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1. Rotational Self-motion Cues Improve Spatial Learning when Teleporting in Virtual Environments

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3385959.3418443  

   Lim, Alex F. ; Kelly, Jonathan W. ; Sepich, Nathan C. ; Cherep, Lucia A. ; Freed, Grace C. ; Gilbert, Stephen B. ( October 2020 , Symposium on Spatial User Interaction)

   null (Ed.)

   Teleporting interfaces are widely used in virtual reality applications to explore large virtual environments. When teleporting, the user indicates the intended location in the virtual environment and is instantly transported, typically without self-motion cues. This project explored the cost of teleporting on the acquisition of survey knowledge (i.e., a ”cognitive map”). Two teleporting interfaces were compared, one with and one without visual and body-based rotational self-motion cues. Both interfaces lacked translational self-motion cues. Participants used one of the two teleporting interfaces to find and study the locations of six objects scattered throughout a large virtual environment. After learning, participants completed two measures of cognitive map fidelity: an object-to-object pointing task and a map drawing task. The results indicate superior spatial learning when rotational self-motion cues were available. Therefore, virtual reality developers should strongly consider the benefits of rotational self-motion cues when creating and choosing locomotion interfaces. 

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2. Boundaries Reduce Disorientation in Virtual Reality

   https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.882526  

   Kelly, Jonathan W. ; Doty, Taylor A. ; Cherep, Lucia A. ; Gilbert, Stephen B. ( June 2022 , Frontiers in Virtual Reality)

   Virtual reality users are susceptible to disorientation, particularly when using locomotion interfaces that lack self-motion cues. Environmental cues, such as boundaries defined by walls or a fence, provide information to help the user remain oriented. This experiment evaluated whether the type of boundary impacts its usefulness for staying oriented. Participants wore a head-mounted display and performed a triangle completion task in virtual reality by traveling two outbound path segments before attempting to point to the path origin. The task was completed with two teleporting interfaces differing in the availability of rotational self-motion cues, and within five virtual environments differing in the availability and type of boundaries. Pointing errors were highest in an open field without environmental cues, and lowest in a classroom with walls and landmarks. Environments with a single square boundary defined by a fence, drop-off, or floor texture discontinuity led to errors in between the open field and the classroom. Performance with the floor texture discontinuity was similar to that with navigational barriers (i.e., fence and drop-off), indicating that an effective barrier need not be a navigational impediment. These results inform spatial cognitive theory about boundary-based navigation and inform application by specifying the types of environmental and self-motion cues that designers of virtual environments should include to reduce disorientation in virtual reality. 

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3. Evaluating the Impact of Limited Physical Space on the Navigation Performance of Two Locomotion Methods in Immersive Virtual Environments

   https://doi.org/10.1109/VR51125.2022.00104  

   Paris, Richard A. ; Buck, Lauren E. ; McNamara, Timothy P. ; Bodenheimer, Bobby ( March 2022 , 2022 IEEE Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR))

   Consumer level virtual experiences almost always occur when physical space is limited, either by the constraints of an indoor space or of a tracked area. This observation coupled with the need for movement through large virtual spaces has resulted in a proliferation of research into locomotion interfaces that decouples movement through the virtual environment from movement in the real world. While many locomotion interfaces support movement of some kind in the real world, some do not. This paper examines the effect of the amount of physical space used in the real world on one popular locomotion interface, resetting, when compared to a locomotion interface that requires minimal physical space, walking in place. The metric used to compare the two locomotion interfaces was navigation performance, specifically, the acquisition of survey knowledge. We find that, while there are trade-offs between the two methods, walking in place is preferable in small spaces. 

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4. Teleporting through virtual environments: benefits of navigational feedback and practice

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-022-00737-0  

   Kelly, Jonathan W. ; Powell, Nicole ; Hoover, Melynda ; Gilbert, Stephen B. ( January 2023 , Virtual Reality)

   Virtual environments (VEs) can be infinitely large, but movement of the virtual reality (VR) user is constrained by the surrounding real environment. Teleporting has become a popular locomotion interface to allow complete exploration of the VE. To teleport, the user selects the intended position (and sometimes orientation) before being instantly transported to that location. However, locomotion interfaces such as teleporting can cause disorientation. This experiment explored whether practice and feedback when using the teleporting interface can reduce disorientation. VR headset owners participated remotely. On each trial of a triangle completion task, the participant traveled along two path legs through a VE before attempting to point to the path origin. Travel was completed with one of two teleporting interfaces that differed in the availability of rotational self-motion cues. Participants in the feedback condition received feedback about their pointing accuracy. For both teleporting interfaces tested, feedback caused significant improvement in pointing performance, and practice alone caused only marginal improvement. These results suggest that disorientation in VR can be reduced through feedback-based training. 

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5. Embodied Third-Person Virtual Locomotion using a Single Depth Camera

   https://doi.org/10.20380/GI2021.24  

   Aniruddha Prithul, Isayas Berhe ( May 2021 , Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2021)

   null (Ed.)

   Third-person is a popular perspective for video games, but virtual reality (VR) seems to be primarily experienced from a first-person point of view (POV). While a first-person POV generally offers the highest presence; a third-person POV allows users to see their avatar; which allows for a better bond, and the higher vantage point generally increases spatial awareness and navigation. Third-person locomotion is generally implemented using a controller or keyboard, with users often sitting down; an approach that is considered to offer a low presence and embodiment. We present a novel thirdperson locomotion method that enables a high avatar embodiment by integrating skeletal tracking with head-tilt based input to enable omnidirectional navigation beyond the confines of available tracking space. By interpreting movement relative to an avatar, the user will always keep facing the camera which optimizes skeletal tracking and keeps required instrumentation minimal (1 depth camera). A user study compares the performance, usability, VR sickness incidence and avatar embodiment of our method to using a controller for a navigation task that involves interacting with objects. Though a controller offers a higher performance and usability, our locomotion method offered a significantly higher avatar embodiment. 

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