In virtual reality games, players dive into fictional environments and can experience a compelling and immersive world. State-of-the-art VR systems allow for natural and intuitive navigation through physical walking. However, the tracking space is still limited, and viable alternatives are required to reach further virtual destinations. Our work focuses on the exploration of vast open worlds - an area where existing local navigation approaches such as the arc-based teleport are not ideally suited and world-in-miniature techniques potentially reduce presence. We present a novel alternative for open environments: Our idea is to equip players with the ability to switch from first-person to a third-person bird's eye perspective on demand. From above, players can command their avatar and initiate travels over large distance. Our evaluation reveals a significant increase in spatial orientation while avoiding cybersickness and preserving presence, enjoyment, and competence. We summarize our findings in a set of comprehensive design guidelines to help developers integrate our technique.
Stated preference experiments have been known to suffer from the lack of realism. This issue is particularly visible when the scenario doesn't have a well understood prior reference e.g. in case of the autonomous vehicles related scenarios. We present Virtual Immersive Reality Environment (VIRE) that is capable of developing highly realistic, immersive, and interactive choice scenario. We demonstrate the use of VIRE in the pedestrian preferences related to autonomous vehicles and associated infrastructure changes on urban streets of Montréal. The results are compared with predominantly used ap…
The objectives of this qualitative research were to study the model of 360-degree virtual reality travel media, to compare appropriateness of moving 360-degree virtual reality travel media for elderly with both still and moving cameras, and to study satisfaction of elderly in 360-degree virtual reality travel media. The informants are 10 elders with age above and equal to 60 years old who live in Bangkok regardless of genders. Data were collected through documents, detailed interview, and non-participant observation of elders to 360-degree virtual reality travel media with data triangulation. …
Bionic vision is a rapidly advancing field aimed at developing visual neuroprostheses ('bionic eyes') to restore useful vision to people who are blind. However, a major outstanding challenge is predicting what people 'see' when they use their devices. The limited field of view of current devices necessitates head movements to scan the scene, which is difficult to simulate on a computer screen. In addition, many computational models of bionic vision lack biological realism. To address these challenges, we propose to embed biologically realistic models of simulated prosthetic vision (SPV) in imm…
Bionic vision uses neuroprostheses to restore useful vision to people living with incurable blindness. However, a major outstanding challenge is predicting what people 'see' when they use their devices. The limited field of view of current devices necessitates head movements to scan the scene, which is difficult to simulate on a computer screen. In addition, many computational models of bionic vision lack biological realism. To address these challenges, we present VR-SPV, an open-source virtual reality toolbox for simulated prosthetic vision that uses a psychophysically validated computational…
Exploring the impact of virtual reality user engagement on tourist behavioral response integrated an environment concern of touristic travel perspective: A new hybrid machine learning approach
In conditionally automated vehicles, drivers can engage in secondary activities while traveling to their destination. However, drivers are required to appropriately respond, in a limited amount of time, to a take-over request when the system reaches its functional boundaries. In this context, Virtual Reality systems represent a promising training and learning tool to properly familiarize drivers with the automated vehicle and allow them to interact with the novel equipment involved. In this study, the effectiveness of an Head-Mounted display (HMD)-based training program for acquiring interacti…
Recently, we developed a dynamic distributed end-to-end vehicle routing system (E2ECAV) using a network of intelligent intersections and level 5 CAVs (Djavadian & Farooq, 2018). The case study of the downtown Toronto Network showed that E2ECAV has the ability to maximize throughput and reduce travel time up to 40%. However, the efficiency of these new technologies relies on the acceptance of users in adapting to them and their willingness to give control fully or partially to CAVs. In this study a stated preference laboratory experiment is designed employing Virtual Reality Immersive Environme…
Research examining older adults interactions with Virtual Reality (VR) and the impact of social VR experiences on outcomes such as social engagement has been limited, especially among older adults. This multi-site pilot study evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of a novel social virtual reality (VR) program that paired older adults from different geographic locations (New York City, Tallahassee, and Ithaca, N.Y) who engaged in virtual travel and productive engagement activities together. The sample included 36 individuals aged 60 and older, 25 percent of whom had cognitive impairment (…
Virtual environments (VEs) can create collaborative and social spaces, which are increasingly important in the face of remote work and travel reduction. Recent advances, such as more open and widely available platforms, create new possibilities to observe and analyse interaction in VEs. Using a custom instrumented build of Mozilla Hubs to measure position and orientation, we conducted an academic workshop to facilitate a range of typical workshop activities. We analysed social interactions during a keynote, small group breakouts, and informal networking/hallway conversations. Our mixed-methods…
Immersive Colonography allows medical professionals to navigate inside the intricate tubular geometries of subject-specific 3D colon images using Virtual Reality displays. Typically, camera travel is performed via Fly-Through or Fly-Over techniques that enable semi-automatic traveling through a constrained, well-defined path at user controlled speeds. However, Fly-Through is known to limit the visibility of lesions located behind or inside haustral folds, while Fly-Over requires splitting the entire colon visualization into two specific halves. In this paper, we study the effect of immersive F…
To reduce the need for business-related air travel and its associated energy consumption and carbon footprint, the U.S. Department of Energy's ARPA-E is supporting a research project called SCOTTIE - Systematic Communication Objectives and Telecommunications Technology Investigations and Evaluations. SCOTTIE tests virtual and augmented reality platforms in a functional comparison with face-to-face (FtF) interactions to derive travel replacement thresholds for common industrial training scenarios. The primary goal of Study 1 is to match the communication effectiveness and learning outcomes obta…
To overcome the travelling difficulty for the visually impaired group, this paper presents a novel ETA (Electronic Travel Aids)-smart guiding device in the shape of a pair of eyeglasses for giving these people guidance efficiently and safely. Different from existing works, a novel multi sensor fusion based obstacle avoiding algorithm is proposed, which utilizes both the depth sensor and ultrasonic sensor to solve the problems of detecting small obstacles, and transparent obstacles, e.g. the French door. For totally blind people, three kinds of auditory cues were developed to inform the directi…
Virtual reality (VR) has seen increased use for training and instruction. Designers can enable VR users to gain insights into their own performance by visualizing telemetry data from their actions in VR. Our ability to detect patterns and trends visually suggests the use of data visualization as a tool for users to identify strategies for improved performance. Typical tasks in VR training scenarios are manipulation of 3D objects (e.g., for learning how to maintain a jet engine) and navigation (e.g., to learn the geography of a building or landscape before traveling on-site). In this paper, we …
Virtual Reality (VR) storytelling enhances the immersion of users into virtual environments (VE). Its use in virtual cultural heritage presentations helps the revival of the genius loci (the spirit of the place) of cultural monuments. This paper aims to show that the use of actors in VR storytelling adds to the quality of user experience and improves the edutainment value of virtual cultural heritage applications. We will describe the Baiae dry visit application which takes us to a time travel in the city considered by the Roman elite as "Little Rome (Pusilla Roma)" and presently is only parti…
