Future Generation Computer Systems 81 (2018) 516–527

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Future Generation Computer Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fgcs

Evaluation of spatial interaction techniques for virtual heritage

applications: A case study of an interactive holographic projection
Giuseppe Caggianese, Luigi Gallo *, Pietro Neroni
Institute for High Performance Computing and Networking, National Research Council of Italy (ICAR-CNR), Naples, Italy

highlights

• Interaction design of a holographic projection system for use in a museum context.

• Design of task- and domain-specific touchless interaction techniques.
• Quantitative and qualitative user studies.

article info a b s t r a c t
Article history: The increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in museums is providing
Received 1 March 2017 curators with new opportunities for the display of cultural heritage content, making it possible to merge
Received in revised form 12 June 2017 real and digital works of art in a coherent exhibition space. However, humans learn and perceive by
Accepted 21 July 2017
following an interactive process, a fact that is particularly true in relation to the understanding, analysis
Available online 6 August 2017
and interpretation of the cultural heritage. In order to allow visitors to fully exploit the potential of this
new hybrid cultural communication, interactivity is essential. This paper analyzes interaction design
Keywords:
Holographic projection focusing on a holographic projection system equipped with a gesture-based interface and discussing
Touchless interaction the results of both quantitative and qualitative user studies aimed at empirically investigating users’
Interaction technique preferences in relation to interaction techniques when used in a museum context. The experimental
Museum findings suggest the adoption of task-specific patterns in the design of touchless user interfaces for the
User study exploration of digital heritage content.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction seventy countries. Moreover, many important cultural heritage

A huge number of cultural objects are not accessible to visitors
due to the lack of exhibition space in museums or to temporary
restoration works. Moreover, even when such objects are accessi-
ble, they can often only be seen at a single site since they cannot be
transported either due to their fragility or because they are part of
the urban space and are simply immovable. In this context, there is
an increasing interest in the introduction of ICT (information and
communications technology) to increase the number of cultural
heritage objects that can be exhibited and observed and to enhance
the quality of their presentation to the interested public [1]. In
line with this trend, Google introduced its Art & Culture project,
which allows users to effortlessly navigate via web-based inter-
faces among artworks from over a thousand museums across
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: giuseppe.caggianese@icar.cnr.it (G. Caggianese),
luigi.gallo@cnr.it (L. Gallo), pietro.neroni@icar.cnr.it (P. Neroni).
institutions, being increasingly involved in the management of
digitalized cultural heritage content, have recently released web-
based virtual exhibitions [2]. Examples include the Museum of
the Louvre, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
of Washington, the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the
National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
In addition to the adoption of ICT for the building of virtual,
off-site visits, more recently we have also witnessed an increasing
interest in applying such technology within conventional exhibi-
tions in museums. Digital representations of real but inaccessible
works of art offer new opportunities to curators in the display and
dissemination of cultural heritage content, making it possible to
merge visible and invisible, hypothetical and imaginary objects
into a single, coherent space. Digital works of art can coexist with
real ones, providing more complete, dynamic and visitor-specific
information than static museum information boards. The result
is that nowadays it is common to hear about ‘museums of the
digital age’ [3] . In such an exhibition, rather than replacing the
real visit with a virtual one, the goal is to support the visitor

