{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,20]],"date-time":"2026-05-20T16:47:30Z","timestamp":1779295650194,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":56,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,19]],"date-time":"2020-10-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1603065600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["71901061, 71871056"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["71901061, 71871056"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universitie","award":["2242019k1G016"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2242019k1G016"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Symmetry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Object selection is the basis of natural user\u2013computer interaction (NUI) in a virtual environment (VE). Among the three-dimensional object selection techniques employed in virtual reality (VR), bare hand-based finger clicking interaction and ray-casting are two convenient approaches with a high level of acceptance. This study involved 14 participants, constructed a virtual laboratory environment in VR, and compared the above two finger-based interaction techniques in terms of aspects of the task performance, including the success rate, total reaction time, operational deviation, and accuracy, at different spatial positions. The results indicated that the applicable distance range of finger clicking interaction and finger ray-casting was 0.2 to 1.4 m and over 0.4 m, respectively. Within the shared applicable distance, the finger clicking interaction achieved a shorter total reaction time and higher clicking accuracy. The performance of finger clicking interaction varied remarkably at the center and edge of the horizontal field of view, while no significant difference was found among ray-casting at various horizontal azimuths. The current findings could be directly applied to the application of bare-hand interaction in VR environments.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/sym12101723","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,19]],"date-time":"2020-10-19T20:44:41Z","timestamp":1603140281000},"page":"1723","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":16,"title":["A Comparative Usability Study of Bare Hand Three-Dimensional Object Selection Techniques in Virtual Environment"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0370-2369","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xiaozhou","family":"Zhou","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Hao","family":"Qin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Weiye","family":"Xiao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Lesong","family":"Jia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chengqi","family":"Xue","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"20","article-title":"3D User Interfaces","volume":"29","author":"Froehlich","year":"2009","journal-title":"IEEE Eng. Med. Boil. Mag."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"499","DOI":"10.1016\/0097-8493(94)90062-0","article-title":"JDCAD: A highly interactive 3D modeling system","volume":"18","author":"Liang","year":"1994","journal-title":"Comput. Graph."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"473","DOI":"10.9728\/dcs.2014.15.4.473","article-title":"A Design and Implementation of Natural User Interface System Using Kinect","volume":"15","author":"Lee","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Digit. Contents Soc."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Poupyrev, I., Billinghurst, M., Weghorst, S., and Ichikawa, T. (1996). The Go-Go Interaction Technique. Proceedings of the 9th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology\u2014UIST \u201996, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).","DOI":"10.1145\/237091.237102"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"45","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ergon.2019.04.004","article-title":"Effects of control-display gain and postural control method on distal pointing performance","volume":"72","author":"Chen","year":"2019","journal-title":"Int. J. Ind. Ergon."},{"key":"ref_6","first-page":"200","article-title":"A 2-Way Laser-Assisted Selection Scheme for Handhelds in a Physical Environment","volume":"2864","author":"Patel","year":"2003","journal-title":"Computer Vision"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Parker, J.K., Mandryk, R.L., Nunes, M.N., and Inkpen, K. (2005). TractorBeam Selection Aids: Improving Target Acquisition for Pointing Input on Tabletop Displays. Proceedings of the Computer Vision, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/11555261_10"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"122","DOI":"10.1007\/s100550200013","article-title":"Novel Uses of Pinch Gloves\u2122 for Virtual Environment Interaction Techniques","volume":"6","author":"Bowman","year":"2002","journal-title":"Virtual Real."