RadialLight: Exploring radial peripheral LEDs for directional cues in head-mounted displays

Current head-mounted displays (HMDs) for Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) have a limited field-of-view (FOV). This limited FOV further decreases the already restricted human visual range and amplifies the problem of objects going out of view. Therefore, we explore the utility of augmenting HMDs with RadialLight, a peripheral light display implemented as 18 radially positioned LEDs around each eye to cue direction towards out-of-view objects. We first investigated direction estimation accuracy of multi-colored cues presented on one versus two eyes. We then evaluated direction estimation accuracy and search time performance for locating out-of-view objects in two representative 360° video VR scenarios. Key findings show that participants could not distinguish between LED cues presented to one or both eyes simultaneously, participants estimated LED cue direction within a maximum 11.8° average deviation, and out-of-view objects in less distracting scenarios were selected faster. Furthermore, we provide implications for building peripheral HMDs

Natural freehand grasping of virtual objects for augmented reality

Grasping is a primary form of interaction with the surrounding world, and is an intuitive interaction technique by nature due to the highly complex structure of the human hand. Translating this versatile interaction technique to Augmented Reality (AR) can provide interaction designers with more opportunities to implement more intuitive and realistic AR applications. The work presented in this thesis uses quantifiable measures to evaluate the accuracy and usability of natural grasping of virtual objects in AR environments, and presents methods for improving this natural form of interaction. Following a review of physical grasping parameters and current methods of mediating grasping interactions in AR, a comprehensive analysis of natural freehand grasping of virtual objects in AR is presented to assess the accuracy, usability and transferability of this natural form of grasping to AR environments. The analysis is presented in four independent user studies (120 participants, 30 participants for each study and 5760 grasping tasks in total), where natural freehand grasping performance is assessed for a range of virtual object sizes, positions and types in terms of accuracy of grasping, task completion time and overall system usability. Findings from the first user study in this work highlighted two key problems for natural grasping in AR; namely inaccurate depth estimation and inaccurate size estimation of virtual objects. Following the quantification of these errors, three different methods for mitigating user errors and assisting users during natural grasping were presented and analysed; namely dual view visual feedback, drop shadows and additional visual feedback when adding user based tolerances during interaction tasks. Dual view visual feedback was found to significantly improve user depth estimation, however this method also significantly increased task completion time. Drop shadows provided an alternative, and a more usable solution, to dual view visual feedback through significantly improving depth estimation, task completion time and the overall usability of natural grasping. User based tolerances negated the fundamental problem of inaccurate size estimation of virtual objects, through enabling users to perform natural grasping without the need of being highly accurate in their grasping performance, thus providing evidence that natural grasping can be usable in task based AR environments. Finally recommendations for allowing and further improving natural grasping interaction in AR environments are provided, along with guidelines for translating this form of natural grasping to other AR environments and user interfaces

Designing passenger experiences for in-car Mixed Reality

In day-to-day life, people spend a considerable amount of their time on the road. People seek to invest travel time for work and well-being through interaction with mobile and multimedia applications on personal devices such as smartphones and tablets. However, for new computing paradigms, such as mobile mixed reality (MR), their usefulness in this everyday transport context, in-car MR remains challenging. When future passengers immerse in three-dimensional virtual environments, they become increasingly disconnected from the cabin space, vehicle motion, and other people around them. This degraded awareness of the real environment endangers the passenger experience on the road, which initially motivates this thesis to question: can immersive technology become useful in the everyday transport context, such as for in-car scenarios? If so, how should we design in-car MR technology to foster passenger access and connectedness to both physical and virtual worlds, ensuring ride safety, comfort, and joy? To this aim, this thesis contributes via three aspects: 1) Understanding passenger use of in-car MR —first, I present a model for in-car MR interaction through user research. As interviews with daily commuters reveal, passengers are concerned with their physical integrity when facing spatial conflicts between borderless virtual environments and the confined cabin space. From this, the model aims to help researchers spatially organize information and how user interfaces vary in the proximity of the user. Additionally, a field experiment reveals contextual feedback about motion sickness when using immersive technology on the road. This helps refine the model and instruct the following experiments. 2) Mixing realities in car rides —second, this thesis explores a series of prototypes and experiments to examine how in-car MR technology can enable passengers to feel present in virtual environments while maintaining awareness of the real environment. The results demonstrate technical solutions for physical integrity and situational awareness by incorporating essential elements of the RE into virtual reality. Empirical evidence provides a set of dimensions into the in-car MR model, guiding the design decisions of mixing realities. 3) Transcending the transport context —third, I extend the model to other everyday contexts beyond transport that share spatial and social constraints, such as the confined and shared living space at home. A literature review consolidates leveraging daily physical objects as haptic feedback for MR interaction across spatial scales. A laboratory experiment discovers how context-aware MR systems that consider physical configurations can support social interaction with copresent others in close shared spaces. These results substantiate the scalability of the in-car MR model to other contexts. Finally, I conclude with a holistic model for mobile MR interaction across everyday contexts, from home to on the road. With my user research, prototypes, empirical evaluation, and model, this thesis paves the way for understanding the future passenger use of immersive technology, addressing today’s technical limitations of MR in mobile interaction, and ultimately fostering mobile users’ ubiquitous access and close connectedness to MR anytime and anywhere in their daily lives.Im modernen Leben verbringen die Menschen einen beträchtlichen Teil ihrer Zeit mit dem täglichen Pendeln. Die Menschen versuchen, die Reisezeit für ihre Arbeit und ihr Wohlbefinden durch die Interaktion mit mobilen und multimedialen Anwendungen auf persönlichen Geräten wie Smartphones und Tablets zu nutzen. Doch für neue Computing-Paradigmen, wie der mobilen Mixed Reality (MR), bleibt ihre Nützlichkeit in diesem alltäglichen Verkehrskontext, der MR im Auto, eine Herausforderung. Wenn künftige Passagiere in dreidimensionale virtuelle Umgebungen eintauchen, werden sie zunehmend von der Kabine, der Fahrzeugbewegung und den Menschen in ihrer Umgebung abgekoppelt. Diese verminderte Wahrnehmung der realen Umgebung gefährdet das Fahrverhalten der Passagiere im Straßenverkehr, was diese Arbeit zunächst zu der Frage motiviert: Können immersive Systeme im alltäglichen Verkehrskontext, z.B. in Fahrzeugszenarien, nützlich werden? Wenn ja, wie sollten wir die MR-Technologie im Auto gestalten, um den Zugang und die Verbindung der Passagiere mit der physischen und der virtuellen Welt zu fördern und dabei Sicherheit, Komfort und Freude an der Fahrt zu gewährleisten? Zu diesem Zweck trägt diese Arbeit zu drei Aspekten bei: 1) Verständnis der Nutzung von MR im Auto durch die Passagiere - Zunächst wird ein Modell für die MR-Interaktion im Auto durch user research vorgestellt. Wie aus Interviews mit täglichen Pendlern hervorgeht, sind die Passagiere um ihre körperliche Unversehrtheit besorgt, wenn sie mit räumlichen Konflikten zwischen grenzenlosen virtuellen Umgebungen und dem begrenzten Kabinenraum konfrontiert werden. Das Modell soll Forschern dabei helfen, Informationen und Benutzerschnittstellen räumlich zu organisieren, die in der Nähe des Benutzers variieren. Darüber hinaus zeigt ein Feldexperiment kontextbezogenes Feedback zur Reisekrankheit bei der Nutzung immersiver Technologien auf der Straße. Dies hilft, das Modell zu verfeinern und die folgenden Experimente zu instruieren. 2) Vermischung von Realitäten bei Autofahrten - Zweitens wird in dieser Arbeit anhand einer Reihe von Prototypen und Experimenten untersucht, wie die MR-Technologie im Auto es den Passagieren ermöglichen kann, sich in virtuellen Umgebungen präsent zu fühlen und gleichzeitig das Bewusstsein für die reale Umgebung zu behalten. Die Ergebnisse zeigen technische Lösungen für räumliche Beschränkungen und Situationsbewusstsein, indem wesentliche Elemente der realen Umgebung in VR integriert werden. Die empirischen Erkenntnisse bringen eine Reihe von Dimensionen in das Modell der MR im Auto ein, die die Designentscheidungen für gemischte Realitäten leiten. 3) Über den Verkehrskontext hinaus - Drittens erweitere ich das Modell auf andere Alltagskontexte jenseits des Verkehrs, in denen räumliche und soziale Zwänge herrschen, wie z.B. in einem begrenzten und gemeinsam genutzten Wohnbereich zu Hause. Eine Literaturrecherche konsolidiert die Nutzung von Alltagsgegenständen als haptisches Feedback für MR-Interaktion über räumliche Skalen hinweg. Ein Laborexperiment zeigt, wie kontextbewusste MR-Systeme, die physische Konfigurationen berücksichtigen, soziale Interaktion mit anderen Personen in engen gemeinsamen Räumen ermöglichen. Diese Ergebnisse belegen die Übertragbarkeit des MR-Modells im Auto auf andere Kontexte. Schließlich schließe ich mit einem ganzheitlichen Modell für mobile MR-Interaktion in alltäglichen Kontexten, von zu Hause bis unterwegs. Mit meiner user research, meinen Prototypen und Evaluierungsexperimenten sowie meinem Modell ebnet diese Dissertation den Weg für das Verständnis der zukünftigen Nutzung immersiver Technologien durch Passagiere, für die Überwindung der heutigen technischen Beschränkungen von MR in der mobilen Interaktion und schließlich für die Förderung des allgegenwärtigen Zugangs und der engen Verbindung der mobilen Nutzer zu MR jederzeit und überall in ihrem täglichen Leben

