The Construct.

The construct is an immersive virtual environment created to explore interaction techniques in 3D environments.

Created using C++ and OpenGL, it is the continuation of the F.I.V.E. project. While F.I.V.E. focused on the interaction techniques specifically tailored for data gloves, The Construct is seeks to explore all facets of human computer interaction possibilities. Thus users may interacted with speech, head movements, hands, textual commands, and even feet.

The central idea driving the construct is to explore the multi-modal nature of the body, and attempt to increase the limited capabilities that the 30 year old desktop metaphor offers.

Consider the act of driving a car: The harmonious use of feet, arms and head with so little thought needed that we can easily converse. Now consider typical interaction with a computer: The use of two hands to slowly type commands, or one had to select commands from 2 dimensional menus. Clearly throughput could be increased if we made better use of our multi-modal capabilities, and is this is the ultimate aim of our research.