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