Freehand-Steering Locomotion Techniques for Immersive Virtual Environments: A Comparative Evaluation

ABSTRACT Virtual reality has achieved significant popularity in recent years, and allowing users to move freely within an immersive virtual world has become an important factor critical to realize. The user’s interactions are generally designed to increase the perceived realism, but the locomotion techniques and how these affect the user’s task performance still represent an open issue, much discussed in the literature. In this article, we evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of, and user preferences relating to, freehand locomotion techniques designed for an immersive virtual environment performed through hand gestures tracked by a sensor placed in the egocentric position and experienced through a head-mounted display. Three freehand locomotion techniques have been implemented and compared with each other, and with a baseline technique based on a controller, through qualitative and quantitative measures. An extensive user study conducted with 60 subjects shows that the proposed methods have a performance comparable to the use of the controller, further revealing the users’ preference for decoupling the locomotion in sub-tasks, even if this means renouncing precision and adapting the interaction to the possibilities of the tracker sensor.

[1]  Chris G. Christou,et al.  Steering Versus Teleport Locomotion for Head Mounted Displays , 2017, AVR.

[2]  Eelke Folmer,et al.  VR-STEP: Walking-in-Place using Inertial Sensing for Hands Free Navigation in Mobile VR Environments , 2016, CHI.

[3]  Robert S. Kennedy,et al.  Simulator Sickness Questionnaire: An enhanced method for quantifying simulator sickness. , 1993 .

[4]  Bernhard E. Riecke,et al.  Comparing leaning-based motion cueing interfaces for virtual reality locomotion , 2017, 2017 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI).

[5]  Philip T. Kortum,et al.  Determining what individual SUS scores mean: adding an adjective rating scale , 2009 .

[6]  Delfina Malandrino,et al.  Virtual Reality Interfaces for Interacting with Three-Dimensional Graphs , 2019, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[7]  Roy A. Ruddle,et al.  The benefits of using a walking interface to navigate virtual environments , 2009, TCHI.

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

[9]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  NaviChair: Evaluating an Embodied Interface Using a Pointing Task to Navigate Virtual Reality , 2015, SUI.

[10]  Frits H. Post,et al.  Using the Wii Balance Board#8482; as a low-cost VR interaction device , 2008, VRST '08.

[11]  S. Hart,et al.  Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of Empirical and Theoretical Research , 1988 .

[12]  Kosuke Sato,et al.  LazyNav: 3D ground navigation with non-critical body parts , 2015, 2015 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI).

[13]  J. B. Brooke,et al.  SUS: a retrospective , 2013 .

[14]  Amy Banic,et al.  Real Walking Increases Simulator Sickness in Navigationally Complex Virtual Environments , 2009, 2009 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference.

[15]  Randall D. Spain,et al.  Measurement Invariance of the Nasa TLX , 2008 .

[16]  Sandra G. Hart,et al.  Nasa-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX); 20 Years Later , 2006 .

[17]  Charalambos Poullis,et al.  Navigation in virtual reality: Comparison of gaze-directed and pointing motion control , 2016, 2016 18th Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference (MELECON).

[18]  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.

[19]  Donald B. Johnson,et al.  Testbed Evaluation of Virtual Environment Interaction Techniques , 1999, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[20]  Gerd Bruder,et al.  Threefolded motion perception during immersive walkthroughs , 2014, VRST '14.

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

[22]  Giuseppe Scanniello,et al.  On the use of virtual reality in software visualization: The case of the city metaphor , 2019, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[23]  Eelke Folmer,et al.  Virtual Locomotion: A Survey , 2020, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[24]  Julie M. Drexler,et al.  Cybersickness is Not Simulator Sickness , 1997 .

[25]  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..

[26]  Oscar Mauricio Serrano Jaimes,et al.  EVALUACION DE LA USABILIDAD EN SITIOS WEB, BASADA EN EL ESTANDAR ISO 9241-11 (International Standard (1998) Ergonomic requirements For office work with visual display terminals (VDTs)-Parts II: Guidance on usability , 2012 .

[27]  Carolina Cruz-Neira,et al.  Surround-Screen Projection-Based Virtual Reality: The Design and Implementation of the CAVE , 2023 .

[28]  M. Bradley,et al.  Measuring emotion: the Self-Assessment Manikin and the Semantic Differential. , 1994, Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry.

