Bubble bee, an alternative to arrow for pointing out directions

We present Bubble Bee - an extension for the 3D bubble cursor in Virtual Environments (VEs). This technique provides an alternative to arrows for pointing out a direction in a 3D scene. Bubble Bee is based on a ring concept. A circular ring in 3D appears like an ellipse, according to its orientation. This orientation is easy to infer by comparing the minor radius which varies with the view angle, to the reference major radius which is constant and equal to the radius of the ring. Bubble Bee is a sphere with several rings oriented towards the same direction. The rings give a natural axis to the sphere. A color gradient sets the direction of this axis. We compared the performance of Bubble Bee and a 3D arrow through an experiment. The participants were asked to indicate which object was pointed by the two competing techniques. No significant differences on decision time were found, while Bubble Bee was shown to be nearly as accurate as a 3D arrow.