2,802 research outputs found
Object Manipulation in Virtual Reality Under Increasing Levels of Translational Gain
Room-scale Virtual Reality (VR) has become an affordable consumer reality, with applications ranging from entertainment to productivity. However, the limited physical space available for room-scale VR in the typical home or office environment poses a significant problem. To solve this, physical spaces can be extended by amplifying the mapping of physical to virtual movement (translational gain). Although amplified movement has been used since the earliest days of VR, little is known about how it influences reach-based interactions with virtual objects, now a standard feature of consumer VR. Consequently, this paper explores the picking and placing of virtual objects in VR for the first time, with translational gains of between 1x (a one-to-one mapping of a 3.5m*3.5m virtual space to the same sized physical space) and 3x (10.5m*10.5m virtual mapped to 3.5m*3.5m physical). Results show that reaching accuracy is maintained for up to 2x gain, however going beyond this diminishes accuracy and increases simulator sickness and perceived workload. We suggest gain levels of 1.5x to 1.75x can be utilized without compromising the usability of a VR task, significantly expanding the bounds of interactive room-scale VR
Edge-Centric Space Rescaling with Redirected Walking for Dissimilar Physical-Virtual Space Registration
We propose a novel space-rescaling technique for registering dissimilar
physical-virtual spaces by utilizing the effects of adjusting physical space
with redirected walking. Achieving a seamless immersive Virtual Reality (VR)
experience requires overcoming the spatial heterogeneities between the physical
and virtual spaces and accurately aligning the VR environment with the user's
tracked physical space. However, existing space-matching algorithms that rely
on one-to-one scale mapping are inadequate when dealing with highly dissimilar
physical and virtual spaces, and redirected walking controllers could not
utilize basic geometric information from physical space in the virtual space
due to coordinate distortion. To address these issues, we apply relative
translation gains to partitioned space grids based on the main interactable
object's edge, which enables space-adaptive modification effects of physical
space without coordinate distortion. Our evaluation results demonstrate the
effectiveness of our algorithm in aligning the main object's edge, surface, and
wall, as well as securing the largest registered area compared to alternative
methods under all conditions. These findings can be used to create an immersive
play area for VR content where users can receive passive feedback from the
plane and edge in their physical environment.Comment: This paper has been accepted as a paper for the 2023 ISMAR conference
(2023/10/16-2023/10/20) 10 pages, 5 figure
LoCoMoTe – a framework for classification of natural locomotion in VR by task, technique and modality
Virtual reality (VR) research has provided overviews of locomotion techniques, how they work, their strengths and overall user experience. Considerable research has investigated new methodologies, particularly machine learning to develop redirection algorithms. To best support the development of redirection algorithms through machine learning, we must understand how best to replicate human navigation and behaviour in VR, which can be supported by the accumulation of results produced through live-user experiments. However, it can be difficult to identify, select and compare relevant research without a pre-existing framework in an ever-growing research field. Therefore, this work aimed to facilitate the ongoing structuring and comparison of the VR-based natural walking literature by providing a standardised framework for researchers to utilise. We applied thematic analysis to study methodology descriptions from 140 VR-based papers that contained live-user experiments. From this analysis, we developed the LoCoMoTe framework with three themes: navigational decisions, technique implementation, and modalities. The LoCoMoTe framework provides a standardised approach to structuring and comparing experimental conditions. The framework should be continually updated to categorise and systematise knowledge and aid in identifying research gaps and discussions
ARC: Alignment-based Redirection Controller for Redirected Walking in Complex Environments
We present a novel redirected walking controller based on alignment that
allows the user to explore large and complex virtual environments, while
minimizing the number of collisions with obstacles in the physical environment.