[29]  Joseph J. LaViola,et al.  Hands-free multi-scale navigation in virtual environments , 2001, I3D '01.

[30]  Emilie Loup-Escande,et al.  Effects of Travel Modes on Performances and User Comfort: A Comparison between ArmSwinger and Teleporting , 2018, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[31]  Ben W. Morrison,et al.  Navigating the Online World: Gaze, Fixations, and Performance Differences between Younger and Older Users , 2018, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[32]  Benjamin Cohen,et al.  Navigating immersive virtual environments through a foot controller , 2014, VRST '14.

[33]  Nancy A. Skopp,et al.  A Pilot Study of the VirtuSphere as a Virtual Reality Enhancement , 2014, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[34]  Luigi Gallo,et al.  The Vive Controllers vs. Leap Motion for Interactions in Virtual Environments: A Comparative Evaluation , 2018, IIMSS.

[35]  Alberto Del Bimbo,et al.  Natural Interaction in Medical Training , 2017, Human–Computer Interaction Series.

[36]  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).

[37]  H. M. Sayers,et al.  Desktop virtual environments: a study of navigation and age , 2004, Interact. Comput..

[38]  Rajiv V. Dubey,et al.  Point & Teleport Locomotion Technique for Virtual Reality , 2016, CHI PLAY.

[39]  Raimund Dachselt,et al.  Designing gaze-based user interfaces for steering in virtual environments , 2012, ETRA.

[40]  Randy Pausch,et al.  Virtual reality on a WIM: interactive worlds in miniature , 1995, CHI '95.

[41]  Kevin Ponto,et al.  Evaluating perceived distance measures in room-scale spaces using consumer-grade head mounted displays , 2017, 2017 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI).

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

[43]  Joseph J. LaViola,et al.  A discussion of cybersickness in virtual environments , 2000, SGCH.

[44]  Julian Frommel,et al.  Effects of controller-based locomotion on player experience in a virtual reality exploration game , 2017, FDG.

[45]  Kasper Hornbæk,et al.  Measuring usability: are effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction really correlated? , 2000, CHI.

[46]  Luigi Gallo,et al.  Design and Preliminary Evaluation of Free-Hand Travel Techniques for Wearable Immersive Virtual Reality Systems with Egocentric Sensing , 2015, AVR.

[47]  Mel Slater,et al.  The Virtual Treadmill: A Naturalistic Metaphor for Navigation in Immersive Virtual Environments , 1995, Virtual Environments.

[48]  Nicola Capece,et al.  GraphVR: A Virtual Reality Tool for the Exploration of Graphs with HTC Vive System , 2018, 2018 22nd International Conference Information Visualisation (IV).

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

[50]  Nicola Capece,et al.  StreamFlowVR: A Tool for Learning Methodologies and Measurement Instruments for River Flow Through Virtual Reality , 2019, AVR.

[51]  Fan Zhang,et al.  Double hand-gesture interaction for walk-through in VR environment , 2017, 2017 IEEE/ACIS 16th International Conference on Computer and Information Science (ICIS).

[52]  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).

[53]  Jorge C. S. Cardoso.  Comparison of gesture, gamepad, and gaze-based locomotion for VR worlds , 2016, VRST.

[54]  C. Moro,et al.  The effectiveness of virtual and augmented reality in health sciences and medical anatomy , 2017, Anatomical sciences education.

[55]  Jaehyun Park,et al.  Comparison of Gaze Cursor Input Methods for Virtual Reality Devices , 2018, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[56]  Alessandro Valli,et al.  The design of natural interaction , 2008, Multimedia Tools and Applications.

[57]  Bo Hsiao,et al.  The effect of user's perceived presence and promotion focus on usability for interacting in virtual environments. , 2015, Applied ergonomics.

[58]  Luigi Gallo,et al.  An Investigation of Leap Motion Based 3D Manipulation Techniques for Use in Egocentric Viewpoint , 2016, AVR.

[59]  E. Noé,et al.  Feasibility of a walking virtual reality system for rehabilitation: objective and subjective parameters , 2016, Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation.

[60]  Maja Matijasevic,et al.  Performance and QoE assessment of HTC Vive and Oculus Rift for pick-and-place tasks in VR , 2017, 2017 Ninth International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX).