Demonstrating Cloth Folding to Robots: Design and Evaluation of a 2D and a 3D User Interface

TL;DR

This paper introduces and evaluates two user interfaces for demonstrating cloth folding to robots, showing that 3D AR aids understanding while 2D interfaces are better for repetition, with fold previews enhancing efficiency and satisfaction.

Contribution

The paper presents novel 2D and 3D user interfaces for cloth manipulation demonstration, including fold preview features and a comparative user study.

Findings

3D interface improves task understanding

2D interface is better for task repetition

Fold previews enhance efficiency and user satisfaction

Abstract

An appropriate user interface to collect human demonstration data for deformable object manipulation has been mostly overlooked in the literature. We present an interaction design for demonstrating cloth folding to robots. Users choose pick and place points on the cloth and can preview a visualization of a simulated cloth before real-robot execution. Two interfaces are proposed: A 2D display-and-mouse interface where points are placed by clicking on an image of the cloth, and a 3D Augmented Reality interface where the chosen points are placed by hand gestures. We conduct a user study with 18 participants, in which each user completed two sequential folds to achieve a cloth goal shape. Results show that while both interfaces were acceptable, the 3D interface was found to be more suitable for understanding the task, and the 2D interface suitable for repetition. Results also found that fold previews improve three key metrics: task efficiency, the ability to predict the final shape of the cloth and overall user satisfaction.