Examining the role of smart TVs and VR HMDs in synchronous at-a-distance media consumption

This article examines synchronous at-a-distance media consumption from two perspectives: How it can be facilitated using existing consumer displays (through TVs combined with smartphones), and imminently available consumer displays (through virtual reality (VR) HMDs combined with RGBD sensing). First, we discuss results from an initial evaluation of a synchronous shared at-a-distance smart TV system, CastAway. Through week-long in-home deployments with five couples, we gain formative insights into the adoption and usage of at-a-distance media consumption and how couples communicated during said consumption. We then examine how the imminent availability and potential adoption of consumer VR HMDs could affect preferences toward how synchronous at-a-distance media consumption is conducted, in a laboratory study of 12 pairs, by enhancing media immersion and supporting embodied telepresence for communication. Finally, we discuss the implications these studies have for the near-future of consumer synchronous at-a-distance media consumption. When combined, these studies begin to explore a design space regarding the varying ways in which at-a-distance media consumption can be supported and experienced (through music, TV content, augmenting existing TV content for immersion, and immersive VR content), what factors might influence usage and adoption and the implications for supporting communication and telepresence during media consumption

Interactive Gaming Reduces Experimental Pain With or Without a Head Mounted Display

While virtual reality environments have been shown to reduce pain, the precise mechanism that produces the pain attenuating effect has not been established. It has been suggested that it may be the ability to command attentional resources with the use of head mounted displays (HMDs) or the interactivity of the environment. Two experiments compared participants’ pain ratings to high and low levels of electrical stimulation while engaging in interactive gaming with an HMD. In the first, gaming with the HMD was compared to a positive emotion induction condition; and in the second experiment the HMD was compared to a condition in which the game was projected onto a wall. Interactive gaming significantly reduced numerical ratings of painful stimuli when compared to the baseline and affect condition. However, when the two gaming conditions were directly compared, they equally reduced participants’ pain ratings. These data are consistent with past research showing that interactive gaming can attenuate experimentally induced pain and its effects are comparable whether presented in a head mounted display or projected on a wall

A Virtual Testbed for Fish-Tank Virtual Reality: Improving Calibration with a Virtual-in-Virtual Display

With the development of novel calibration techniques for multimedia projectors and curved projection surfaces, volumetric 3D displays are becoming easier and more affordable to build. The basic requirements include a display shape that defines the volume (e.g. a sphere, cylinder, or cuboid) and a tracking system to provide each user's location for the perspective corrected rendering. When coupled with modern graphics cards, these displays are capable of high resolution, low latency, high frame rate, and even stereoscopic rendering; however, like many previous studies have shown, every component must be precisely calibrated for a compelling 3D effect. While human perceptual requirements have been extensively studied for head-tracked displays, most studies featured seated users in front of a flat display. It remains unclear if results from these flat display studies are applicable to newer, walk-around displays with enclosed or curved shapes. To investigate these issues, we developed a virtual testbed for volumetric head-tracked displays that can measure calibration accuracy of the entire system in real-time. We used this testbed to investigate visual distortions of prototype curved displays, improve existing calibration techniques, study the importance of stereo to performance and perception, and validate perceptual calibration with novice users. Our experiments show that stereo is important for task performance, but requires more accurate calibration, and that novice users can make effective use of perceptual calibration tools. We also propose a novel, real-time calibration method that can be used to fine-tune an existing calibration using perceptual feedback. The findings from this work can be used to build better head-tracked volumetric displays with an unprecedented amount of 3D realism and intuitive calibration tools for novice users

Streaming and User Behaviour in Omnidirectional Videos

Omnidirectional videos (ODVs) have gone beyond the passive paradigm of traditional video, offering higher degrees of immersion and interaction. The revolutionary novelty of this technology is the possibility for users to interact with the surrounding environment, and to feel a sense of engagement and presence in a virtual space. Users are clearly the main driving force of immersive applications and consequentially the services need to be properly tailored to them. In this context, this chapter highlights the importance of the new role of users in ODV streaming applications, and thus the need for understanding their behaviour while navigating within ODVs. A comprehensive overview of the research efforts aimed at advancing ODV streaming systems is also presented. In particular, the state-of-the-art solutions under examination in this chapter are distinguished in terms of system-centric and user-centric streaming approaches: the former approach comes from a quite straightforward extension of well-established solutions for the 2D video pipeline while the latter one takes the benefit of understanding users’ behaviour and enable more personalised ODV streaming

I Am The Passenger: How Visual Motion Cues Can Influence Sickness For In-Car VR

This paper explores the use of VR Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) in-car and in-motion for the first time. Immersive HMDs are becoming everyday consumer items and, as they offer new possibilities for entertainment and productivity, people will want to use them during travel in, for example, autonomous cars. However, their use is confounded by motion sickness caused in-part by the restricted visual perception of motion conflicting with physically perceived vehicle motion (accelerations/rotations detected by the vestibular system). Whilst VR HMDs restrict visual perception of motion, they could also render it virtually, potentially alleviating sensory conflict. To study this problem, we conducted the first on-road and in motion study to systematically investigate the effects of various visual presentations of the real-world motion of a car on the sickness and immersion of VR HMD wearing passengers. We established new baselines for VR in-car motion sickness, and found that there is no one best presentation with respect to balancing sickness and immersion. Instead, user preferences suggest different solutions are required for differently susceptible users to provide usable VR in-car. This work provides formative insights for VR designers and an entry point for further research into enabling use of VR HMDs, and the rich experiences they offer, when travelling

Development of Immersive and Interactive Virtual Reality Environment for Two-Player Table Tennis

Although the history of Virtual Reality (VR) is only about half a century old, all kinds of technologies in the VR field are developing rapidly. VR is a computer generated simulation that replaces or augments the real world by various media. In a VR environment, participants have a perception of “presence”, which can be described by the sense of immersion and intuitive interaction. One of the major VR applications is in the field of sports, in which a life-like sports environment is simulated, and the body actions of players can be tracked and represented by using VR tracking and visualisation technology. In the entertainment field, exergaming that merges video game with physical exercise activities by employing tracking or even 3D display technology can be considered as a small scale VR. For the research presented in this thesis, a novel realistic real-time table tennis game combining immersive, interactive and competitive features is developed. The implemented system integrates the InterSense tracking system, SwissRanger 3D camera and a three-wall rear projection stereoscopic screen. The Intersense tracking system is based on ultrasonic and inertia sensing techniques which provide fast and accurate 6-DOF (i.e. six degrees of freedom) tracking information of four trackers. Two trackers are placed on the two players’ heads to provide the players’ viewing positions. The other two trackers are held by players as the racquets. The SwissRanger 3D camera is mounted on top of the screen to capture the player’

Towards System Agnostic Calibration of Optical See-Through Head-Mounted Displays for Augmented Reality

This dissertation examines the developments and progress of spatial calibration procedures for Optical See-Through (OST) Head-Mounted Display (HMD) devices for visual Augmented Reality (AR) applications. Rapid developments in commercial AR systems have created an explosion of OST device options for not only research and industrial purposes, but also the consumer market as well. This expansion in hardware availability is equally matched by a need for intuitive standardized calibration procedures that are not only easily completed by novice users, but which are also readily applicable across the largest range of hardware options. This demand for robust uniform calibration schemes is the driving motive behind the original contributions offered within this work. A review of prior surveys and canonical description for AR and OST display developments is provided before narrowing the contextual scope to the research questions evolving within the calibration domain. Both established and state of the art calibration techniques and their general implementations are explored, along with prior user study assessments and the prevailing evaluation metrics and practices employed within. The original contributions begin with a user study evaluation comparing and contrasting the accuracy and precision of an established manual calibration method against a state of the art semi-automatic technique. This is the first formal evaluation of any non-manual approach and provides insight into the current usability limitations of present techniques and the complexities of next generation methods yet to be solved. The second study investigates the viability of a user-centric approach to OST HMD calibration through novel adaptation of manual calibration to consumer level hardware. Additional contributions describe the development of a complete demonstration application incorporating user-centric methods, a novel strategy for visualizing both calibration results and registration error from the user’s perspective, as well as a robust intuitive presentation style for binocular manual calibration. The final study provides further investigation into the accuracy differences observed between user-centric and environment-centric methodologies. The dissertation concludes with a summarization of the contribution outcomes and their impact on existing AR systems and research endeavors, as well as a short look ahead into future extensions and paths that continued calibration research should explore