Natural manipulation of virtual reality: The effects of kinesthetic gloves with force feedback on user performance and experience for accurate 3D object manipulation

• The study experimentally compared the novel VR interfaces that use current state-of-the-art kinesthetic gloves as manipulation tools with the traditional controller-based VR interface in accurate 3D object manipulation. • The experiment demonstrated the strengths of finger-based multipoint interaction provided by kinesthetic gloves, in terms of task completion time, accuracy, perceived workload and user preference. • The results also revealed the advantages and disadvantages of force feedback from the gloves for 3D manipulation and demonstrated the direction of future technology improvement. One of the challenges facing virtual reality (VR) is the pursuit of efficient and natural object manipulation, required by many applications, such as computer-aided medical diagnosis, surgery planning and industrial prototyping. Current hand-based three-dimensional (3D) manipulation allows users to interact with virtual objects intuitively, enabled primarily by using motion controllers with single-point interaction. There are promising avenues to increase naturalness of interaction through kinesthetic gloves that provide finger-based multipoint interaction with force feedback. These novel gloves could have more potential for 3D object manipulation in VR, however, their practical usability in this field remains largely unexplored. This study compared the glove-based VR interfaces (with/without force feedback) with the traditional controller-based VR interface in accurate movement and rotation tasks. The results demonstrated the strengths of finger-based multipoint interaction provided by kinesthetic gloves in accurate 3D manipulation, in terms of task completion time, accuracy, perceived workload and user preference. Additionally, the experiment identified that force feedback from kinesthetic gloves surprisingly did not benefit user task performance and even negatively affected rotation accuracy. However, it was perceived as valuable for object rotation that required complicated finger movement and coordination.