Comparison of Single-Wall Versus Multi-Wall Immersive Environments to Support a Virtual Shopping Experience

With the proliferation of large screen stereo display systems, major consumer product manufacturers are using this technology to test marketing ideas on consumers. One of the performance factors that is of interest to retailers or manufacturers of retail products is the ability of consumers to quickly and easily locate their products within a retail store. Virtual reality technology can be used to create a virtual store that is easily reconfigurable as a test environment for consumer feedback. The research presented in this paper involves a study that compares the use of a multi-wall immersive environment to a single-wall immersive environment. Users were given a list of products to find in the virtual store. A physical mockup of a shopping cart was created and instrumented in order to be used to navigate throughout the virtual store. The findings indicate that participants in the five-wall immersive environment were significantly faster in locating the objects than the participants using the one-wall immersive environment. In addition, participants in the five-wall condition reported that the shopping cart was easier to use than in the one-wall condition. This study indicates that the use of multiple walls to provide an increased sense of immersion improves the ability of consumers to locate items within a virtual shopping experience

Spatial Visualization Ability and Impact of Drafting Models: A Quasi Experimental Study

A quasi experimental study was done to determine significant positive effects among three different types of visual models and to identify whether any individual type or combination contributed towards a positive increase of spatial visualization ability for students in engineering technology courses. In particular, the study compared the use of different visual models - a 3D printed solid object, a 3D computer generated drawing and a 2D drawing

Dynamic size and speed cursor for large, high-resolution displays

As larger displays become more available their lack of adequate input techniques becomes apparent. In this paper we show the scalability of the dynamic size and speed cursor for large, high-resolution displays. We introduce the idea of a dynamic paradigm for input devices, explain three implementations of the dynamic size and speed (DSS) cursor and explain results of an experiment. In our experiment we compared the three different implementations of the dynamic size and speed cursor to cursor warping and standard cursor settings. In the experiment we found gender bias for two different tasks (clicking and simple drag and drop), found that one of the dynamic size and speed cursor implementations generally outperformed cursor warping and the standard cursor setting, and explain how distance to and size of targets effected results. We conclude by suggesting the use of a dynamic size and speed cursor with large, high-resolution displays

Physically Large Displays Improve Path Integration

ABSTRACT Previous results have shown that users perform better on spatial orientation tasks involving static 2D scenes when working on physically large displays as compared to small ones. This was found to be true even when the displays presented the same images at equivalent visual angles. Further investigation has suggested that large displays may provide a greater sense of presence, which biases users into adopting more efficient strategies to perform tasks. In this work, we extend those findings, demonstrating that users are more effective at performing 3D virtual navigation tasks on large displays. We also show that even though interacting with the environment affects performance, effects induced by interactivity are independent of those induced by physical display size. Together, these findings allow us to derive guidelines for the design and presentation of interactive 3D environments on physically large displays

Literature Survey on Interaction Techniques for Large Displays

When designing for large screen displays, designers are forced to deal with cursor tracking issues, interacting over distances, and space management issues. Because of the large visual angle of the user that the screen can cover, it may be hard for users to begin and complete search tasks for basic items such as cursors or icons. In addition, maneuvering over long distances and acquiring small targets understandably takes more time than the same interactions on normally sized screen systems. To deal with these issues, large display researchers have developed more and more unconventional devices, methods and widgets for interaction, and systems for space and task management. For tracking cursors there are techniques that deal with the size and shape of the cursor, as well as the “density” of the cursor. There are other techniques that help direct the attention of the user to the cursor. For target acquisition on large screens, many researchers saw fit to try to augment existing 2D GUI metaphors. They try to optimize Fitts’ law to accomplish this. Some techniques sought to enlarge targets while others sought to enlarge the cursor itself. Even other techniques developed ways of closing the distances on large screen displays. However, many researchers feel that existing 2D metaphors do not and will not work for large screens. They feel that the community should move to more unconventional devices and metaphors. These unconventional means include use of eye-tracking, laser-pointing, hand-tracking, two-handed touchscreen techniques, and other high-DOF devices. In the end, many of these developed techniques do provide effective means for interaction on large displays. However, we need to quantify the benefits of these methods and understand them better. The more we understand the advantages and disadvantages of these techniques, the easier it will be to employ them in working large screen systems. We also need to put into place a kind of interaction standard for these large screen systems. This could mean simply supporting desktop events such as pointing and clicking. It may also mean that we need to identify the needs of each domain that large screens are used for and tailor the interaction techniques for the domain

Physically Large Displays Improve Path Integration in 3D Virtual Navigation Tasks

Previous results have shown that users perform better on spatial orientation tasks involving static 2D scenes when working on physically large displays as compared to small ones. This was found to be true even when the displays presented the same images at equivalent visual angles. Further investigation has suggested that large displays may provide a greater sense of presence, which biases users into adopting more efficient strategies to perform tasks. In this work, we extend those findings, demonstrating that users are more effective at performing 3D virtual navigation tasks on large displays. We also show that even though interacting with the environment affects performance, effects induced by interactivity are independent of those induced by physical display size. Together, these findings allow us to derive guidelines for the design and presentation of interactive 3D environments on physically large displays

The factors of motion sickness:developing Janitor Run, the virtual reality scooter game

Abstract. This bachelor’s thesis presents a study on the effects of motion sickness, vection and nausea in the context of virtual reality environments through a developed virtual reality kick scooting game called Janitor Run VR. The main research problems to be studied were which of the many aspects of virtual reality games induce motion sickness and nausea, and how these negative effects can be mitigated or eliminated. The methods used were twofold. First, a brief literature review was conducted on the history, best practices and common problems on virtual reality. Then, a two-phased evaluation was conducted, where participants were asked to try the developed game and give feedback on the studied negative effects through an interview and a questionnaire. The results gathered from 12 different participants on each evaluation phase seem to indicate, that there is a link between the perceived discomfort and motion sickness with a more realistic motion scheme and the use of sound effects and background music.Matkapahoinvoinnin tekijät : virtuaalitodellisuuspotkulautailupelin, Janitor Runin, kehittäminen. Tiivistelmä. Tämä kandidaatintyö tuo esille tutkimuksen matkapahoinvointiin ja vektion virtuaalitodellisuudessa kehitetyn virtuaalitodellisuuspotkulautapelin, Janitor Run VR:n, kautta. Kandidaatintyön päätutkimusongelmat käsittelevät sitä, kuinka virtuaalitodellisuuspelit saavat aikaan pahoinvointia ja kuinka niiden haitallisia vaikutuksia voidaan vähentää tai eliminoida. Tutkimuksessa käytettiin kahta tutkimusmenetelmää. Ensin suoritettiin lyhyt kirjallisuuskatsaus virtuaalitodellisuuden historiasta, parhaista käytäntötavoista sekä yleisistä ongelmista. Sen jälkeen toisena menetelmänä käytettiin kaksivaiheista evaluaatiota, joissa molemmissa kerättiin palautetta 12 osallistujilta tutkittuihin negatiivisiin vaikutuksiin haastattelun ja kyselyn avulla. Tutkimuksen tulokset näyttävät osoittavan linkin havaitun pahoinvoinnin, realistisen liikkumisen sekä äänitehosteiden ja taustamusiikin kanssa