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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Virtual Real.
Sec. Technologies for VR
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frvir.2024.1259429
This article is part of the Research Topic Redirection-Based Locomotion Techniques for more Immersive Virtual Reality Experiences View all articles

Predictive Multiuser Redirected Walking Using Artificial Potential Fields

Provisionally accepted
Christian Hirt Christian Hirt 1*Noah Isaak Noah Isaak 1Christian Holz Christian Holz 2Andreas Kunz Andreas Kunz 1
  • 1 Innovation Center Virtual Reality, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 2 Department of Computer Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    3 Real walking is considered the best locomotion metaphor to explore virtual environments in 4 terms of user experience. Besides being intuitive for the user, walking captures the true feeling 5 of motion since visual and proprioceptive sensation harmonize well. The major disadvantage of 6 choosing walking over other locomotion metaphors consists of the physical constraints of the 7 available space, which is usually considerably smaller than the virtual environment. To address 8 this issue, Redirected Walking (RDW) introduces slight mismatches between a user’s visually 9 perceived path and their actual walking pattern, compelling them to subconsciously compensate 10 the inconsistency by adjusting their walking trajectory. As a result, users can be steered to 11 a certain degree and extensive virtual environments are effectively compressed into smaller 12 physical spaces. Among others, particularly predictive RDW still offers lots of potential to grow 13 since it unites a variety of algorithmic systems, whereas many approaches from literature depend 14 on drastic restrictions like single user constraints or architectural limitations to ensure real-time 15 performance. 16 In this paper, we present two novel predictive RDW systems, which allow multiple physically 17 co-located users to explore independent, unconstrained virtual environments. The systems rely 18 on two new implementations of prediction systems based on clothoidic trajectory generation 19 combined with a cost-based planning concept built on non-harmonic artificial potential fields 20 (APF), which inherently allow for non-convex and dynamic physical environments. Using the APF, 21 three additional RDW conditions popular in literature are implemented for comparison purposes. 22 The overall five RDW concepts are validated in an extensive user study with 150 participants, 23 conducted in 75 pairs. The results indicate that the novel predictive RDW systems outperform 24 the other three literature conditions except for particular sections of the virtual environment with 25 specific architectural traits.

    Keywords: virtual reality, human locomotion, Redirected walking, Redirection Techniques, User Study Frontiers

    Received: 15 Jul 2023; Accepted: 19 Jun 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Hirt, Isaak, Holz and Kunz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Christian Hirt, Innovation Center Virtual Reality, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.