The Nintendo Wii as a tool for neurocognitive rehabilitation,training and health promotion

Health professionals have used virtual reality as an aid for several types of treatment. Given that virtual reality systems are expensive and not always available, a more accessible type of virtual reality technology is video games. The Nintendo Wii™ (NW) is a video game system that uses virtual reality technology, as defined by Deutsch, Borbely, Filler, Huhn, and Guarrera-Bowlby (2008), which may be used for health promotion. The Nintendo Wii™ also provides an opportunity for social interaction; thus, it is a promising tool with great potential for the treatment of specific disorders.The aim of this article is to evaluate the ways in which the Nintendo Wii has been used to treat specific disorders or to promote cognitive or physical improvements through a review of the literature. The results have shown that the NW is a potentially useful tool in some therapeutic treatments that can be used with people of diverse social statuses and tastes. Despite the positive initial results, further studies are required to provide a better evaluation of video game usage in therapeutic programs.     

From visual simulation to virtual reality to games

During the past decades, the virtual reality community has based its development on a synthesis of earlier work in interactive 3D graphics, user interfaces, and visual simulation. Currently, the VR field is transitioning into work influenced by video games. Because much of the research and development being conducted in the games community parallels the VR community's efforts, it has the potential to affect a greater audience. Given these trends, VR researchers who want their work to remain relevant must realign to focus on game research and development. Leveraging technology from the visual simulation and virtual reality communities, serious games provide a delivery system for organizational video game instruction and training.     

基于VR技术的三维射击游戏开发研究

目前三维游戏中利用了虚拟场景,以便捷的人机交互,为游戏者提供最佳的游戏体验.三维游戏的衍生在很大程度上推动了虚拟现实(VR)技术的更新优化,其涵盖了虚拟现实所有技术.本文基于VR技术设计开发三维射击游戏.首先分析游戏开发需求,其次设计三维VR系统结构与游戏开发流程,再次详细规划三维射击游戏功能模块,最后进行游戏人物、场...     

Game engine virtual reality with CaveUT

CaveUT, an open source freeware project, uses game technology to make projection-based virtual reality affordable and accessible. The CaveUT works well for low-cost displays and supports real-time spatial tracking and stereographic imaging. Computer games with the most advanced simulation and graphics usually employ a game engine, a commercially available software package that handles basic functions. Based on the Unreal Tournament the CaveUT game engine gives developers a high-performance, low-cost VR alternative. VR applications developed with CaveUT inherit all the Unreal Engine's capabilities along with Unreal Tournament's authoring support, open source code, content library, and large user community.     

Synchronization between audiovisual and haptic feeling for constructing edutainment systems

Virtual reality (VR) technology has become more and more mature over the last decade. Development of a virtual environment for training purpose is considered to be one of the most practical applications of the VR technology. Since the VR technology involves all kinds of sensors in exchanging information between the real world and the virtual environment, it is computationally intensive in terms of data processing at an individual sensor and information integration among all the sensors. In general, the information integration has to be well synchronized in order to meet the training needs. At the same time, real-time processing capability is also considered to be critical. Many more practical issues could be uncovered only when a virtual training environment is actually being developed. Based on this belief, this study experiments on the development of a virtual environment for training billiards players. The technical difficulties encountered and the corresponding resolutions are considered beneficial to the development of other practical virtual training environments. This paper summarizes the design and implementation details about our experimental virtual training environment for edutainment systems such as virtual billiard game, virtual air hockey game and virtual drum performance with the algorithms for the synchronization of the information from different sources.     

A comparative study using an autostereoscopic display with augmented and virtual reality

Advances in display devices are facilitating the integration of stereoscopic visualisation in our daily lives. However, autostereoscopic visualisation has not been extensively exploited. In this paper, we present a system that combines augmented reality (AR) and autostereoscopic visualisation. We also present the first study that compares different aspects using an autostereoscopic display with AR and virtual reality (VR), in which 39 children from 8 to 10 years old participated. In our study, no statistically significant differences were found between AR and VR. However, the scores were very high in nearly all of the questions, and the children also scored the AR version higher in all cases. Moreover, the children explicitly preferred the AR version (81%). For the AR version, a strong and significant correlation was found between the use of the autostereoscopic screen in games and seeing the virtual object on the marker. For the VR version, two strong and significant correlations were found. The first correlation was between the ease of play and the use of the rotatory controller. The second correlation was between depth perception and the game global score. Therefore, the combinations of AR and VR with autostereoscopic visualisation are possibilities for developing edutainment systems for children.     