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2017.07.047
0167-739X/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 G. Caggianese et al. / Future Generation Computer Systems 81 (2018) 516–527
by stimulating her/his curiosity through a more personalized and
informed experience.
Typically, such exhibitions involve the use of smartphone apps
to provide in-depth, location-aware cultural services to visitors.
However, although mobile technologies are nowadays pervasive,
they involve only a single visitor at a time. Using smartphones
makes it difficult to share experiences with other visitors, a fact
which often has a negative effect on the enjoyment of the visit. An
attempt to make mobile technologies more shareable between vis-
itors is the ‘Mobile Digital Museum’, a completely itinerant digital
exhibition designed for the Inner Mongolia Museum in China [4].
However, even if this problem can be overcome, mobile tech-
nologies also present other limitations: first, not all visitors have,
or know how to use, a modern smartphone; secondly, in some
museums, the internet connection is not available; and thirdly,
most importantly, visitors may not want to concentrate on their
smartphones in preference to looking at the cultural space they are
actually visiting.
To make the presence of digital installations within museums
more user-friendly, and to allow visitors to switch seamlessly
between the different realities of the cultural information, holo-
graphic projection systems may present an interesting opportu-
nity. They can provide an effective, 3D-like visualization of virtual
reconstructions of cultural heritage objects that can be shared by a
number of visitors at the same time. However, the more photoreal-
istic the virtual representation of the cultural artifact appears the
more essential becomes the interactivity. Humans learn and per-
ceive by following an interactive process, a fact that is particularly
true in relation to the understanding, analysis and interpretation of
the cultural heritage. Digital installations within museums should
allow visitors to interact with, explore and manipulate data in
order to examine the cultural artifacts from their own perspective.
The interested visitor should be able to find her/his own path
to cultural knowledge enlightenment, by performing actions not
permissible with respect to the real cultural objects. In this way,
the digital installation can be used not only when the work of art is
inaccessible, but also in combination with it, when it is on display,
allowing the user to see and possibly feel the real artifact but, at the
same time, to inspect it and gather information about it by taking
advantage of new tools.
In this work, we present a holographic projection system that
allows users to manipulate digital content by using spatial inter-
action techniques in a touchless way. Using a touchless interface
presents many advantages: it does not require a long training time
before being used, since it employs spatial iteration metaphors
that are typical of everyday life; it is safe to use, since it does
not require the user to physically touch any device; and, finally,
it is unobtrusive for the museum, not requiring flash hardware
configurations that would not be compatible with some museum
facilities. Furthermore, in this work we present the results of a user
study, the aim of which was to empirically investigate how spatial
interaction techniques perform with respect to different hardware
configurations. In more detail, the goal was to determine the most
efficient interaction technique to use in order to allow visitors to
manipulate digital cultural content within a holographic projection
system and to understand how performance changes according to
the sensor configuration. Finally, since the interactive holographic
projection system was installed at the National Archeological Mu-
seum of Naples for a period of four months, where it was used by
hundreds of visitors, we also evaluate and discuss users’ prefer-
ences with respect to the spatial interaction techniques and the
whole system when effectively used in a museum context.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 summa-
rizes the related work on digital technologies in today’s museums,
specifically focusing on volumetric displays and natural interfaces.
Section 3 introduces the holographic projection system, detailing
517
the design choices and hardware configuration. Next, Section 4
presents the touchless user interface designed to explore and ma-
nipulate the digital content. In Section 5 we discuss the results of a
user study in which several combinations of hardware configura-
tions and interaction techniques have been compared in the lab,
whereas in Section 6 we discuss the results of the experiments
carried out within the museum. Finally, Section 7 summarizes and
concludes the paper.
2. Related work
Over the past quarter century, different ICT systems have been
designed with the goal of enhancing the cultural heritage expe-
rience. One of the first examples is the design of cultural guides
to interactively support the visitor during a visit to a museum.
Early applications worked with personal digital assistants (PDAs),
which were equipped with location-awareness capabilities [5–7].
Solutions based on RFID tags [8] or IrDA beacons [9] placed near to
every point of interest along the cultural path within the exhibition
were investigated to further integrate context-awareness capabil-
ities [10]. Since the context data generated through the interaction
between visitors (equipped with smartphones, tablets, etc.) and
artworks (equipped with sensors) continuously evolves, a recent
challenge has been the design of systems able to handle and take
advantage of such a large amount of data [11]. The latest generation
of cultural guides includes various kinds of multimedia content,
to convey information about the cultural artifacts but especially
to improve the visitor’s experience by offering a personalized ac-
cess to that information [12–15]. In this context, visitors become
active elements, able to discover cultural content and also share it
through social recommendation sites on social media [16].
With respect to virtual reality technologies, in the last decades
many virtual systems have been designed to make it possible to
show cultural content to remote visitors in an attractive man-