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bowman, D.A., and Hodges, L.F. (1997). An Evaluation of Techniques for Grabbing and Manipulating Remote Objects in Immersive Virtual Environments. Proceedings of the 1997 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics\u2014SI3D \u201997, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).","DOI":"10.1145\/253284.253301"},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chang, Y.S., Nuernberger, B., Luan, B., and Hollerer, T. (2017, January 18\u201319). Evaluating gesture-based augmented reality annotation. Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI), Los Angeles, CA, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/3DUI.2017.7893337"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Schweigert, R., Schwind, V., and Mayer, S. (2019). EyePointing. Proceedings of the Mensch und Computer\u2014MuC \u201919, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).","DOI":"10.1145\/3340764.3344897"},{"key":"ref_12","unstructured":"McMahan, R.P., Kopper, R., and Bowman, D.A. (2014). Chapter 12: Principles for Designing Effective 3D Interaction Techniques. Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design, Implementation, and Applications, CRC Press. [2nd ed.]."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"121","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cag.2012.12.003","article-title":"A survey of 3D object selection techniques for virtual environments","volume":"37","author":"Argelaguet","year":"2013","journal-title":"Comput. Graph."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bachmann, D., Weichert, F., and Rinkenauer, G. (2018). Review of Three-Dimensional Human-Computer Interaction with Focus on the Leap Motion Controller. Sensors, 18.","DOI":"10.3390\/s18072194"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"49","DOI":"10.4018\/IJMHCI.2018070104","article-title":"Interactive Design of 3D Dynamic Gesture Based on SVM-LSTM Model","volume":"10","author":"Wang","year":"2018","journal-title":"Int. J. Mob. Hum. Comput. Interact."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1950003","DOI":"10.1142\/S0218001419500034","article-title":"Dynamic Hand Gesture Recognition Using LMC for Flower and Plant Interaction","volume":"33","author":"Liu","year":"2018","journal-title":"Int. J. Pattern Recognit. Artif. Intell."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ameur, S., Ben Khalifa, A., and Bouhlel, M.S. (2016, January 18\u201320). A comprehensive leap motion database for hand gesture recognition. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Sciences of Electronics, Technologies of Information and Telecommunications (SETIT), Hammamet, Tunisia.","DOI":"10.1109\/SETIT.2016.7939924"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lee, J.H., An, S.-G., Kim, Y., Bae, S.-H., Gajos, K., Mankoff, J., and Harrison, C. (2017). Projective Windows. Proceedings of the Adjunct Publication of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology\u2014UIST \u201917, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).","DOI":"10.1145\/3131785.3131816"},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e1841","DOI":"10.1002\/cav.1841","article-title":"Automated brain extraction and immersive exploration of its layers in virtual reality for the rhesus macaque MRI data sets","volume":"30","author":"Luo","year":"2018","journal-title":"Comput. Animat. Virtual Worlds"},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Morse, P., Reading, A.M., Lueg, C.P., and Kenderdine, S. (2015). TaggerVR: Interactive Data Analytics for Geoscience\u2014A Novel Interface for Interactive Visual Analytics of Large Geoscientific Datasets in Cloud Repositories. 2015 Big Data Visual Analytics (BDVA), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).","DOI":"10.1109\/BDVA.2015.7314303"},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"359","DOI":"10.1007\/s00371-016-1209-0","article-title":"CUDA-based real-time hand gesture interaction and visualization for CT volume dataset using leap motion","volume":"32","author":"Shen","year":"2016","journal-title":"Vis. Comput."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Li, J., Cho, I., and Wartell, Z. (2018). Evaluation of Cursor Offset on 3D Selection in VR. Proceedings of the Symposium on Spatial User Interaction\u2014SUI \u201918, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).","DOI":"10.1145\/3267782.3267797"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"214","DOI":"10.3390\/s150100214","article-title":"Evaluation of the Leap Motion Controller as a New Contact-Free Pointing Device","volume":"15","author":"Bachmann","year":"2014","journal-title":"Sensors"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"511","DOI":"10.1162\/105474605774918750","article-title":"Evaluating Effectiveness of Interaction Techniques across Immersive Virtual Environmental Systems","volume":"14","author":"Steed","year":"2005","journal-title":"Presence Teleoperators Virtual Environ."