Acceptability of a custom-designed game,CityQuest, aimed at improving balance confidence and spatial cognition in fall-prone and healthy older adults

Virtual reality or video games show great potential as low-cost and effective interventions for improving balance and cognitive function in older adults. This research describes the design and acceptability of a serious game (CityQuest) aimed at improving balance confidence, spatial navigation, and perceptual function in older adults with the use of a virtual environment and a balance board. Community-dwelling healthy (N?=?28) and fall-prone (N?=?28) older adults were pseudo-randomly assigned to train with CityQuest or one of two control games developed to evaluate the specific effects of the CityQuest game. Following completion of 10 training sessions, participants completed questionnaires measuring their acceptability of the game as a falls-related intervention, game experience, and subjective cognitive or balance confidence changes associated with the game. The results revealed high acceptance scores of the game and positive game experiences for all three game conditions. Older adults prone to falls reported a greater reduction in fear of falling and greater improvement in vigilance following training, compared to healthy older adults. These findings suggest that a serious game based on VR technology that trains both motor and cognitive processes is perceived to be beneficial and acceptable to healthy and fall-prone older adults.     

On the usability and likeability of virtual reality games for education: The case of VR-ENGAGE

Educational software games aim at increasing the students’ motivation and engagement while they learn. However, if software games are targeted to school classrooms they have to be usable and likeable by all students. Usability of virtual reality games may be a problem because these games tend to have complex user interfaces so that they are more attractive. Moreover, if the games acquire an educational content they may lose the attractiveness and appeal that they have on users who are familiar with commercial games. Consequently, likeability may also be questioned. In this paper, we address the issue of usability and likeability of a virtual reality game that is meant to teach students geography. We describe the evaluation experiments conducted, which involved three categories of students in terms of their level of game-playing expertise: novice, intermediate and expert game players. The evaluation results showed that the game was indeed usable and likeable but there was scope for usability and likeability improvement so that the educational benefits may be maximised for all categories of students. The evaluation studies reported in this paper, revealed important issues about further research on virtual reality educational games.     

虚拟现实手部康复训练系统的设计与实现

将虚拟现实技术应用到康复医学领域,可有效克服传统康复训练方法的局限性,实现安全、舒适和主动的康复训 练。本文设计并实现了一套虚拟现实手部康复训练系统,系统由交互设备、人机交互软件和虚拟环境三部分组成。交互 设备采用 5DT 公司生产的 5DT Data Glove 14 Ultra 数据手套,而人机交互软件运用 Visual Studio 2012 作为开发工具,基于 MFC 编写,实现了用户管理、数据采集、手势信号分类、实时手势识别测试等功能。构建的虚拟场景使用 Flash 游戏, 通过 MFC 和 Flash 游戏之间通讯使用者能使用手势信号实现游戏操控。本文的实验结果表明：虚拟现实手部康复训练系 统能够指导使用者进行有效的手部康复训练,Flash 康复训练游戏能有效提高使用者进行康复训练的积极性和主动性。     

VR-Rides: An object-oriented application framework for immersive virtual reality exergames

Exercise can improve health and well-being. With this in mind, immersive virtual reality (VR) games are being developed to promote physical activity, and are generally evaluated through user studies. However, building such applications is time consuming and expensive. This paper introduces VR-Rides, an object-oriented application framework focused on the development of experiment-oriented VR exergames. Following the modular programming pattern, this framework facilitates the integration of different hardware (such as VR devices, sensors, and physical activity devices) within immersive VR experiences that overlay game narratives on Google Street View panoramas. Combining software engineering and interaction patterns, modules of VR-Rides can be easily added and managed in the Unity game engine. We evaluate the code efficiency and development effort across our VR exergames developed using VR-Rides. The reliability, maintainability, and usability of our framework are also demonstrated via code metrics analysis and user studies. The results show that investing in a systematic approach to reusing code and design can be a worthwhile effort for researchers beyond software engineering.     