Ability of head-mounted display technology to improve mobility in people with low vision: a systematic review

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to undertake a systematic literature review on how vision enhancements, implemented using head-mounted displays (HMDs), can improve mobility, orientation, and associated aspects of visual function in people with low vision. Methods: The databases Medline, Chinl, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched for potentially relevant studies. Publications from all years until November 2018 were identified based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The data were tabulated and synthesized to produce a systematic review. Results: The search identified 28 relevant papers describing the performance of vision enhancement techniques on mobility and associated visual tasks. Simplifying visual scenes improved obstacle detection and object recognition but decreased walking speed. Minification techniques increased the size of the visual field by 3 to 5 times and improved visual search performance. However, the impact of minification on mobility has not been studied extensively. Clinical trials with commercially available devices recorded poor results relative to conventional aids. Conclusions: The effects of current vision enhancements using HMDs are mixed. They appear to reduce mobility efficiency but improved obstacle detection and object recognition. The review highlights the lack of controlled studies with robust study designs. To support the evidence base, well-designed trials with larger sample sizes that represent different types of impairments and real-life scenarios are required. Future work should focus on identifying the needs of people with different types of vision impairment and providing targeted enhancements. Translational Relevance: This literature review examines the evidence regarding the ability of HMD technology to improve mobility in people with sight loss

That and There: Judging the Intent of Pointing Actions with Robotic Arms

Collaborative robotics requires effective communication between a robot and a human partner. This work proposes a set of interpretive principles for how a robotic arm can use pointing actions to communicate task information to people by extending existing models from the related literature. These principles are evaluated through studies where English-speaking human subjects view animations of simulated robots instructing pick-and-place tasks. The evaluation distinguishes two classes of pointing actions that arise in pick-and-place tasks: referential pointing (identifying objects) and locating pointing (identifying locations). The study indicates that human subjects show greater flexibility in interpreting the intent of referential pointing compared to locating pointing, which needs to be more deliberate. The results also demonstrate the effects of variation in the environment and task context on the interpretation of pointing. Our corpus, experiments and design principles advance models of context, common sense reasoning and communication in embodied communication.Comment: Accepted to AAAI 2020, New York Cit

When the Elephant Trumps": A Comparative Study on Spatial Audio for Orientation in 360◦ Videos

Orientation is an emerging issue in cinematic Virtual Reality (VR), as viewers may fail in locating points of interest. Recent strategies to tackle this research problem have investigated the role of cues, specifically diegetic sound effects. In this paper, we examine the use of sound spatialization for orien tation purposes, namely by studying different spatialization conditions ("none", "partial", and "full" spatial manipulation) of multitrack soundtracks. We performed a between-subject mixed-methods study with 36 participants, aided by Cue Control, a tool we developed for dynamic spatial sound edit ing and data collection/analysis. Based on existing literature on orientation cues in 360◦ and theories on human listening, we discuss situations in which the spatialization was more ef fective (namely, "full" spatial manipulation both when using only music and when combining music and diegetic effects), and how this can be used by creators of 360◦ videos.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Generators of Architectural Atmosphere

This book was born as the legacy of the “Generators of Architectural Atmosphere” Symposium, an Interfaces event of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), sponsored by the EU’s Horizon 2020 MSCA Program — RESONANCES Project, the Perkins Eastman Studio, and the 2020 Regnier Chair. The event was hosted in the College of Architecture, Planning and Design (APDesign), Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, on April 12, 2022. Recent advances in science are confirming many of the architect’s expert intuitions opening new doors to the perception of space and the meaning of architectural design. This volume collects three essays: “The Atmospheric Equation and the Weight of Architectural Generators” by Elisabetta Canepa; “Sensing the Atmospheric Space Through a Virtual Lens: Scrutinizing Opportunities and Limitations” by Kutay Güler; and “Locating Architectural Atmosphere” by Tiziana Proietti and Sergei Gepshtein. Bob Condia provided a critical introduction entitled “The Applied Science of Generating Atmospheres in Architecture.”https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1048/thumbnail.jp