Interaction Based Redirected Walking

Abstract

With a significant improvement in virtual reality (VR) devices, the number of interaction-based applications for consumers and industrial products is naturally increasing. As a result, many people can use VR in their homes or offices where they are limited by the physical tracking space. One way to overcome this limitation of natural walking is to use perception-inspired locomotion techniques such as redirected walking (RDW). RDW utilizes imperfections of human perception to introduce small changes like rotations or translations to steer the user away from the tracking boundaries. In this work we evaluate the detection threshold for discrete manipulation rotations to reorient the users in the scene during interactions. We show the thresholds of five most common interactions (Looking, Picking Up, Throwing, Shooting and Sword Fighting) that can be used as a distraction for RDW, which was confirmed in a user study. Based on the findings we propose a novel steer-to-action technique that helps game developers to improve VR games experiences.

RedirectedDoors+: Door-Opening Redirection with Dynamic Haptics in Room-Scale VR

“…Another application attempted to integrate the user's reorientation naturally into the narrative of the VR [65], but this may significantly limit the applicable VEs and scenarios. Another technique is to perform visual manipulation in conjunction with specific user actions or interactions with objects in VR [10,11,25,38,43,47]. For example, several studies have exploited inattentional blindness [25] and proposed techniques to make redirection less noticeable by placing distracting objects in the VE [38,47].…”

“…For example, several studies have exploited inattentional blindness [25] and proposed techniques to make redirection less noticeable by placing distracting objects in the VE [38,47]. Similarly, Schmelter et al proposed a rotational redirection technique based on bodily interactions (e.g., throwing) in VR games [43]. These interaction-based techniques are advantageous in that they redirect the users without requiring them to walk.…”

“…Based on the above preconditions, we designed an algorithm based on a combination of Steer-to-Center (S2C) [15,50] and Steer-to-Action (S2A) [43]. S2C is one of the most basic generalized algorithms, and it determines the curvature and/or rotation gain of redirection so that the user's walking direction is toward the center of the play area.…”

“…Specifically, to provide haptic feedback during door opening at arbitrary positions in VR, we implemented a small number of wheeled robots (called door robots) equipped with a doorknob-like haptic prop and a robot-positioning algorithm to position them at proper timing while avoiding collisions. In addition, to guide the user away from the boundary of the physical play area, we designed and implemented a user-steering algorithm, based on existing algorithms [15,43,50], that adaptively determines the redirection gain for every instance of door opening. To evaluate the performance of RDD+, we first conducted a simulation study to investigate the effects of VE type, user walking speed, and number of door robots on the spatial efficiency of redirection and robot placement delay.…”

LoCoMoTe – A Framework for Classification of Natural Locomotion in VR by Task, Technique and Modality

“…The guide was then given to three new coders who were all familiar with VR but not specifically the topic of locomotion in VR. Each coder received a copy of the guide, a blank structured document, and links to six random papers [68], [69], [70], [71], [72], [73] identified from the backwards process on the review paper from 2022 [14]. Each coder was tasked with analysing the six papers corresponding to each theme in the LoCoMoTe framework: Navigational Decisions, Task Implementation and Modalities.…”