ner [1,17]. A considerable amount of cultural digital heritage con-
tent has become available online on museum websites and plat-
forms. This allows visitors to enjoy virtual replicas of artworks
without the risk of damaging them, and to access the multimedia
content associated with a specific exhibit [18,19]. The usability of
the user interface has been a primary concern from the early days,
since an easy-to-use interface could increase the level of cognitive
engagement, so leading to a better learning process [20]. Several
research works have focused on how to avoid leaving the visitor
restricted to the formal aspects of the cultural heritage, instead
aiming to involve her/him more actively in satisfying specific in-
dividual interests. To achieve this goal, in [21] several interfaces
for tabletop displays that enable visitors to perform a more active
interaction with digital systems in museum exhibitions were an-
alyzed. In [22], the opportunity of using serious games to facili-
tate the learning of cultural content by taking advantage of a fun
experience was also investigated. In the last decade, additionally,
holographic installations based on the Pepper’s Ghost effect have
been developed for different application domains. An example is
EducHolo [23], which allows students of mechanical engineering to
improve their study of objects orthographically by visualizing the
holograms of 3D mechanical parts. However, although commercial
versions of holographic installations are also available, most of
them do not allow users to interact directly with the 3D content.
While mobile applications in the cultural heritage domain are
now widely accepted, the design of systems to navigate virtual
representations of cultural objects is still in its infancy. Since mouse
and keyboard-based interaction systems are of limited use in the
exploration of 3D content, in recent years many researchers have
been working on the design of task- and domain-specific natu-
ral interfaces. One of the main goals of such interfaces is trans-
parency: the visitor should forget that she/he is interfacing with a
518 G. Caggianese et al. / Future Generation Computer Systems 81 (2018) 516–527
Fig. 1. The main components of the holographic projection system.
computer, instead focusing primarily on the cultural content. The
achievement of this objective has been facilitated by the advent of
new and affordable sensing devices, which make it easy to design
gesture-based interfaces that allow users to replicate with virtual
objects the interaction techniques used with real ones. In [24],
the authors employed the Kinect sensor to navigate interactively
in a 3D museum. Another example of a gesture-based interface
was introduced in [25], where a natural user interface to interact
with digital artifacts without the need for special tools or training
was evaluated in the Museum of Palazzo Medici Riccardi and
in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. Complex natural user
interfaces for virtual heritage environments based on hand and
arm movements were described in [26,27]. Another type of natural
interface for accessing cultural content makes use of cameras worn
by the users. An example is the system presented in [28], a gestural
interface to interact with artworks in museums. Finally, a novel
user interface was recently introduced in [29] to allow visitors to
interact with cultural content also in outdoor conditions by using
wearable augmented reality technologies.
3. The holographic projection system
The interactive projection system is based on the Pepper’s Ghost
effect [30], which creates a hologram illusion by reflecting an
image using a glass or mylar film placed at a 45◦ angle from the
audience. It is also equipped with a Leap Motion-based touchless
user interface, which allows visitors to rotate and to magnify
the objects in a touchless way by using single hand motions. In
the following section, we describe the system and the proposed
interaction techniques.
3.1. Holographic pyramid design
We designed a three-sided holographic pyramid, which allows
visitors to visualize the 3D object from three different points of
view. The choice of a three-sided pyramid, despite the commonly
used four-sided configuration, was made for two main reasons: to
reduce the problem of ambient light that can disturb the visualiza-
tion of the hologram; and, to enlarge the projecting area, it being
equal to a 40-inch display. To project a different view of the object
on each side of the pyramid, the rendering window of the display
placed on top of the pyramid was organized in three different areas
(see Fig. 1). The system visualizes a 3D reconstruction of the statue
of the ‘Head of Apollo of Omphalos’, which was actually present in
the exhibition close to the system itself (see Fig. 2).
3.2. Input device
In order to allow the visitors to manipulate a virtual object being
close to the holographic system, we needed a short-range sensor
Fig. 2. The cultural heritage artifact: on the left the real one, in the middle its 3D
reconstruction, and on the right the hologram as visualized in the pyramid.
able to capture visitors’ fine-grained hand movements. Among the
short-range off-the-shelf sensors, the Leap Motion [31] provides a
robust hand segmentation even with the hand in a glove or in the
presence of cluttered backgrounds. It works by using two infrared
cameras arranged so that their fields of view (FOVs) intersect. The
Leap Motion sensor provides a horizontal FOV of 135◦ and a vertical
FOV of 120◦ with a maximum operating distance of 0.60 m, with
an active interaction space that takes the shape of an inverted
pyramid, resulting from the intersection of the binocular camera
FOVs.
In our experience, among all the short-range IR sensors, the
Leap Motion is the one that suffers the least from solar radiation
interference. This aspect was relevant in our case study, since direct
sunlight is often present in the museum where we performed
our evaluation. Furthermore, Leap Motion can be used in either a
horizontal or vertical configuration, both of which were employed
in our experiments.
Leap motion is the smallest off-the-shelf sensor of its category (
75 × 30 mm). Due to this small size, it can be easily integrated into
a holographic system, being placed in front of the pyramid below
the projection area (see Fig. 1). Finally, the choice of Leap motion
