Accurate molecular atom selection in VR

Abstract

Target acquisition is a basic task that is part of almost any high-level interaction in 3D environments. Therefore, providing accurate selection is a necessity for most applications and games. When targets are small and scenes are cluttered, selection becomes inaccurate. This may lead to selecting the wrong elements which, apart from the time consumed, may become a frustrating experience. Besides the unintentional tremor, the button/trigger press for effectively selecting an element further reduces our stability, increasing the probability of an incorrect target acquisition. In this paper, we focus on molecular visualization and address the problem of selecting atoms, which are rendered as small spheres. We build upon previous progressive selection algorithms and present two alternatives that accelerate the selection of neighbors after an initial selection. We have implemented and analyzed such techniques through a formal user study and found that they were highly appreciated by the users. These selection methods may be suitable for other crowded environments beyond molecular visualization.