Our alignment-based redirection controller, ARC, steers the user such that
their proximity to obstacles in the physical environment matches the proximity
to obstacles in the virtual environment as closely as possible. To quantify a
controller's performance in complex environments, we introduce a new metric,
Complexity Ratio (CR), to measure the relative environment complexity and
characterize the difference in navigational complexity between the physical and
virtual environments. Through extensive simulation-based experiments, we show
that ARC significantly outperforms current state-of-the-art controllers in its
ability to steer the user on a collision-free path. We also show through
quantitative and qualitative measures of performance that our controller is
robust in complex environments with many obstacles. Our method is applicable to
arbitrary environments and operates without any user input or parameter
tweaking, aside from the layout of the environments. We have implemented our
algorithm on the Oculus Quest head-mounted display and evaluated its
performance in environments with varying complexity. Our project website is
available at https://gamma.umd.edu/arc/
Adaptive Optimization Algorithm for Resetting Techniques in Obstacle-ridden Environments
Redirected Walking (RDW) algorithms aim to impose several types of gains on users immersed in Virtual Reality and distort their walking paths in the real world, thus enabling them to explore a larger space. Since collision with physical boundaries is inevitable, a reset strategy needs to be provided to allow users to reset when they hit the boundary. However, most reset strategies are based on simple heuristics by choosing a seemingly suitable solution, which may not perform well in practice. In this paper, we propose a novel optimization-based reset algorithm adaptive to different RDW algorithms. Inspired by the approach of finite element analysis, our algorithm splits the boundary of the physical world by a set of endpoints. Each endpoint is assigned a reset vector to represent the optimized reset direction when hitting the boundary. The reset vectors on the edge will be determined by the interpolation between two neighbouring endpoints. We conduct simulation-based experiments for three RDW algorithms with commonly used reset algorithms to compare with. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm significantly reduces the number of resets.</p
Optimizing Natural Walking Usage in VR using Redirected Teleportation
Virtual Reality (VR) has come a long way since its inception and with the recent advancements in technology, high end VR headsets are now commercially available. Although these headsets offer full motion tracking capabilities, locomotion in VR is yet to be fully solved due to space constraints, potential VR sickness and problems with retaining immersion. Teleportation is the most popular locomotion technique in VR as it allows users to safely navigate beyond the confines of the available positional tracking space without inducing VR sickness. It has been argued that the use of teleportation doesn’t facilitate the use of natural walking input which is considered to have a higher presence because teleportation is faster, requires little physical effort and uses limited available tracking space. When a user walks to the edge of the tracking space, he/she must switch to teleportation. When navigating in the same direction, available walking space does not increase, which forces users to remain stationary and continue using teleportation. We present redirected teleportation, a novel locomotion method that increases tracking space usage and natural walking input by subtle reorientation and repositioning of the user. We first analyzed the positional tendencies of the users as they played popular games implementing teleportation and found the utilization of the tracking space to be limited. We then compared redirected teleportation with regular teleportation using a navigation task in three different environments. Analysis of our data show that although redirected walking takes more time, users used significantly fewer teleports and more natural walking input while using more of the available tracking space. The increase in time is largely due to users walking more, which takes more time than using teleportation. Our results provide evidence that redirected teleportation may be a viable approach to increase the usage of natural walking input while decreasing the dependency on teleportation
Inattentional Blindness for Redirected Walking Using Dynamic Foveated Rendering
Redirected walking is a Virtual Reality(VR) locomotion technique which
enables users to navigate virtual environments (VEs) that are spatially larger
than the available physical tracked space. In this work we present a novel
technique for redirected walking in VR based on the psychological phenomenon of
inattentional blindness. Based on the user's visual fixation points we divide
the user's view into zones. Spatially-varying rotations are applied according
to the zone's importance and are rendered using foveated rendering. Our
technique is real-time and applicable to small and large physical spaces.
Furthermore, the proposed technique does not require the use of stimulated
saccades but rather takes advantage of naturally occurring saccades and blinks
for a complete refresh of the framebuffer. We performed extensive testing and
present the analysis of the results of three user studies conducted for the
evaluation
Substitutional reality:using the physical environment to design virtual reality experiences
Experiencing Virtual Reality in domestic and other uncontrolled settings is challenging due to the presence of physical objects and furniture that are not usually defined in the Virtual Environment. To address this challenge, we explore the concept of Substitutional Reality in the context of Virtual Reality: a class of Virtual Environments where every physical object surrounding a user is paired, with some degree of discrepancy, to a virtual counterpart. We present a model of potential substitutions and validate it in two user studies. In the first study we investigated factors that affect participants' suspension of disbelief and ease of use. We systematically altered the virtual representation of a physical object and recorded responses from 20 participants. The second study investigated users' levels of engagement as the physical proxy for a virtual object varied. From the results, we derive a set of guidelines for the design of future Substitutional Reality experiences
Redirected Walking in Infinite Virtual Indoor Environment Using Change-blindness
We present a change-blindness based redirected walking algorithm that allows
a user to explore on foot a virtual indoor environment consisting of an
infinite number of rooms while at the same time ensuring collision-free walking
for the user in real space. This method uses change blindness to scale and
translate the room without the user's awareness by moving the wall while the
user is not looking. Consequently, the virtual room containing the current user
always exists in the valid real space. We measured the detection threshold for
whether the user recognizes the movement of the wall outside the field of view.
Then, we used the measured detection threshold to determine the amount of
changing the dimension of the room by moving that wall. We conducted a
live-user experiment to navigate the same virtual environment using the
proposed method and other existing methods. As a result, users reported higher
usability, presence, and immersion when using the proposed method while showing
reduced motion sickness compared to other methods. Hence, our approach can be
used to implement applications to allow users to explore an infinitely large
virtual indoor environment such as virtual museum and virtual model house while
simultaneously walking in a small real space, giving users a more realistic
experience.Comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-ZKavhXxd
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