Investigating Freehand Pan and Zoom

Abstract

The availability of low-cost and flexible tracking systems for hand and body movements is increasing. With this, more thorough investigations for more natural and efficient physical interaction styles are required which take particular limitations of such systems into account, such as the limited ability to track individual fingers. To contribute to this, we describe an investigation of basic hand gestures for the exploration of large information spaces. A set of four pan-and-zoom alternatives using two-handed gestural controls have been implemented and compared using Google Earth as an example. For this we conducted a small-scaled formative user study with nine participants to fundamentally assess users' acceptance and the qualification of these freehand gestures for pan-and-zoom operations. As a result, a simple forward and backward hand movement for zooming and a joystick metaphor for panning yielded in the best overall results. Especially the seamless integration of continuous pan and zoom was positively highlighted by participants.