Creating a virtual archery experience

In this paper we describe the design of a virtual reality simulator for traditional intuitive archery. Traditional archers aim without a target figure. Good shooting results require an excellent body-eye coordination that allows the user to perform identical movements when drawing the bow. Our simulator provides a virtual archery experience and supports the user to learn and to practice the motion sequence of traditional archery in a virtual environment. We use a low-cost tracking system to capture the user's motion in order to correct his movement. To provide a realistic haptic feedback a real bow is used as interaction device. Our system should provide a believable user experience and support the user to learn how to shoot in the traditional way. Following a user-centered iterative design approach we developed a number of prototypes and evaluated them for refinement in sequent iteration cycles.