AHNE – Audio-Haptic Navigation Environment
AHNE is a novel interface for spatial interaction that allows the user to locate and manipulate virtual objects in a real, three-dimensional space. AHNE is a part of Human Emotional Interaction project funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation TEKES and steered by Nokia Research Center.
2011 / multimodal interaction
Eyes Free Interactions
Even though AHNE is a 3D UI there is no 3D graphical user interface or visual feedback in the system. The interaction itself happens in a 3D environment and the feedback is based on audio and haptics. The user interface elements in AHNE are called Objects. They can have different functions, but they all share the same basic properties. Each Object consists of two layers: an outer sphere and an inner cube. When the user’s hand goes inside the outer sphere of an object, audio feedback can be heard.
This feedback sound changes based on the distance to the inner cube of the object. The change in the feedback sound can be configured to be an increase in pitch, volume or tempo. When the user is actually touching the virtual object, the initial feedback sound stops playing and the sound associated with the object is activated. At this time, the object can be grabbed with the glove.
AHNE (Audio-Haptic Navigation Environment) is a three-dimensional user interface (3D UI) for manipulating virtual sound objects with natural gestures in a real environment.
AHNE has great potential in many user scenarios. As a first implementation of the system, we decided to use AHNE as a musical controller in a performance context. We designed a DJ (disc jockey) tool based on the AHNE system. Our experimentation with the system as a musical controller shows great potential for AHNE as a non-visual interface for a multitude of applications. We believe that non-visual interaction in 3D UIs deserve more attention and research in the field of Reality- Based Interaction.
Performance by Tommi Koskinen at Eurohaptics 2012 conference on Wednesday, 13th June 2012.
