Symbol board is a multi-modal representation of the Associative Array, presented to a user as a part of user interface. It consists of a virtual 3D space, divided to left hand and right hand operational cubes. Each cube represents a 3D 3x3x3 matrix space, containing 27 symbol cells. Each cell contains symbol that can have both visual and audible representation and has x, y and z coordinates, defining particular symbol cell:
x ∈{0, 1, 2}; y ∈{0, 1, 2}; z ∈{0, 1, 2} (1)
User selects symbols in symbol cells by placing both hands into appropriate positions in 3D virtual space, as described in detail in III-B (Information retrieval step). This allows for total number of 729 different associations (N = (3^3)^2).
While coordinates x and y are determined by a position of the hand on the table in the horizontal plane, z coordinate is changing with the height of the hand above the table. If z=0, hand is resting on the desk. In such situation, contact with the desk helps user to instantly place his hand to correct height without prior training.
~
JETENSKY, Pavel and KARAMAZOV, Simeon, 2014. 3D associative symbol array as component of user interface. In: Proceedings ELMAR-2014. September 2014. p. 1–4. DOI 10.1109/ELMAR.2014.6923328. [Accessed 12 February 2024].