Rapid, continuous movement between nodes as an accessible virtual reality locomotion technique

The confounding effect of player locomotion on the vestibulo-ocular reflex is one of the principal causes of motion sickness in immersive virtual reality. Continuous motion is particularly problematic for stationary user configurations, and teleportation has become the prevailing approach for providing accessible locomotion. Unfortunately, teleportation can also increase disorientation and reduce a player’s sense of presence within a VR environment. This paper presents an alternative locomotion technique designed to preserve accessibility while maintaining feelings of presence. This is a node-based navigation system which allows the player to move between predefined node positions using a rapid, continuous, linear motion. An evaluation was undertaken to compare this locomotion technique with commonly used, teleportation-based and continuous walking approaches. Thirty-six participants took part in a study which examined motion sickness and presence for each technique, while navigating around a virtual house using PlayStation VR. Contrary to intuition, we show that rapid movement speeds reduce players’ feelings of motion sickness as compared to continuous movement at normal walking speeds

Real vs Simulated Foveated Rendering to Reduce Visual Discomfort in Virtual Reality

In this paper, a study aimed at investigating the effects of real (using eye tracking to determine the fixation) and simulated foveated blurring in immersive Virtual Reality is presented. Techniques to reduce the optical flow perceived at the visual field margins are often employed in immersive Virtual Reality environments to alleviate discomfort experienced when the visual motion perception does not correspond to the body's acceleration. Although still preliminary, our results suggest that for participants with higher self-declared sensitivity to sickness, there might be an improvement for nausea when using blurring. The (perceived) difficulty of the task seems to improve when the real foveated method is used.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, to be published in proceedings of the 18th International Conference promoted by the IFIP Technical Committee 13 on Human Computer Interaction, INTERACT 2021. August 30th September 3rd, 2021, Bari, Ital

A platform for developing and fine tuning adaptive 3D navigation techniques for the immersive web

Navigating through a virtual environment is one of the major user tasks in the 3D web. Although hundreds of interaction techniques have been proposed to navigate through 3D scenes in desktop, mobile and VR headset systems, 3D navigation still poses a high entry barrier for many potential users. In this paper we discuss the design and implementation of a test platform to facilitate the creation and fine-tuning of interaction techniques for 3D navigation. We support the most common navigation metaphors (walking, flying, teleportation). The key idea is to let developers specify, at runtime, the exact mapping between user actions and virtual camera changes, for any of the supported metaphors. We demonstrate through many examples how this method can be used to adapt the navigation techniques to various people including persons with no previous 3D navigation skills, elderly people, and people with disabilities.This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER under grant TIN2017-88515-C2-1-R, by EU Horizon 2020, JPICH Conservation, Protection and Use initiative (JPICH-0127) and the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación, grant PCI2020-111979 Enhancement of Heritage Experiences: the Middle Ages; Digital Layered Models of Architecture and Mural Paintings over Time (EHEM).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

HCI Lessons From PlayStation VR

PlayStation VR has quickly built up a significant user-base of over a million headsets and its own ecosystem of games across a variety of genres. These games form part of a rapidly evolving testing ground for design solutions which can usefully inform HCI design for virtual reality. This paper reviews every PlayStation VR title released in the first three months of its lifecycle in order to identify emerging themes for locomotion. These themes are discussed with respect to the lessons learned as part of the on-going development of an Environmental Narrative game for PlayStation VR as part of the Horizon 2020 REVEAL project

Virtuelles Training von Gefahrensituationen – am Beispiel der Entwicklung und Evaluation einer virtuellen Pannensimulation

In Deutschland kommt es jährlich zu durchschnittlich 4 Millionen Autopannen (ADAC, n.d.). Derartige Situationen sind für Betroffene stets Ausnahmesituationen. In der Fahrausbildung wird man zwar theoretisch darauf vorbereitet. Durch die mangelnde Routine erscheint es aber nicht verwunderlich, dass der korrekte Ablauf und ein möglichst sicheres Verhalten nicht umfänglich bekannt sind. Um eine solche Routine herzustellen, ist VR-Technologie ein vielversprechender Ansatz. Der vorliegende Beitrag hat zum Ziel, eine prototypische Anwendung zur VR-Simulation von Pannensituationen zu entwickeln und zu evaluieren. Weiterhin sollen Design-Aspekte identifiziert werden, die für VR-Anwendungen relevant sind. [Aus der Einleitung.

Facilitating Meaningful Interpersonal Connections Through a Virtual Space

Interactive virtual experiences are known to be a viable medium to elicit emotional reactions from their users and to provide meaningful experiences. However, establishing meaningful interpersonal connections through interactive experiences can also be difficult, due to the toxic online environments that can stem from anonymity, and a general online hostility towards women or other traditionally under-represented groups. This project aims to create a welcoming online virtual space that gives users the opportunity to establish meaningful interpersonal connections with one another. These connections are facilitated by encouraging users to work together, interact with each other, and talk about themselves while in the virtual space. These connections are made more impactful by utilizing Virtual Reality, which allows for intuitive and immersive communication through gestures and body language. This paper describes the process of creating a welcoming virtual space, specifically focusing on the technical challenges of building a networked virtual reality experience, the design process in promoting positive interaction between users, and the implementation of accessibility features for both the VR experience itself and the social situations it affords

Rotational and Translational Velocity and Acceleration Thresholds for the Onset of Cybersickness in Virtual Reality

This paper determined rotational and translational velocity and acceleration thresholds for the onset of cybersickness. Cybersickness causes discomfort and discourages the widespread use of virtual reality systems for both recreational and professional use. Visual motion or optic flow is known to be one of the main causes of cybersickness due to the sensory conflict it creates with the vestibular system. The aim of this experiment is to detect rotational and translational velocity and acceleration thresholds that cause the onset of cybersickness. Participants were exposed to a moving particle field in virtual reality for a few seconds per run. The field moved in different directions (longitudinal, lateral, roll, and yaw), with different velocity profiles (steady and accelerating), and different densities. Using a staircase procedure, that controlled the speed or acceleration of the field, we detected the threshold at which participant started to feel temporary symptoms of cybersickness. The optic flow was quantified for each motion type and by modifying the number of features, the same amount of optic flow was present in each scene. Having the same optic flow in each scene allows a direct comparison of the thresholds. The results show that the velocity and acceleration thresholds for rotational optic flow were significantly lower than for translational optic flow. The thresholds suggestively decreased with the decreasing particle density of the scene. Finally, it was found that all the rotational and translational thresholds strongly correlate with each other. While the mean values of the thresholds could be used as guidelines to develop virtual reality applications, the high variability between individuals implies that the individual tuning of motion controls would be more effective to reduce cybersickness while minimizing the impact on the experience of immersion