Glass team should develop a standard hands-free control API that every
developer should adopt. I just did this and it works very well and I will be
happy if it is made standard for other developers so that every user who gets
glass will be able to use this feature without having to re-learn another
control a developer implemented.
New Feature:
A way of quickly selecting menus on screen without using the touchpad. Very
easy compared to using the touchpad.
Where will this be important?
When someone is born without right hand, when someone loses their hand either
from a military mission, car accident, work place accident or disease. Also
suitable for quick Menu selection so that the user won't have to raise their
hands towards the touchpad.
What applications will this benefit?
Applications with menus or pick selection that requires the user to select and
item with left, right, up, down, and select key. Also, an application that
requires user to scroll up, down, left and right.
For example, video game menus needs select menus, and the scrolling method for
sliding a vertical slider up and down. Also for sliding a horizontal slider
left or right.
What sensors are needed?
Accelerometer and the eye gesture sensor.
What functions are required?
For selecting menu, the following callback functions or something similar
should be implemented:
onUpArrow(), onDownArrow(),onLeftArrow(),onRightArrow()
For scrolling/sliding sliders or scroll bars, the following callback functions
or something similar should be implemented:
onSliderUp(),onSliderDown(),onSliderLeft(),onSliderRight()
How does it work?
It works by using the accelerometer and the eye gesture(IR) sensor. For the
accelerometer sensor, the Glass OrientationManager class seems to have every
value we need. We need to get the heading and pitch of the glass. The pitch is
for onUpArrow,onDownArrow && onSliderUp(),onSliderDown while the heading is for
onLeftArrow(),onRightArrow() && onSliderLeft(),onSliderRight().
There should be a moveThreshold and also a updateTimeThreshold for the
developer to modify. The moveThreshold is like a sensitivity filter that will
be used to determine how fast the user should move head up,down, left or right
before determining if the move is valid acceptable. If it is, we can then call
onUpArrow,onDownArrow is called depending if we moved up or down. If head is
moved right or left, and the move is considered to be valid, the
onLeftArrow(),onRightArrow() functions is called depending on if we moved left
or right.
We CAN'T listen to onLeftArrow(),onRightArrow() while listening to
onSliderLeft(),onSliderRight(). So, we can have a Boolean that determines when
we are in Selection Mode or Sliding/Scrolling Mode as both will interfere with
each other. The default mode should be Selection Mode which is used to select
menus by moving head up, down, left and right while the callback functions are
being called.
To enable Sliding/Scrolling Mode, the user will use Selection Mode to select
the scroll bar they which to modify, then look at the screen and blink twice.
Once the user blinks twice, the mode variable will switch to Sliding/Scrolling.
Now, when the user moves their head up, onSliderUp() function is called.
There, the programmer can increase the scroll bar value or decrease it
depending on the direction the user is moving their head.
When the user is done modifying the scroll bar, they can blink twice again and
the Scroll Mode will be disabled while the Selection Mode will be re-enabled
again.
Also, if the user blinks twice and we are in Sliding/Scrolling Mode but the
user doesn't move head to any direction for 2 seconds, the Sliding/Scrolling
Mode will disable right away and the Selection Mode should be re-enabled.
The updateTimeThreshold is used just like the moveThreshold. It is used to
determine how many times the API should read the sensor in a second.
The API should have a way of reading or writing to these two values to
calibrate the API.
The biggest difference between Selecting && Sliding/Scrolling Mode is that each
mode has different updateTimeThreshold && moveThreshold values. The
Sliding/Scrolling Mode should be more sensitive, meaning that when the user
moves their head a little bit, the slider call back functions should be called
2 or 3 times to help smooth the increase and decrease of the scroll bar.
The Selection Mode shouldn't be sensitive as it will be hard to select a menu
if it is. In conclusion, during each Mode, the updateTimeThreshold and
moveThreshold variables must be modified to make the Mode work properly.
What inspired me to make something like this is the game I am working on and
the result that came out of it. Also the touchpad Gesture API with TAP &&
SWIPE_RIGHT enum made me come up with these.
It took time to write this so I am expecting a good reply from the Glass Team.
Original issue reported on code.google.com by innocla...@gmail.com on 1 Jan 2015 at 10:58
Original issue reported on code.google.com by
innocla...@gmail.comon 1 Jan 2015 at 10:58