},{"key":"ref_25","first-page":"1217","article-title":"Target Selection in Head-Mounted Display Virtual Reality Environments","volume":"24","author":"Difeng","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. Univers. Comp. Sci."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1729","DOI":"10.1080\/10447318.2019.1571783","article-title":"The Design of Hand Gestures for Selecting Virtual Objects","volume":"35","author":"Lin","year":"2019","journal-title":"Int. J. Hum. Comp. Interact."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"108","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cag.2018.10.006","article-title":"A comparative evaluation of direct hand and wand interactions on consumer devices","volume":"77","author":"Figueiredo","year":"2018","journal-title":"Comput. Graph."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6","DOI":"10.1145\/1744161.1744163","article-title":"The way I see it: Natural user interfaces are not natural","volume":"17","author":"Norman","year":"2010","journal-title":"Interactions"},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"707","DOI":"10.1049\/iet-ipr.2018.5920","article-title":"Survey on depth perception in head mounted displays: Distance estimation in virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality","volume":"13","author":"Marsh","year":"2019","journal-title":"IET Image Process."},{"key":"ref_30","unstructured":"Alger, M. (2020, October 10). Visual Design Methods for Virtual Reality. Available online: http:\/\/aperturesciencellc.com\/vr\/CARD.pdf."},{"key":"ref_31","first-page":"115","article-title":"Effects of Stereoscopic Display on Learning and User Experience in an Educational Virtual Environment","volume":"33","author":"Jamet","year":"2016","journal-title":"Int. J. Hum. Comp. Interact."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"123","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-2909.124.2.123","article-title":"The neuropsychology of 3-D space","volume":"124","author":"Previc","year":"1998","journal-title":"Psychol. Bull."},{"key":"ref_33","first-page":"1","article-title":"Modeling endpoint distribution of pointing selection tasks in virtual reality environments","volume":"38","author":"Yu","year":"2019","journal-title":"ACM Trans. Graph."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"131","DOI":"10.1007\/s13042-017-0705-5","article-title":"A review of hand gesture and sign language recognition techniques","volume":"10","author":"Cheok","year":"2017","journal-title":"Int. J. Mach. Learn. Cybern."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zengeler, N., Kopinski, T., and Handmann, U. (2018). Hand Gesture Recognition in Automotive Human\u2013Machine Interaction Using Depth Cameras. Sensors, 19.","DOI":"10.3390\/s19010059"},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gao, B., Kim, H., Kim, B., and Kim, J.-I. (2018, January 15\u201318). Artificial Landmarks to Facilitate Spatial Learning and Recalling for Curved Visual Wall Layout in Virtual Reality. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Big Data and Smart Computing (BigComp), Shanghai, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/BigComp.2018.00076"},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"836","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jaci.2010.06.009","article-title":"Interferon response factor 3 is essential for house dust mite\u2013induced airway allergy","volume":"126","author":"Marichal","year":"2010","journal-title":"J. Allergy Clin. Immunol."},{"key":"ref_38","first-page":"90","article-title":"GyroWand: An Approach to IMU-Based Raycasting for Augmented Reality","volume":"36","author":"Ozacar","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Eng. Med. Boil. Mag."},{"key":"ref_39","first-page":"34","article-title":"Efficient 3D pointing selection in cluttered virtual environments","volume":"29","author":"Sanz","year":"2009","journal-title":"IEEE Eng. Med. Boil. Mag."},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"381","DOI":"10.1037\/h0055392","article-title":"The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement","volume":"47","author":"Fitts","year":"1954","journal-title":"J. Exp. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"91","DOI":"10.1207\/s15327051hci0701_3","article-title":"Fitts\u2019 Law as a Research and Design Tool in Human-Computer Interaction","volume":"7","author":"MacKenzie","year":"1992","journal-title":"Hum. Comp. Interact."