The effects of display format and visual enhancement cues on performance of three-dimensional teleoperational tasks

Date

1998-05

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Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

Depth perception (as a third dimension) on a two-dimensional surface of a display interface very much determines the quality of the teleoperation system. In this research, among various teleoperation sensing requirements, the television depth requirement was investigated in detail. This research was intended to extend our understanding of the effects of visual display formats and visual enhancement cues on the ability of human operators to effectively control robot manipulators in three-dimensions.

Visual display formats and visual enhancement cues were evaluated by employing a pick-and-place (picking up a virtual object and placing it into a storage rack) task in a simulated teleorobotic task environment. Three different display formats, a multiple 2-dimensional (2-D) display, a 3-dimensional (3-D) perspective display, and a 3-D stereoscopic display were simulated using a combination of various programming tools (external motif, C language, and TELEGRIP software) on a SiliconGraphics Indigo2 workstation. In order to aid human operators in perceiving depth, four different visual enhancement depth cues (including no enhancement cue) were also proposed and incorporated into each display format. Task difficulties were generated by manipulating the size of the storage rack. To compare different display formats and visual enhancement cues, various teleoperation performance measures were collected under each display condition. The measures included the time-to-completion, accuracy, subjective ratings of workload, and distance (move by the end effector).

The results showed that the multiple 2-D display was superior to the perspective and stereoscopic displays, if no visual enhancement cues were provided. If provided with two of the proposed visual enhancement cues, the translucent reference cylinder and four reference lines, the stereoscopic and perspective displays were equivalent to the multiple 2-D display. The traditional single reference line was not sufficient to provide appropriate depth information on the stereoscopic and perspective displays. The stereoscopic display resulted in better performance than the perspective display only under the high task difficulty condition.

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