Are you a developer or experimenter pondering options for text entry in virtual or mixed reality? If that’s the case (or you’re merely curious) then here’s the resource you need: TEXT, or the Text Entry for XR Trove. It’s a collection of all the things people have tried when it comes to creating text entry interfaces for virtual and mixed reality (VR/MR) systems, all in a searchable list, complete with animated demonstrations.
VR and MR are new frontiers, and optimal interfaces are still very much a work in progress. If one wishes to avoid reinventing the wheel, it’s a good idea to research prior art. This resource makes it very easy to browse all the stuff people have tried when it comes to text entry.
It’s also fun just to browse and see what kinds of unusual solutions people have come up with that go pretty far beyond “floating over-sized virtual keyboard”. Lenstouch for example involves tapping directly on the touch-sensitive front of the headset, and PalmType reminds us somewhat of the Palm Pilot’s Graffiti system.
It’s a treasure trove of creativity with a nice, searchable interface. Have you come up with your own, or know of a method that isn’t there? Submit it to the collection so others can find it. And if you’re in the process of cooking something up yourself, we have some DIY handwriting recognition resources you might find useful.
What’s the difference between MR and AR
Apparently, mixed reality tries to do object tracking and stuff, so it can “mix” the virtual displays it throws up in the world, and real objects (think things like faking occlusion, keeping your screen from clipping into walls, etc.)
AR just throws up virtual displays over the top of everything.
I always thought of it as degrees of reality.
VR is full virtual, MR is mostly virtual with “Real Reality” components, AR is mostly “real” with virtual components, and RR is fully real. xD
A brief amount of Google Research indicates that AR overlays virtual components into a real space, while Mixed Reality allows “interactions” between the virtual and real spaces. shrug
Oh, I like these. I remember doing a bunch of UX experimentation for intuitive but fast-ish text input in VR. I really liked a letter-blocks approach, where you picked up and placed physical blocks that represented the letters. Not particularly fast, but super intuitive and engaging!