Using Hands and Feet to Navigate and Manipulate Spatial Data

Johannes Schöning, Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Münster, Germany
Florian Daiber, Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Münster, Germany
Antonio Krüger, Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Münster, Germany
Michael Rohs, Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, TU Berlin, Germany


Abstract:

We demonstrate how multi-touch hand gestures in combination with foot gestures
can be used to perform navigation tasks in interactive systems. The geospatial
domain is an interesting example to show the advantages of the combination of
both modalities because the complex user interfaces of common Geographic
Information System (GIS) requires a high degree of expertise from its users.
Recent developments in interactive surfaces that enable the construction of
low cost multi-touch displays and relatively cheap sensor technology to detect
foot gestures allow the deep exploration of these input modalities for GIS
users with medium or low expertise. In this paper, we provide a categorization
of multitouch hand and foot gestures for the interaction with spatial data on
a large-scale interactive wall. In addition we show with an initial evaluation
how these gestures can improve the overall interaction with spatial
information.