The World in Miniature (WIM) metaphor is a user interface technique that augments an immersive head tracked display with a hand-held miniature copy of the virtual environment. This technique establishes a direct relationship between the objects of the virtual world and the miniature objects of the WIM, helping the user to manipulate the environment.
The interaction technique implements the following components:
- World Map: the map in which the user and the virtual objects are placed.
- WIM Map: a miniature of the virtual map, attached to the left hand of the user, which can be hidden using the trigger of the controller.
- Interactor: component attached to the users right hand that allows him/her to grab, drag and drop objects using the trigger.
- WIM Player: a miniature representation of the player, shown and updated in real time in the WIM Map, to help the user reach locations of the virtual world that would be complicated to reach walking, given the real world restrictions of the room in which the player is located.
- Real Objects: virtual objects of the world that the user can grab, drag and drop.
- WIM Objects: miniatures of the real objects that are updated in real time in the WIM Map, allowing the user to grab them from the WIM Map and move them anywhere, showing the effect in the virtual world.
To show the benefits of using this metaphor, a small house scenario has been designed, to see a potential application of the technique that helps the user with interactions that are physically complicated.