can be explained on the grounds that, compared with other sensors
in the same price range, it achieves the highest precision with a
sub-millimeter accuracy [32].
3.3. User interface
The touchless interface allows a visitor to play audio content
related to the cultural object, rotate it and magnify a specific part
of it to appreciate its details. To activate the interaction, the visitor
has to place her/his hand close to the tracking sensor at a distance
ranging from 15 to 25 cm in the area defined as the interaction
area [33]. Fig. 3 shows a state diagram of the system.
 G. Caggianese et al. / Future Generation Computer Systems 81 (2018) 516–527
Fig. 3. The finite state machine describing the state transitions of the interface.
In more detail:
• When no visitor interacts with the system, it is in the Idle
State; in this state, the cultural object continuously rotates
in order to show all its sides;
• Whenever a visitor enters the interaction area, the system
switches to the Language State, to let her/him select the
language for the reproduction of the audio content related
to the 3D content;
• After the language selection, the system goes into the Ready
State; the user can start rotating (Rotation State) the holo-
gram or magnifying a specific part of it by performing the
appropriate hand gesture (Zoom-in State).
4. The interaction techniques
The interaction techniques were specifically designed for the
application, the task, the domain, the device and the ‘typical’ user
in a museum context. In order to improve the usability of the
developed techniques, we primarily considered visitor requests;
the visitors outlined some requirements which had to be taken into
due consideration:
Uni vs Bi-manual interaction it is tiring to use both hands for
the interaction and, anyway, displaying simultaneously two
virtual hands inside the pyramid would result in an increased
occlusion of the cultural object; therefore, symmetric one-
handed interaction techniques are preferred;
Virtual hand representation the users prefer to visualize within
the holographic system a virtual representation of the physical
hand with which they are interacting (the control hand);
Ease of learning since the system is designed for museum ex-
hibitions, the users have to be considered as infrequent users;
therefore, it is necessary that the interaction techniques should
be easy to learn;
Embodied interaction the users rely on their embodied skills
in everyday life when interacting with virtual content; accord-
ingly, interaction metaphors that come from everyday life ac-
tions should be employed;
Responsiveness a lag between the event occurrence and the sys-
tem response affects in a strongly negative way the interaction
experience; therefore, the system should be designed to react
as quickly as possible;
Degrees of freedom when possible, the number of degrees of
freedom that have to be controlled simultaneously should be
reduced to make the interaction easier and more precise.
519
In accordance with these general considerations, we designed
two techniques for the rotation task (namely Swipe and Clutching),
and two for the zooming task (namely Magnify and Grab), which
are detailed in the next sections (see Fig. 4 and Table 1).
4.1. Rotation technique—clutching
In the Clutching technique (Fig. 5(a)), to rotate the 3D object the
user has to arrange the virtual hand next to it, assume the grasp
position and, while maintaining this hand posture, move her/his
hand in the direction in which she/he wants to rotate the hologram
(position control mode). To conclude the rotation, the user has to
assume again the open hand posture. Since the rotation axis is
locked, rotating becomes a one degree of freedom task. Similarly
to the Virtual Sphere technique [34], small hand movements will
result in a small angle of rotation, whereas an increased hand
motion will cause a large rotation angle. Basically, this technique is
simple since it is similar to the drag-and-drop technique, which is
commonly used in desktop interfaces. However, to carry out large
rotations, users have to grab, move and release several times.
4.2. Rotation technique—swipe
In the Swipe technique (Fig. 5(b)), the object rotates according
to the user’s control hand position with respect to the sensor: when
the hand is to the right (or left) of the sensor, the hologram contin-
uously rotates to the right (or left) with a speed of rotation that
changes according to the distance of the hand position from the
center of the interaction area (the rate control mode). To stop the
rotation, the user has to move her/his control hand either toward
the center or outside of the interaction area. The rotation axis is
locked, this being a one degree of freedom task. Differently from
the first technique, this time no clutching is required. However, it
is necessary to adopt a more coordinated movement to stop the
rotation.
4.3. Zoom-in technique—magnify
With the Magnify technique (Fig. 5(c)), when the user assumes
the grasp position and her/his hand is placed over the 3D object, the
virtual hand becomes a magnifying glass, which allows the user to
zoom in on details of the object according to the position of the
hand within the plane orthogonal to the sensor. The zoom level is
controlled by the visitor by moving forward and upward her/his
hand. Finally, in order to stop the zoom, the user has to assume
again the open hand posture. In total, this is a task involving three
degrees of freedom.
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Table 1
Description of the interaction techniques.
Technique name Rotation task Zoom-in task Technique description DOFs
Engage Perform Disengage
Clutching ✓ Place the hand next to the 3D In grasp posture, move the Assume the open hand posture. 1
object in grasp posture. hand in the desired
direction.
Swipe ✓ Place the hand in open posture Move the hand left or right Move hand into the center or 1
in the interaction area. with respect to the sensor. outside of the interaction area.
Magnify ✓ Place the hand in grasp position, In grasp posture, move the Assume the open hand posture. 3
the virtual hand becomes thus magnifier on to the desired
becoming the magnifier. detail. To zoom-in, move
the hand toward the object.
Grab ✓ Hand in grasp position. In grasp posture, move the Assume the open hand posture. 3
hand in the space to
translate the 3D object. To
zoom-in, move the hand
away from the object

