PORTAL: Portal Widget for Remote Target Acquisition and Control in Immersive Virtual Environments

TL;DR

This paper presents PORTAL, a novel widget for remote target acquisition and control in immersive virtual environments, enabling users to interact with out-of-reach objects effectively.

Contribution

Introduction of PORTAL, a new interaction technique for remote object manipulation in virtual environments, validated through user studies.

Findings

PORTAL enables successful remote object interaction.

Participants achieved high precision with PORTAL.

The technique is effective for selection and manipulation tasks.

Abstract

This paper introduces PORTAL (POrtal widget for Remote Target Acquisition and controL) that allows the user to interact with out-of-reach objects in a virtual environment. We describe the PORTAL interaction technique for placing a portal widget and interacting with target objects through the portal. We conduct two formal user studies to evaluate PORTAL for selection and manipulation functionalities. The results show PORTAL supports participants to interact with remote objects successfully and precisely. Following that, we discuss its potential and limitations, and future works.