Human Machine Interface for Field of Lights Displays

The accelerated pace of today’s battlespace requires military leaders to build strategies and make decisions in a much shorter timeframe. The ability to exploit 3D battlespace data and intuitively visualize in 3D all elements of the operational environment will improve the operators’ ability to act with precision, certainty, and expediency. Emerging field of light display (FoLD) technology provides a glasses-free 3D aerial image with all the depth cues expected by the human visual system. As these systems mature, there is a requirement to develop the best protocol to display data and to interact with the 3D aerial image above and below the image plan. FoVI3D will investigate a common 2D touch tablet to allow for high-resolution text to be displayed to each viewer independently and provide for easy button access, and a 3D wand for the manipulation of 3D transforms and provide a virtual cursor within the 3D view volume. Both interfaces will be developed based on applied human factors engineering to optimize a natural human interaction. This is a required building block for the technical insertion of a FoLD central to the AEGIS combat information center improving the human-machine interface to enable simple, natural, collaborative data visualization.