2D Selection in Virtual Reality with Head Mounted Displays

We present an evaluation of a new selection technique for virtual reality (VR) systems presented on head-mounted displays. The technique, dubbed EZCursorVR, presents a 2D cursor that moves in a head-fixed plane, simulating a 2D desktop-like cursor for VR. The cursor can be controlled by any 2 degree of freedom (DOF) and 3/6DOF input device. We conducted two experiments based on ISO 9241-9. In the first study, we compared the effectiveness of EZCursorVR using six different controllers. Results indicate that the mouse offered the best performance, while the position-control joystick performed the worst. In the second study we evaluate EZCursorVR using three different transfer functions using the mouse with different degrees of cursor acceleration. Results indicate that, despite previous research, constant acceleration performed better than the other two transfer functions. We believe that future evaluation needs to be conducted to evaluate different acceleration curve steepnesses using the same transfer function.