Evaluation of locomotion methods in virtual reality navigation environments: An involuntary position shift and task performance

ABSTRACT Navigation is a representative task in a virtual environment (VE). The locomotion methods affect the navigation performance and can cause involuntary movements by the users, which may cause critical safety problems. Thus, this study examined the effects of different locomotion methods on the users’ involuntary position shift (IPS) and navigation performance in a VE. Twenty-one healthy participants performed the navigation task with four locomotion methods: walking in place (WIP), running in place (RIP), joystick, and teleportation. The results showed that a larger amount of IPS occurred with VE navigation under WIP and RIP conditions than joystick and teleportation conditions, which may cause critical safety problems, such as collisions with walls. Moreover, teleportation took the shortest task completion time, but its error time ratio was the largest. These results are expected to help develop basic guidelines for applying locomotion methods to specific situations and establishing safety precautions for virtual reality experiences.

[1]  Mary C. Whitton,et al.  The Design and Evaluation of a Large-Scale Real-Walking Locomotion Interface , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[2]  Stefania Serafin,et al.  Unintended positional drift and its potential solutions , 2013, 2013 IEEE Virtual Reality (VR).

[3]  Betsy Williams Sanders,et al.  Evaluating the effects of four VR locomotion methods: joystick, arm-cycling, point-tugging, and teleporting , 2018, SAP.

[4]  Betsy Williams Sanders,et al.  VR locomotion: walking > walking in place > arm swinging , 2016, VRCAI.

[5]  Eelke Folmer,et al.  Legomotion: scalable walking-based virtual locomotion , 2017, VRST.

[6]  Manolya Kavakli,et al.  Behavioral Presence Test in Threatening Virtual Environments , 2012, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[7]  Carolina Cruz-Neira,et al.  A new taxonomy for locomotion in virtual environments , 2002 .

[8]  Doug A. Bowman,et al.  Comparing the performance of natural, semi-natural, and non-natural locomotion techniques in virtual reality , 2015, 2015 IEEE Virtual Reality (VR).

[9]  Jason Jerald,et al.  The VR Book: Human-Centered Design for Virtual Reality , 2015 .

[10]  Myung Hwan Yun,et al.  A Systematic Review of a Virtual Reality System from the Perspective of User Experience , 2019, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[11]  Alberto Del Bimbo,et al.  Locomotion by Natural Gestures for Immersive Virtual Environments , 2016, AltMM@MM.

[12]  Ivan Poupyrev,et al.  3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice , 2004 .

[13]  Frank Steinicke,et al.  Human Walking in Virtual Environments: Perception, Technology, and Applications , 2013 .

[14]  Betsy Williams Sanders,et al.  Evaluation of walking in place on a Wii balance board to explore a virtual environment , 2011, TAP.

[15]  Woodrow Barfield,et al.  A Review of Presence and Performance in Virtual Environments , 2000, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[16]  Costas Boletsis,et al.  The New Era of Virtual Reality Locomotion: A Systematic Literature Review of Techniques and a Proposed Typology , 2017, Multimodal Technol. Interact..

[17]  Andy P. Field,et al.  Discovering Statistics Using Ibm Spss Statistics , 2017 .

[18]  Li-Yi Wei,et al.  Mapping virtual and physical reality , 2016, ACM Trans. Graph..

[19]  Lea Skorin-Kapov,et al.  Subjective Assessment of Different Locomotion Techniques in Virtual Reality Environments , 2018, 2018 Tenth International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX).

[20]  Judy Kay,et al.  VRun: running-in-place virtual reality exergame , 2016, OZCHI.

[21]  Mel Slater,et al.  Taking steps: the influence of a walking technique on presence in virtual reality , 1995, TCHI.

[22]  Rajiv V. Dubey,et al.  Locomotion in Virtual Reality for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder , 2016, SUI.

[23]  Doug A. Bowman,et al.  A methodology for the evaluation of travel techniques for immersive virtual environments , 1998, Virtual Reality.

[24]  Niels Chr. Nilsson,et al.  Walking Without Moving: An exploration of factors influencing the perceived naturalness of Walking-in-Place techniques for locomotion in virtual environments , 2015 .

[25]  Thomas B. Sheridan.  Further Musings on the Psychophysics of Presence , 1996, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[26]  Marc M. Sebrechts,et al.  HANDBOOK OF VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS , 2014 .

[27]  Eike Langbehn,et al.  Evaluation of Locomotion Techniques for Room-Scale VR: Joystick, Teleportation, and Redirected Walking , 2018, VRIC.

[28]  Stefania Serafin,et al.  A comparison of four different approaches to reducing unintended positional drift during walking-In-Place locomotion , 2014, 2014 IEEE Virtual Reality (VR).

[29]  Costas Boletsis,et al.  VR Locomotion in the New Era of Virtual Reality: An Empirical Comparison of Prevalent Techniques , 2019, Adv. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[30]  F. Brooks,et al.  Physiological Reaction as an Objective Measure of Presence in Virtual Environments , 2001 .

[31]  Zhichao Dong,et al.  Smooth assembled mappings for large-scale real walking , 2017, ACM Trans. Graph..

[32]  Doug A. Bowman,et al.  Testbed Evaluation of Virtual Environment Interaction Techniques , 2001, Presence Teleoperators Virtual Environ..

[33]  Stefania Serafin,et al.  A comparison of different methods for reducing the unintended positional drift accompanying walking-in-place locomotion , 2014, 2014 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI).

[34]  Doug A. Bowman,et al.  Travel in immersive virtual environments: an evaluation of viewpoint motion control techniques , 1997, Proceedings of IEEE 1997 Annual International Symposium on Virtual Reality.

[35]  Larry F. Hodges,et al.  Effects of travel technique and gender on a divided attention task in a virtual environment , 2010, 2010 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI).

[36]  Wonjoon Kim,et al.  The evaluation of user experience of a human walking and a driving simulation in the virtual reality , 2020 .

[37]  Rajiv V. Dubey,et al.  Locomotion in virtual reality for room scale tracked areas , 2019, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[38]  Maximino Bessa,et al.  Application of the steering law to virtual reality walking navigation interfaces , 2018, Comput. Graph..

[39]  Mary C. Whitton,et al.  LLCM-WIP: Low-Latency, Continuous-Motion Walking-in-Place , 2008, 2008 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces.

[40]  Mary C. Whitton,et al.  Walking > walking-in-place > flying, in virtual environments , 1999, SIGGRAPH.

[41]  Ryan P. McMahan,et al.  Interaction Fidelity: The Uncanny Valley of Virtual Reality Interactions , 2016, HCI.