij, W. A. A. A model for smooth viewing and navigation of large 2D information spaces. Proc. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 10, 447--458, 2004.
23. Zhai, S. User performance in relation to 3D input device design. SIGGRAPH Comput. Graph., 32, 4, 50--54, 1998.

Index Terms

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

    • Interaction devices

      • Touch screens

    • Interaction paradigms

      • Graphical user interfaces