Scale-Based Exploded Views: A Selection Method For Mobile Devices

Utilizing 3D models for repair operations is crucial to mechanical engineers and exploded view diagrams are an effective way to explore the inner structure of models. We evaluate a low-complexity scale-based exploded view method designed to help find and select small and occluded objects within 3D models on mobile devices. We separate models by categorizing each object into different layers based on size. Then, at a particular layer, the explosion is under the direction of a user-controlled probe that sprawls exploded components to facilitate object selection. In a comparative evaluation with an alternative low cost explosion technique, our method significantly reduced the number of wrong targets selected when performing several selection tasks. This is important given that our application is targeted for use in mobile-assisted manufacturing and repair environments, which have a low tolerance for user error.