Enhancing VR Sketching with a Dynamic Shape Display

Sketching on virtual objects in Virtual Reality (VR) can be challenging due to the lack of a physical surface that constrains the movement and provides haptic feedback for contact and movement. While using a flat physical drawing surface has been proposed, it creates a significant discrepancy between the physical and virtual surfaces when sketching on non-planar virtual objects. We propose using a dynamic shape display that physically mimics the shape of a virtual surface, allowing users to sketch on a virtual surface as if they are sketching on a physical object’s surface. We demonstrate this using VRScroll, a shape-changing device that features seven independently controlled flaps to imitate the shape of a virtual surface automatically. Our user study showed that participants exhibited higher precision when tracing simple shapes with the dynamic shape display and produced clearer sketches. We also provided several design implications for dynamic shape displays aimed at enabling precise sketching in VR.