Fig. 4. The rotation techniques: (a) Clutching and (b) Swipe.

Fig. 5. The zoom-in techniques: (a) Magnify and (b) Grab.

4.4. Zoom-in technique—grab 5. In-the-lab user study

In the Grab technique (Fig. 5(d)), the user can enlarge (or re-
duce) the 3D object by performing a gesture that simulates the
action of grabbing the object and bringing it toward (or moving it
away from) her/him. Therefore, when the virtual hand is over the
3D object, the user should assume the grasp position to choose a
specific point, then adjust the zoom level by moving her/his hand
forward and upward. This technique should be easy to learn, since
the interaction metaphor derives from real life interactions with
objects. However, when the object is enlarged, some of its parts
leave the visualization area, disturbing the holographic effect.
5.1. Goal
We wanted to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of, and
user preferences relating to, various combinations of touchless in-
teraction techniques when used to manipulate 3D content visual-
ized in a holographic projection pyramid. We were also interested
in investigating the interaction between the user’s performance
and the arrangement of the tracking sensor. In more detail, our
goal was to assess whether the sensor arrangement, either pointed
toward the user (vertical) or pointed toward the ceiling (hori-
zontal), affects the user’s performance in executing manipulation
 G. Caggianese et al. / Future Generation Computer Systems 81 (2018) 516–527
tasks and, if so, to understand its relation with the combination of
techniques used to perform the task.
5.2. Design
We conducted a set of experiments employing a mixed-design
analysis of variance in which the between-subject factor is the
arrangement of the acquisition sensor at one of two levels, vertical
or horizontal, whereas the within-subject factors are: i) in the first
study, the rotation techniques (Clutching and Swipe) and angles (3
levels); and ii) in the second study, the zoom techniques (Magnify
and Grab) and factors (3 levels). The performance was measured
in terms of execution time by repeated measures on all the six
combinations of the two within-subject factors for each study. In
more detail, the performance was measured, as already performed
in [35], in terms of time to completion at 95% accuracy and time
to completion at 80% accuracy. Measuring also time to comple-
tion at 80% accuracy was undertaken to discriminate between the
ballistic phase, in which the user roughly rotates and zooms-in
on the object, and the correction phase, generally present in the
time to completion at 95% accuracy, in which the user performs
small, precise adjustments [36]. We consider the time an espe-
cially important measure because in the cultural heritage domain
technological devices, like the one we are proposing in this paper,
have to be easy to use and to learn. For this reason we decided to
compute the time to completion at 80% accuracy because probably
at this level of accuracy a normal user will have already satisfied
her/his requirements without feeling the need to achieve perfectly
the target position.
5.3. Participants
The study involved twenty-four unpaid volunteers (19 males
and 5 females). Their ages ranged from 23 to 38 years old (M ≃ 32,
sd ≃ 4). All the participants were right-handed and had normal
or corrected-to-normal vision. They were randomly assigned to
two different groups: the first group used the acquisition sensor
arranged in the vertical position, whereas the second group used
it in the horizontal position. For each interaction technique, the
subjects were required to complete three different tasks, and to
repeat each task three times.
5.4. Procedure
The tasks proposed to the volunteers consisted in a manipula-
tion of a 3D reconstruction of a sculpture visualized in the middle
of the pyramid. In the rotation tasks, the subjects were required
to rotate the object to a pre-defined position; in the zoom tasks,
they were required to magnify a specific area of the object to a pre-
defined level. In the rotation tasks we defined three different target
positions achievable by rotating the object around its vertical axis
by 45◦ , 90◦ and 135◦ . For the zooming tasks, the target positions
were identified as different details of the statue (the mount, left
eye, and right eye) with a specific zoom level.
Before the test, a facilitator explained the entire procedure to
the subjects presenting the techniques and the interaction modal-
ity for the sensor arrangement assigned to each group. The partic-
ipants were given the freedom to practice by executing the target
selection task twice in all the conditions. We asked the subjects to
execute the tasks as quickly and accurately as possible.
For each sensor arrangement, there were twelve different con-
ditions to test (considering the two studies, rotation and zooming)
due to the combination of the within-subject factors, namely four
techniques (Clutching, Swipe, Magnify and Grab) with three dif-
ferent tasks. Therefore, each of the 24 participants, divided into
two different groups, completed three tasks for each of the four
521
proposed techniques repeating them three times, for a total of
24 × 3 × 4 × 3 = 864 trials. The order of presentation of the tasks
to each group was counterbalanced using a balanced Latin square
to offset any learning effects. Before the execution of each trial, the
system revealed to the subjects the required target orientation of
the 3D object for the rotation tasks, and the target view for the
zoom tasks. To complete the task, the subjects were required to
keep the object still in the final position for two seconds.
For each test, the dependent variables collected were the time
to completion (ET), the time taken to complete the required task
with a 95% accuracy and with an 80% accuracy. Each of the twelve
trials was executed three times consecutively in order to log an av-
erage of the subject’s performances. The ET was counted from the
moment the subject started to interact with the system, by placing
her/his hand in the sensor range, until the task was completed. The
two seconds required to confirm the completion of the task were
not included in the count.
Finally, at the end of each task the facilitator proposed to the
subject a task-level questionnaire in order to perform an evaluation
of the perceived difficulty. In more detail, the questionnaire was
the Single Ease Question (SEQ), with a rating scale ranging from
1 (very easy) to 7 (very difficult). The SEQ has been proven to be
reliable, sensitive, and valid while also being easy to answer [37].
5.5. Results and interpretation
5.5.1. Time to completion at 95-percent accuracy
The results (see Table 2) indicate that the between-groups
variable of sensor arrangement is not statistically significant, either
on the rotation techniques (p = 0.140 > 0.05) or on the zoom
techniques (p = 0.588 > 0.05). In fact, averaging the ET on the
six test conditions given by the combinations of techniques and
tasks, respectively for rotation and zoom, the obtained value did
not differ between the two sensor configurations. These findings
do not support the hypothesis that subjects feel more confident
when performing the manipulation tasks with the sensor placed
in the horizontal position, instead suggesting that the interaction
techniques work similarly in both the sensor configurations.
However, a deeper analysis of the two rotation techniques
revealed a two-way interaction involving technique and sensor
arrangement (F1,22 = 8, 768, p < 0.05). Observing the esti-
mated marginal means, the Swipe technique shows a considerable
difference between the two used sensor arrangements, achieving
a better performance with the vertical arrangement (Horizontal:
M = 5.838, sd = 0.295 vs. Vertical: M = 4.751, sd = 0.295). With
the Clutching technique, the ETs with both sensor configurations
were very close, with a slightly faster time reported with the
horizontal arrangement (horizontal: M = 5.182, sd = 0.227 vs.
vertical: M = 5.322, sd = 0.227). These values are clearly visible
in Fig. 6.
These results can be explained in terms of a consideration of
the different interaction modalities of the two rotation techniques.
When using the Swipe technique the subject, once the direction of
the rotation had been chosen, actually interacted with half of the
interaction area by moving her/his hand from the middle toward
one of the two sides. Differently, with the Clutching technique
the subject exploited all the interaction area, moving her/his hand
from one border to the opposite one. Since the interaction area
is given by the intersection of the binocular camera FOVs of the
sensor, the interaction area becomes smaller when the hand is
too close to the sensor. During the execution of the tasks with
the sensor in the horizontal position, the subjects were inclined
to place their hand closer to the sensor reducing in that way the
interaction area usable to complete the task. The same behavior
did not occur with the sensor in the vertical position since, once
the initial position had been acquired (most of the time with the
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Table 2
Average time to completion (ET) at 80% and 95% accuracy.
Sensor arrangement Manipulation task Technique Task ET at 80% ET at 95%
Mean (s) sd (s) Mean (s) sd (s)
Horizontal Rotation Swipe 45◦ 2.134 1.024 4.278 1.566
90◦ 3.021 1.409 5.260 1.889
135◦ 5.771 1.971 8.560 1.573
Clutching 45◦ 1.736 1.112 3.753 1.034
90◦ 3.169 1.622 5.002 1.593
135◦ 4.672 1.473 6.791 1.310
Zooming Magnify Mouth 2.593 1.387 5.373 1.824
Left eye 10.754 7.517 14.335 8.025
Right eye 4.970 4.242 6.973 4.538
Grab Mouth 6.391 5.252 10.679 9.717
Left eye 6.415 3.396 10.381 4.418
Right eye 11.366 7.409 14.542 7.148
Vertical Rotation Swipe 45◦ 1.236 0.778 3.351 1.085
90◦ 2.944 0.896 4.606 1.050
135◦ 3.840 1.079 6.297 1.647
Clutching 45◦ 2.100 1.581 3.440 1.589
90◦ 2.776 1.220 4.882 1.397
135◦ 5.309 1.100 7.643 1.047
Zooming Magnify Mouth 3.103 3.079 5.000 2.905
Left eye 8.459 10.635 10.650 12.085
Right eye 7.942 5.339 11.474 7.419
Grab Mouth 9.977 6.245 12.864 6.962
Left eye 8.090 4.458 9.800 4.650
Right eye 13.856 9.179 18.194 9.126