},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Grossman, T., and Balakrishnan, R. (2004). Pointing at Trivariate Targets in 3D Environments. Proceedings of the 2004 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems\u2014CHI \u201904, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).","DOI":"10.1145\/985692.985749"},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"972","DOI":"10.1177\/154193121005401311","article-title":"Extended Fitts\u2019 law in Three-Dimensional Pointing Tasks","volume":"54","author":"Cha","year":"2010","journal-title":"Proc. Hum. Factors Ergon. Soc. Annu. Meet."},{"key":"ref_44","unstructured":"Wingrave, C.A., and Bowman, D.A. (,  2005). Baseline factors for raycasting selection. Proceedings of the HCI International."},{"key":"ref_45","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"791","DOI":"10.1016\/S0167-9457(01)00058-6","article-title":"Extending Fitts\u2019 law to a three-dimensional pointing task","volume":"20","author":"Murata","year":"2001","journal-title":"Hum. Mov. Sci."},{"key":"ref_46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"625","DOI":"10.2307\/1422176","article-title":"The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction","volume":"97","author":"Huesmann","year":"1984","journal-title":"Am. J. Psychol."},{"key":"ref_47","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Teather, R.J., and Stuerzlinger, W. (2011, January 19\u201320). Pointing at 3D targets in a stereo head-tracked virtual environment. Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI), Singapore.","DOI":"10.1109\/3DUI.2011.5759222"},{"key":"ref_48","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Olsen, D.R., and Nielsen, T. (2001). Laser Pointer Interaction. Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems\u2014CHI 09, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).","DOI":"10.1145\/365024.365030"},{"key":"ref_49","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"511","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijhcs.2012.12.006","article-title":"Analysis and comparison of target assistance techniques for relative ray-cast pointing","volume":"71","author":"Bateman","year":"2013","journal-title":"Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud."},{"key":"ref_50","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"555","DOI":"10.1518\/001872006778606877","article-title":"Perceptual Issues in the Use of Head-Mounted Visual Displays","volume":"48","author":"Patterson","year":"2006","journal-title":"Hum. Factors J. Hum. Factors Ergon. Soc."},{"key":"ref_51","first-page":"422","article-title":"The neural representation of visual space (reply)","volume":"276","author":"Drasdo","year":"1978","journal-title":"Nat. Cell Biol."},{"key":"ref_52","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"171","DOI":"10.1016\/0959-4388(93)90206-E","article-title":"Coordinate transformations in the representation of spatial information","volume":"3","author":"Andersen","year":"1993","journal-title":"Curr. Opin. Neurobiol."},{"key":"ref_53","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"189","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev.neuro.25.112701.142922","article-title":"Intentional Maps in Posterior Parietal Cortex","volume":"25","author":"Andersen","year":"2002","journal-title":"Annu. Rev. Neurosci."},{"key":"ref_54","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.3389\/fnhum.2017.00323","article-title":"Multiple Coordinate Systems and Motor Strategies for Reaching Movements When Eye and Hand Are Dissociated in Depth and Direction","volume":"11","author":"Bosco","year":"2017","journal-title":"Front. Hum. Neurosci."},{"key":"ref_55","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ens, B., Hincapi\u00e9-Ramos, J.D., and Irani, P. (2014). Ethereal Planes. Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Symposium on Computing for Development\u2014ACM DEV \u201912, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).","DOI":"10.1145\/2659766.2659769"},{"key":"ref_56","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ens, B., Finnegan, R., and Irani, P.P. (2014). The personal cockpit. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems\u2014CHI \u201914, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).","DOI":"10.1145\/2556288.2557058"}],"container-title":["Symmetry"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-8994\/12\/10\/1723\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T10:23:43Z","timestamp":1760178223000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-8994\/12\/10\/1723"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,19]]},"references-count":56,"journal-issue":{"issue":"10","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,10]]}},"alternative-id":["sym12101723"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/sym12101723","relation":{},"ISSN":["2073-8994"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2073-8994","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,19]]}}}