Dynamic viewpoint tethering: controlling a virtual camera for effective navigation in virtual environments

Abstract

Dynamic viewpoint tethering is an innovative display technique, which has been proposed to support effective navigation in large-scale virtual environments by integrating information from different frames of reference. The dynamic tether incorporates principles which are known from the older technique of frequency separation, and in many ways resembles a mass-spring-damper system. This study examines the effect of dynamic viewpoint tethering on human users' performance on both local guidance and global awareness tasks. The research results support the design of display systems in improving human-computer interaction in teleoperation tasks.