Call for 3DUI Contest

Description

For the second year, 3DUI is holding the 3DUI Grand Contest. It is open to anyone interested in 3D User Interfaces, from researchers to students, enthusiasts, and professionals. The goal is to find innovative solutions to classic 3DUI problems (navigation, selection, manipulation). Think outside the box, unleash your creativity, and show your ideas to the 3DUI community! You may use whatever software and hardware you want (from simple mouse/keyboard, to specialized devices such as the Spacemouse, haptic devices, multi-touch tables, 3D trackers, head-mounted displays, projection systems, etc.) to achieve the task.

Problem Description

Build an application that allows users to solve simple 3D puzzles such as that shown in Figure 1. The system should measure time of completion, and it should provide a way to include new puzzles (i.e. pieces and final shape) to the system (such as that in Figure 2). The environment should show something like a tabletop, where all pieces are equally selectable. The user should be able to select any piece and move it to a working area. The system identifies when the solution is achieved, and it should show how much time the player needed.

All teams should perform a basic user study with the following method and measures. (For the user study, use the puzzle in Figure 1.) Novices should receive a short introduction of the manipulation techniques and the task, with a practice session of 1 minute. After this, they should start the task and be left alone (with no guidance). You should register how many subjects finished the task and how long it took for each user (measured by the system in seconds). For experts, you should record the time of completion for 3 attempts. You should present data of at least 10 novice users and 5 experts. A novice user is someone with little or no familiarity with 3DUIs (casual game play on the Wii, for example, would fit into this category).  Experts would be people familiar with 3DUI implementation/design, or people who regularly use 3DUIs to perform tasks (such as domain scientists who use 3DUIs for visualization).

* You should add more measurements to this study, which will be evaluated by juries.

Fig.1: Puzzle to be solved

Fig.2: The system should be able to add more puzzles such as this one (without the box)

Rules

Teams of up to 5 people can submit solutions. We expect from you the following material:

• A representative video that shows a sample user solving a puzzle.  The video should include a complete interaction and should show both the user and the application together.
• A video that explains the solution to the public. If your group is selected, this video will be shown in a special session at the conference, and will be the subject of evaluation by the public.
• A short paper of 2 pages, with a description of the solution, details about hardware and software used, and results from the basic user study. If selected, this paper will be included in the 3DUI proceedings, and therefore must be formatted using the IEEE Computer Society format.

The winner will be determined at the conference, and the judging will take into consideration the material submitted, the initial evaluation from juries, and the public evaluation at the conference.

Both videos should have a length of 3-5 minutes, with a title and the names of the collaborators identified.  They should be high-quality compressed video, and they will be accepted in MPEG (.mpg), QuickTime (.mov), AVI (.avi), MP4 (.mp4), or Matroska (.mkv) file formats. In the interests of producing a video that is as platform-agnostic as possible, we suggest using one of the following codecs:

• MPEG 1 or 2
• Cinepak
• H.264
• DivX or Xvid

You may also use public service (e.g. YouTube) for submitting large video files.  We also request that you upload a video to YouTube and send us the URL so that we can link to them on the web.

Prizes

To be determined.

Contact Information

The contest chairs are:

• Pablo Figueroa, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
• Evan Suma, Institute for Creative Technologies. University of Southern California
• Michael Cohen, University of Aizu, Japan

You can contact us at 3duicontest2011@gmail.com

Organization and Important Dates

September 1st:
  The Contest is opened

January 7th:
  Submission date for the paper, please send a link to all necessary files.

January 14th:
  Final date for video submissions
(Note: You can also send the video for the video track at 3DUI, but in this case you also have to send it by Jab. 7th).

February 4th:
  Jury's decision on groups that will present at the conference

March 19-23:
  Contest session at the conference