Research for Japanese Input Method using Flick in Virtual Reality

In recent years, methods for displaying one’s own hands in virtual reality (VR) environments have been established through HMD (Head Mounted Display) equipped with hand-tracking features, such as the Meta Quest. However, currently, the speed and accuracy of text input using hand tracking in VR cannot be considered high. Therefore, this research aimed to reduce hand fatigue and improve speed and accuracy by combining hand tracking with flick input using a numeric keypad layout similar to that of smartphones. In this research, we developed a system that displays a numeric keypad layout keyboard in a VR space, allowing users to directly touch it and input text using flick gestures. The key layout is based on the numeric keypad commonly used for Japanese input on smartphones. It was conducted comparison experiment for text input using hand tracking in VR. The proposed method involved using flick input and pinch gestures, while the existing method used the standard hand tracking input method on Meta Quest. As a result, the proposed method received evaluations comparable to the existing system. The usability survey received an above-average rating and was evaluated as a good interface.