A comparison of Ķ Delivery of Instructions for inherently 3D Construction Tasks on Handheld and Desktop Computers
Guy Zimmerman, Julie Barnes, Laura Leventhal
[ACM Link]
Forget the title. This paper was a study determining how well college sophomores in Ohio could fold a 3D paper into a whale given varying instructions and visual manipulation options. First of all, the use of animation in examples of folding paper was used by all and was crucial to completion of the task. Second, the more 3D control the user has of the 3D representation of the paper during the folding process, the better the user did. The idea is this, animation examples and the degree of control are both beneficial when a user has to operate on a 3D object in a 2D visual environment.
Animation: from cartoons to the user interface
Bay-Wei Chang, David Ungar
[ACM Link]
Principles of traditional animation applied to 3D computer animation
John Lasseter
[ACM Link]
Animation in UI
The cognitive coprocessor architecture for interactive user interfaces
G. Robertson, S. K. Card, J. D. Mackinlay
[ACM Link]
Real-Time techniques for 3D Flow Visualization:
Anton Fuhrmann, Eduard Grller
[ACM Link]
Discusses methods for viewing complex models of flow lines (e.g. magnetic flux lines or fluid dynamics). The main problem with viewing complex structures like this is occlusion. This paper discusses how to reduce a complex moving structure to a few animated dashed lines to show movement so as to not completely occlude moving objects underneath (the idea is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts). They also talk about using magic lenses and magic boxes (3D magic lenses) to allow the user to view more or less detail in a specific area (to see that parts in context to the whole). This has analogs to the complex arrangement of lines found in a 3D file tree (aka cone tree).
Animating Direct Manipulation Interfaces:
Calder, Thomas
[ACM Link]
This paper talks about how to use animation to add to the user experience of manipulating objects. It pushes feedback animation to give the user feedback about how an object can be manipulated. For example, they propose that the user can stretch the corner of a box as far as they want, completely deforming the box, but if the other three corners dont move, this is a way to communication that the box cant be moved. If the box can be moved, the act of moving it should make some parts of the box drag behind so as to communicate substance. There are apparently 2 new rules that apply to manipulating objects: 1. principle of attachment an object being manipulated should at all times be attached to the pointer (duh) 2. principle of reluctance objects should not want to move used to reinforce the users perception of substance by making manipulation require more user effort.
Audio feedback in conjunction with animation improves engagement and cues a sense of presence. Animation offloads processing from the cognitive system to the perceptual system.
Football Animations for Mobile Phones
Greger Wikstrand, Staffan Eriksson
[ACM Link]
This paper does an actual VAILD psych study on whether or not people prefer a 3D interface over a 2D interface a rarity in the area of animation in interfaces. The experiment is simple: the experimenters use some standard tests to determine the football expertise/fanaticism level of people and then have them watch either an animated 3D representation of an actual football game (from the same perspective as a TV camera would present) or a top down 2D view of the same game. Findings were that football nuts life the 2D top down better than the 3D. The other viewers liked the 3D version. This could be some rough indication that the users expertise level is related to the way they process visual info.