Fig. 6. Estimated marginal means of execution time to completion at 95% accuracy Fig. 7. Estimated marginal means of execution time to completion at 95% accuracy
of the two rotation techniques in the two sensor configurations. of the three rotation tasks in the two sensor configurations.

arm fully extended), the subjects were not motivated to move their
whole body toward the sensor.
For the rotation technique the analysis revealed also a sig-
nificant effect of the factor task (F2,44 = 69.532, p < 0.001)
and a three-way interaction involving technique, task and sensor
arrangement (F2,44 = 4.712, p < 0.05). The grand mean of
the ET averaged on the other four conditions increases with the
complexity of the task (M = 3.706, sd = 0.198 for task 1, M =
4.792, sd = 0.276 for task 2 and M = 7.323, sd = 0.235 for task
3). Moreover, this result was confirmed by the Scheffe´ post-hoc
analysis which shows a significant quadratic trend of the three task
means (F1,22 = 5.594, p < 0.05). This trend is depicted in Fig. 7.
An explanation for this quadratic trend may be found in the
difficulty encountered by the subjects in performing the third
task. In fact, the subjects complained of difficulties with both
the rotation techniques proposed. With the Swipe technique the
problem was the loss of control of rotation (the technique working
in a rate control mode) that forced them to perform a correction.
Differently, the problem with the Clutching technique was related
to the need to complete the task in multiple steps, requiring them
to grab and release the object many times.
The ET of the zooming tasks was generally higher and with a
wider sd with respect to the rotation tasks. This can be explained
by virtue of the fact that while the rotation was a single degree of
freedom task, the zooming required the control of three degrees of
freedom at the same time: two for the positioning and one for the
zoom. The analysis revealed a significant effect of the technique
(F1,22 = 9.935, p < 0.05) and task (F2,44 = 4.142, p < 0.05)
on the ET, and two-way interactions between technique and task
(F2,44 = 10.518, p < 0.001).
The effect of the technique on the ET can be explained by
taking into account the comments of the subjects collected at
the end of each task together with their attitude during the task
completion. Almost all the subjects considered it easier to perform
 G. Caggianese et al. / Future Generation Computer Systems 81 (2018) 516–527
Fig. 8. Estimated marginal means of execution time to completion at 95% accuracy
of the three tasks with the two zooming techniques.
the zoom task with the Magnify technique rather than with the
Grab. This finding is due to the fact that the virtual reproduction of
a magnifier allows you to easily frame the required details. On the
contrary, the subjects considered the grab technique more difficult
because, in order to zoom, she/he needed to drag the sculpture
toward her/himself, so obtaining a reduction of the visible part
of the sculpture and therefore an increased difficulty in staying
focused on the details required in the task. These considerations
are confirmed by the estimated marginal means averaged over
the six other conditions that show that the Magnify technique
performs better than the Gab technique (M = 8.968, sd = 1.033
vs. M = 12.743, sd = 1.071).
The effect of the factor task on the ET is explained in terms of
the increasing difficulty of the proposed tasks. In fact, the grand
mean of the ET averaged on the four other conditions increases
with the complexity of the task (M = 8.479, sd = 0.989 for task
1, M = 11.291, sd = 1.319 for task 2 and M = 12.796, sd =
1.358 for task 3). This result was confirmed by the Scheffeṕost-hoc
analysis which shows a significant linear trend of the three task
means (F1,22 = 9.554, p < 0.05).
The two-way interaction of technique and task revealed a dis-
crepancy with the previously reported result. In fact, as shown in
Fig. 8, the marginal means of the technique by task interaction
averaged on the sensor arrangement present an anomalous trend
with respect to task 2 (zoom on the left eye) with both techniques,
Magnify (M = 5.187, sd = 0.517 for task 1, M = 12.493,
sd = 2.187 for task 2 and M = 9.224, sd = 1.311 for task 3) and
Grab (M = 11.771, sd = 1.802 for task 1, M = 10.090, sd = 0.967
for task 2 and M = 16.368, sd = 1.748 for task 3). In fact, in both
sensor configurations the Magnify technique performs differently
only on task 2 (zoom on the left eye), in which exceptionally the
Grab technique performs better.
In relation to the Magnify technique, the subjects showed a
greater difficulty in the execution of the second task because of the
specific combination of position on which to zoom and the hand
used to interact with the system. In fact, the second task required
the subjects to zoom in on the right eye of the sculpture that
the subject saw on her/his left. During the execution, we noticed
that almost all subjects (all of whom were right-handed), after
having positioned the virtual magnifier on the area corresponding
to the right eye of the sculpture, were forced to move their head
523
Fig. 9. Estimated marginal means of execution time to completion at 80% accuracy
of the two rotation techniques in the two sensor configurations.
because their hand was occluding the object. Moreover, the Mag-
nify technique for the second task proved to be slower with the
sensor in the horizontal arrangement, because especially in that
configuration the subjects were inclined to start the interaction
by aligning the hand to the sculpture leading to an occlusion of
the object visualized in the pyramid. This problem in the task 2
(zoom on the left eye) resulted in a better performance of the
Grab technique. In fact, with the Grab technique the subject usually
grabbed the sculpture, again by positioning the target area in the
middle of the interaction area, so avoiding operating with her/his
hand exactly in her/his FOV.
Finally, the analysis showed a better performance of the vertical
configuration of the sensor, confirmed by the ET value averaged
on all the other six conditions (M = 5.510, sd = 0.219 for
the horizontal configuration vs. M = 5.036, sd = 0.219 for the
vertical configuration), and a preference for the Swipe technique.
Concerning the two zoom techniques, the results generally show a
better performance with the sensor in the horizontal configuration,
as confirmed by the ET averaged on all the other six conditions
(M = 10.381, sd = 1.223 for the horizontal configuration vs.
M = 11.330, sd = 1.223 for the vertical configuration), and a
general user preference for the Magnify interaction technique.
5.5.2. Time to completion at 80% accuracy
The analysis of the ET at 80% accuracy does not reveal a signifi-
cant main effect of the sensor configuration either on the rotation
technique (p = 0.232 > 0.05) or on the zoom technique (p =
0.311 > 0.05). The estimated marginal means averaged over the
six conditions given by the combinations of technique and task
for both rotation and zoom showed values not too dissimilar to
each other. This finding suggests that the ballistic phase in all the
proposed techniques does not appear to be affected by the sensor
arrangement.
A closer analysis of these collected times for the two rotation
techniques revealed a main effect of task on the ET (F2,44 =
76.131, p < 0.001) together with a two way interaction involving
technique and sensor arrangement (F1,22 = 10.932, p < 0.05)
and a three way interaction involving technique, task and sensor
arrangement F2,44 = 3.476, p < 0.05), as with the 95% ET. The
first result was confirmed by the grand mean of the ET averaged
on the other four conditions that, as expected, increased with the
524 G. Caggianese et al. / Future Generation Computer Systems 81 (2018) 516–527
Fig. 10. Estimated marginal means of execution time to completion at 80% accuracy
of the three rotation tasks in the two sensor configurations.
complexity of the task (M = 1.801, sd = 0.166 for task 1, M =
2.978, sd = 0.261 for task 2 and M = 4.898, sd = 0.204 for
task 3). The velocity of rotation in the ballistic phase was limited by
the tendency of the subject to place her/his hand too close to the
sensor. Indeed, the reduction of the interaction area led to a slower
phase that was not perceived as a problem by the subject because
she/he focused on achieving the required angle. As reported before,
this problem was more evident with the Swipe technique com-
pared to the Clutching one, and was worse when the sensor was
in the horizontal configuration (see Fig. 9). The Scheffe ṕost-hoc
analysis showed that the three task means are significant according
to a quadratic trend (F1,22 = 9.587, p = 0.05) (see Fig. 10). This
outcome supports the finding reported in the previous discussion.
In fact, with the Swipe technique the subjects took a longer time to
correct the position of the sculpture compared with the Clutching
technique. Indeed, the time to increase the accuracy from 80% to
95%, averaged over the other six conditions, was greater for the
Swipe technique (M = 2.170, sd = 0.855 vs. M = 1.958, sd =
0.958).
Concerning the zoom, in this case also the analysis revealed a
main effect of the technique (F1,22 = 8.119, p < 0.05) and task
(F2,44 = 4.330, p < 0.05) on the ET, and a two way interaction
involving the technique and task (F2,44 = 12.426, p < 0.001).
The structure of the magnifying glass helped to frame the required
details also in the ballistic phase, as confirmed by the estimated
marginal means averaged over all the other six conditions that
show that the Magnify technique (M = 6.304, sd = 0.882)
performs better than the Grab technique (M = 9.349, sd = 0.908).
These results, together with those previously discussed, were also
confirmed by considering the correction times (the time to achieve
95% accuracy from 80%). This time, averaged over all the other six
conditions, was slower for the Magnify technique (M = 2.715,
sd = 1.784) compared to that achieved with the Grab technique
(M = 3.394, sd = 2.344). This effect of the factor task was
expected due to the different levels of difficulty proposed in the
tasks, a fact supported by the grand mean of the ET averaged on the
other four conditions which increases with the task difficulty (M =
5.516, sd = 0.724 for task 1, M = 8.430, sd = 1.185 for task 2
and M = 9.534, sd = 1.268 for task 3). This result was confirmed
by the Scheffeṕost-hoc analysis which shows a significant linear
trend of the three task means (F1,22 = 9.508, p < 0.05). The last
Fig. 11. Estimated marginal means of execution time to completion at 80% accuracy
of the three zooming task in the two sensor configurations.
two way interaction of technique and task shows the same trend
seen for the 95% accuracy ET. The ballistic phase of the Magnify
technique proves to be shorter than that of the Grab technique
in task 1 and 3 but not in task 2 in which, conversely, the Grab
technique seems to perform well. This finding is confirmed by the
marginal means of the technique by task interaction averaged on
the sensor arrangement, for Magnify (M = 2.848, sd = 0.509
for task 1, M = 9.607, sd = 1.963 for task2 and M = 6.456,
sd = 1.028 for task 3) and Grab (M = 8.184, sd = 1.230 for task 1,
M = 7.253, sd = 0.845 for task 2 and M = 12.611, sd = 1.778 for
task 3) and by the graph in Fig. 11. The explanation for this result is
that the ballistic phase is also affected by the previously discussed
problem. The subjects, while attempting to position the synthetic
magnifying glass on the target area of the sculpture, disturbed their
vision with their own hand. Moreover, the results in the ballistic
phase in task 2 when using the Grab technique were better than
those achieved in task 1 because the sculpture needed to be moved
to a lesser extent.
Finally, the ET recorded to achieve 80% of accuracy does not
differ from that discussed previously, confirming that the iden-
tified problems affect also the first phase of the interaction. In
more detail, the performance of the ballistic phase of the rotation
techniques supported the positioning of the sensor in the vertical
configuration as confirmed by the ET averaged over all the other
six conditions (M = 3.417, sd = 0.220 for the horizontal configu-
ration vs. M = 3.034, sd = 0.220 for the vertical configuration)
with a preference for the Swipe technique. The results on the
zooming technique showed a better performance with the sensor
in the horizontal configuration (M = 7.082, sd = 1.015 for the
horizontal configuration vs. M = 8.571, sd = 1.015 for the vertical
configuration) and a preference for the Magnify technique.
5.5.3. General considerations and the subjects’ perceived difficulties
In summary, in relation to the rotation techniques, the experi-
mental results revealed a better performance for the Swipe tech-
nique compared to the Clutching technique, with a slightly better
performance achieved with the sensor in the vertical configuration.
These results are confirmed also by the evaluation collected by
means of the SEQ questionnaires (see Fig. 12) that shows a slightly
higher perceived difficulty for the Clutching technique (M =
1.875, sd = 0.828) compared to the Swipe technique (M =
 G. Caggianese et al. / Future Generation Computer Systems 81 (2018) 516–527
Fig. 12. Subjects’ perceived difficulty averaged on the six rotation tasks in the two
sensor configurations (scale ranges from 1 to 7, with higher scores representing
greater difficulty).
Fig. 13. Subjects’ perceived difficulty averaged on the six zooming tasks in the two
sensor configurations (scale ranges from 1 to 7, with higher scores representing
greater difficulty).
1.750, sd = 0.694). However, both the techniques were rated
as very simple to use by the subjects. The Swipe was considered
slightly less difficult to use with the sensor placed in the vertical
configuration, while the Clutching technique achieved an equal
evaluation for both the sensor configurations.
In relation to the zoom techniques, the Magnify technique
achieved a better performance compared to the Grab, especially
with the sensor placed in the horizontal configuration. In this
case also, the evaluation of the results of the SEQ questionnaires
confirms the previous analysis. The Grab technique proved to have
a higher perceived difficulty (M = 3.264, sd = 1.302) compared
with the Magnify technique (M = 2.569, sd = 1.072). However,
both the techniques were evaluated as easy to use, scoring better
with the sensor in the horizontal configuration (see Fig. 13).
6. In-the-field user study
6.1. Goal
This section introduces the experiments conducted in the field,
