It is our great pleasure to present you with the Computers & Graphics special section on Spatial User Interaction (SUI). The special section contains extended versions of the best scientific papers from the 2nd ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI׳14), which was held Oct. 4–5, 2014 in Honolulu, USA. The SUI symposium focuses on the user interface challenges that appear when users interact in the space where the flat, two-dimensional, digital world meets the volumetric, physical, three-dimensional (3D) space we live in. This considers both spatial input as well as output, with an emphasis on the issues around the interaction between humans and systems. The goal of the symposium is to provide an intensive exchange between academic and industrial researchers working in the area of SUI and to foster discussions among participants.
The symposium call for papers attracted 62 submissions from Asia, Europe, Australia, and North and South America in all areas of Spatial User Interaction research. The international program committee consisting of 19 experts in the topic areas and the two program chairs handled the highly competitive and selective review process. In the end, the program committee accepted overall 18 (11 long papers plus 7 short papers) out of 62 submissions, which corresponds to an acceptance rate of 29% in total.
The SUI׳14 award chairs, Bruce Thomas from the University of South Australia and Patrick Baudisch from the Hasso-Plattner-Institut in Germany, selected the best full and best short papers from these 18 submissions, which received the invitation to be published as extended articles in this special section:
The article "Coordinated 3D Interaction in Tablet- and HMD-Based Hybrid Virtual Environments" written by Jia Wang, Robert Lindeman proposes a novel spatial interactive solution using a coordinated, tablet- and HMD-based, hybrid virtual environment system.
The article "Principles, Interactions and Devices for Real-World Immersive Modeling" co-authored by Mark Mine, Arun Yoganandan, and Dane Coffey presents an approach that combines the natural and intuitive power of virtual reality interaction, the precision and control of 2D touch surfaces, and the richness of a commercial modeling package.
The article "VideoHandles: Searching through Action Camera Videos by Replicating Hand Gestures" by Jarrod Knibbe, Sue Ann Seah, and Mike Fraser introduces a detailed exploration of VideoHandles, a novel interaction technique to support rapid review of wearable video camera data by re-performing gestures as a search query.