Immersive Gesture Interfaces for Navigation of 3D Maps in HMD-Based Mobile Virtual Environments

3D maps such as Google Earth and Apple Maps (3D mode), in which users can see and navigate in 3D models of real worlds, are widely available in current mobile and desktop environments. Users usually use a monitor for display and a keyboard/mouse for interaction. Head-mounted displays (HMDs) are currently attracting great attention from industry and consumers because they can provide an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience at an affordable cost. However, conventional keyboard and mouse interfaces decrease the level of immersion because the manipulation method does not resemble actual actions in reality, which often makes the traditional interface method inappropriate for the navigation of 3D maps in virtual environments. From this motivation, we design immersive gesture interfaces for the navigation of 3D maps which are suitable for HMD-based virtual environments. We also describe a simple algorithm to capture and recognize the gestures in real-time using a Kinect depth camera. We evaluated the usability of the proposed gesture interfaces and compared them with conventional keyboard and mouse-based interfaces. Results of the user study indicate that our gesture interfaces are preferable for obtaining a high level of immersion and fun in HMD-based virtual environments.