Using a large projection screen as an alternative to head-mounted displays for virtual environments

Abstract

Head-mounted displays for virtual environments facilitate an immersive experience that seems more real than an experience provided by a desk-top monitor [18]; however, the cost of head-mounted displays can prohibit their use. An empirical study was conducted investigating differences in spatial knowledge learned for a virtual environment presented in three viewing conditions: head-mounted display, large projection screen, and desk-top monitor. Participants in each condition were asked to reproduce their cognitive map of a virtual environment, which had been developed during individual exploration of the environment along a predetermined course. Error scores were calculated, indicating the degree to which each participant's map differed from the actual layout of the virtual environment. No statistically significant difference was found between the head-mounted display and large projection screen conditions. An implication of this result is that a large projection screen may be an effective, inexpensive substitute for a head-mounted display.

Wayfinding: The effects of large displays and 3-D perception

“…The error bars represent standard errors of the mean studies in the literature did not find an advantage in large display conditions (Gamberini, 2000;Tan et al, 2006;Tan, Gergle, Scupelli, & Pausch, 2004), some even finding a significant advantage with a standard desktop monitor (Czerwinski et al, 2002;Gamberini, 2000). There is also evidence showing that large displays can be helpful when using other types of virtual navigation tasks (Patrick et al, 2000;Tan et al, 2004;Tyndiuk, Lespinet-Najib, Thomas, & Schlick, 2007). For example, Tan et al (2004) found that large displays enhance performance in a path integration task, in which participants are led along two legs of a triangle and are asked to go back to the start position of the triangle.…”

“…Additionally, route learning was also found to be enhanced with the use of large displays. Patrick et al (2000) verbally instructed their participants to go from one ride to another in a virtual amusement park along a fixed route. Participants in the large-screen condition were more accurate than participants in the monitor condition when asked to reproduce the map of the amusement park.…”

Device effect on panoramic video+context tasks

“…Mizell et al find that immersive displays can better convey the sense of space than desktop displays [16]. Patrick et al [20] compare various displays which occupy comparable visual angles, and find that, while users performed significantly worse in forming cognitive maps on a desktop monitor, users performed no differently using a head-mounted display or a large projection display. Similarly, Tan et al [34] studied the effect of large projected wall displays, and suggest that large displays afford a greater sense of presence, leading to better performance.…”

“…This problem is brought into focus when we consider that some tasks which involve panoramic video imagery are performance critical, such as rescue services telepresence or security surveillance review. One field that has investigated the question of display effect is virtual reality, where it is suggested that immersive displays, such as headmounted displays (HMD), may improve user performance in tasks that require a high level of spatial reasoning [20,16,34]. However, these works often use 3D virtual environments, and panoramas are not 3D: on a spectrum between 3D virtual environments and 2D images, panoramas are a hybrid in between -a 360 • panorama can surround a user, but the scene has only spherical geometry and is effectively flat.…”

NeuAR – A Review of the VR/AR Applications in the Neuroscience Domain

“…It is also quite difficult to find a balance between display quality and ergonomics, since most systems vary from high quality cumbersome displays to low quality ergonomic ones (Bimber et al, 2006). Another issue related to HMD is the incidence of simulator sickness during fast head movements (Patrick et al, 2000).…”