namely in a real museum. The holographic projection system was
525
part of the exhibition ‘Oltre il visibile. I Campi Flegrei’ (Beyond
the Visible. The Phlegraean Fields) at the National Archaeological
Museum of Naples for almost four months. The first goal was to
test the acceptability and attractiveness of the installation in the
museum. The second, since the pyramid was specifically designed
to analyze novel ways of interacting with a virtual cultural object,
was to test two different modalities to supply information about
the visualized sculpture. Taking into account the results of the in-
the-lab user study, the interface used the Swipe rotation technique
and Magnify zooming technique, with the sensor placed in the
horizontal configuration.
6.2. Design
To test the acceptability of the installation, we placed the holo-
graphic projection system side by side with the real ‘Head of Apollo
of Omphalos’ statue, whose digital model was visualized in the
pyramid. In the evaluation, we considered the number of user
sessions and their length. The start of a new session (engagement)
was identified by the voluntary action of the user in placing her/his
hand over the sensor, while the length of the user session was
measured as the total engagement time. In order to better consider
the end of the interaction in an unsupervised environment, we
considered the session closed only if there were no more interac-
tions in the forty seconds after the last captured interaction. All this
information was collected by the system in a log file.
Finally, we evaluated two different modalities to provide addi-
tional information about the statue, installed for similar periods
of time during the four months of the presence of the holographic
projection system in the exhibition. The first modality was based
exclusively on textual information, visualized during the interac-
tion; in the second, instead of text, a female voice was used.
6.3. Results and interpretation
After the four months of the holographic projection system
installation, the analysis of the collected user interaction, on av-
erage, showed 38 interactions per day, the interaction length of
which was greater than 4 min. Furthermore, the analysis of the
engagement time across the two different modalities (text vs.
voice) suggests that the users prefer the vocal comments dur-
ing the exploration of the artifact. In fact, although the number
of interactions remains approximately the same during the two
different periods, the average session time increases significantly
rising from 3 min in the first two months, when the text system
was used, to 5 min in the two following months, when the voice
was used.
Finally and most interestingly, we often noticed that the visitors
who used the holographic pyramid were most of the time inter-
ested in seeing up close the real artifact, in a continuous transition
between virtual and real, so as to directly verify the reliability of
the obtained information. This finding suggests that virtual content
cannot only replace a real artifact which is inaccessible, but can
also complement it, when present, by providing a more complete
analysis.
7. Conclusions and future work
The rapid development and dissemination of digital technolo-
gies in museum exhibitions has the potential to significantly im-
prove the enjoyment of the cultural heritage by visitors, actively in-
volving them in the exploration of cultural content following their
own personal experiential path. However, the design of interactive
systems to allow visitors to easily navigate across virtual content
is still in its infancy.
526 G. Caggianese et al. / Future Generation Computer Systems 81 (2018) 516–527
In this work we have detailed the interaction design of a
gesture-controlled holographic projection system. Different inter-
action techniques, manipulation tasks and sensor configurations
have been evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively. The
experimental findings have implications for the design of appli-
cations where users are expected to interact through the use of
natural user interfaces for the exploration of 3D cultural content.
In particular, the analysis of the relations between the interaction
space, limited by the tracking sensor choice and configuration, and
the interaction techniques, could be very beneficial for the research
community and could stimulate further research in this quickly
evolving area.
A future improvement would be to integrate cognitive and
conversational AI systems with interactive holographic projection,
so designing a system able to interact with the visitor also us-
ing natural language, mimicking a human-to-human conversation.
The ultimate goal is to improve the information boards, which can-
not provide either exhaustive or personalized information to the
visitors. The use of conversational AI and interactive holographic
projection could instead enable visitors to follow a personalized
path in the acquisition of knowledge, achieving more naturally and
effectively the discover of cultural heritage information.
Acknowledgments
The interactive holographic projection system was exhibited at
the National Archeological Museum of Naples from 27th July to
8th November 2016, during the exhibition ‘Oltre il Visibile. I Campi
Flegrei’ (Beyond the Visible. The Phlegraean Fields). We would like
to thank the director of the museum, Paolo Giulierini, the curator
of the exhibition, Rossana Valenti, and the domain experts, Marco
De Gemmis and Simone Foresta, for helping us to understand the
cultural heritage perspective beyond the technological perspective
when designing the system. The authors are participants in the
SNECS project of the High Technology Consortium for Cultural
Heritage of the Campania Region, and are grateful for its support.
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Giuseppe Caggianese received the Laurea degree in com-
puter science magna cum laude in 2010 and the Ph.D.
degree in Methods and Technologies for Environmen-
tal Monitoring in 2013 from the University of Basilicata,
Italy. He is a Research Fellow at the National Research
Council of Italy and a Lecturer of Informatics at the Uni-
versity of Basilicata. His research interests include nat-
ural user interfaces and human interface aspects of vir-
tual/augmented reality in relation to cultural heritage and
medical applications.
 G. Caggianese et al. / Future Generation Computer Systems 81 (2018) 516–527
Luigi Gallo received the Laurea degree in computer engi-
neering magna cum laude from the University of Naples
Federico II, Italy, in 2006 and the Ph.D. degree in in-
formation engineering from the University of Naples
Parthenope, Italy, in 2010. He is a Research Scientist at the
National Research Council of Italy and at the University of
Naples Federico II. His research interests include theory,
implementation and applications of natural interaction
and computer vision.
527
Pietro Neroni received the Laurea degree in computer
science magna cum laude from the University of Naples
Federico II, Italy, in 2013. He is a Research Associate at the
National Research Council of Italy. His research interests
include natural user interfaces and human interface as-
pects of virtual/augmented reality in relation to cultural
heritage and medical applications.