The Robotics Institute

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute

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Abstract

In late 2006, Nintendo released a new game controller, the Wiimote, which included a three-axis accelerometer. Since then, a large variety of novel applications for these controllers have been developed by both independent and commercial developers. We add to this growing library with three performance interfaces that allow the user to control the motion of a dynamically simulated, animated character through the motion of his or her arms, wrists, or legs. For comparison, we also implement a traditional joystick/button interface. We assess these interfaces by having users test them on a set of tracks containing turns and pits. Two of the interfaces (legs and wrists) were judged to be more immersive and were better liked than the joystick/button interface by our subjects. All three of the Wiimote interfaces provided better control than the joystick interface based on an analysis of the failures seen during the user study.

Keywords

character animation, physical simulation, user interface, Wiimotes

Notes

Associated Lab(s) / Group(s): Computer Graphics Lab

Number of pages: 9

Note: See the project page at http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/wii/

Text Reference

Takaaki Shiratori and Jessica K. Hodgins, "Accelerometer-based User Interfaces for the Control of a Physically Simulated Character," ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH Asia 2008), Vol. 27, No. 5, December, 2008

BibTeX Reference

@article{Shiratori_2008_6199,
   author = "Takaaki Shiratori and Jessica K Hodgins",
   title = "Accelerometer-based User Interfaces for the Control of a Physically Simulated Character",
   journal = "ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH Asia 2008)",
   month = "December",
   year = "2008",
   volume = "27",
   number = "5",
   Notes = "See the project page at http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/wii/"
}

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