Analyzing the Adequacy of Interaction Paradigms in Artificial Reality Experiences

In Artificial Reality experiences, that is, interactive, unencumbered, full-body, 2D vision-based virtual reality (VR) experiences (heirs of the seminal Videoplace by Myron Krueger), there are two possible interaction paradigms, namely, first-person and third-person—which differ significantly from the classic VR first- and third-person notions. Up until now, these two paradigms had not been compared or objectively analyzed in such systems. Moreover, most systems are based on the third-person paradigm without a specific justification, most probably due to the influence of the original Videoplace system and because it is the only paradigm available in commercial development tools and leisure systems. For example, many rehabilitation projects have chosen to use these VR systems because of their many advantages. However, most of these projects and research have blindly adopted the third-person paradigm. Hence, the field of virtual rehabilitation has analyzed the beneficial properties of these systems without considering the first-person paradigm that could potentially present better adequacy. To find and understand potential differences between the two paradigms, we have defined an application categorization from which we developed two full-body interactive games and set up an experiment to analyze each game in both paradigms. We studied how 39 participants played these games and we quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed how each paradigm influenced the experience, the activity and the behavior of the users and the efficiency in accomplishing the required goals. We present the results of these experiments and their general implications, and especially for virtual rehabilitation due to the potential impact these systems may have in the well-being of many people.     

An objective measure for the visual fidelity of virtual reality and the risks of falls in a virtual environment

Despite decades of development of virtual reality (VR) devices and VR’s recent renaissance, it has been difficult to measure these devices’ effectiveness in immersing the observer. Previously, VR devices have been evaluated using subjective measures of presence, but in this paper, we suggest that postural stability can be used to objectively assess visual fidelity of VR headsets. We validated this measure by testing known differences between the devices. This study also aimed to determine the stability of healthy participants, while in a stable virtual world, compared to eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions and therefore provide a standard of safety requirements for future experimentation. Participants’ ability to maintain a stable centre of pressure was measured using a Wii Balance Board, covered by a foam pad. Stability in eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions was compared with: (1) an iPod Touch in a simple Google cardboard style headset, (2) the Oculus Rift Development Kits (DK) DK1, DK2, with and without the tracking of linear head movements, and (3) the Samsung Gear VR. With a stable VR visual stimulus, the eyes-open condition allowed for significantly greater postural stability than the other conditions, which supports the validity of posturography as a measure of visual fidelity. Further, the iPod Touch, with its narrow field of view and rudimentary software, was significantly less effective at destabilising participants with visual perturbations than the other headsets, with their wider field of view and time warping. Unexpected results are discussed with respect to the possible limitations of the experimental design.     

虚拟现实与系统仿真

详细讨论了系统仿真、多媒体与虚拟现实的基本概念及它们之间的关系,指出在仿真中如何及何时应用这些技术,并提出了狭义多媒体仿真、ＶＲ仿真系统的概念,对仿真实践具有一定的参考价值。     

Immersive Multiplayer Games With Tangible and Physical Interaction

In this paper, we present a new immersive multiplayer game system developed for two different environments, namely, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). To evaluate our system, we developed three game applications-a first-person-shooter game (for VR and AR environments, respectively) and a sword game (for the AR environment). Our immersive system provides an intuitive way for users to interact with the VR or AR world by physically moving around the real world and aiming freely with tangible objects. This encourages physical interaction between players as they compete or collaborate with other players. Evaluation of our system consists of users' subjective opinions and their objective performances. Our design principles and evaluation results can be applied to similar immersive game applications based on AR/VR.     

Motion sick in cyberspace

The author discusses the problem of simulation sickness, first noticed in flight simulators. The problem now affects many more people due to the availability of immersive virtual reality systems and video arcade games. Published estimates suggest that 10 to 60 percent of the population experiences some adverse effects from computer displays of motion. The author considers how this has serious implications for the ultimate applicability of virtual reality. He investigates the symptoms and causes of motion sickness     

A mobile VR-based respiratory biofeedback game to foster diaphragmatic breathing

Virtual reality (VR) has become popular in mental health research. Several studies have explored the use of VR in the context of biofeedback protocols. In the present paper, we report on the development and evaluation of a VR-based respiratory biofeedback game to foster diaphragmatic breathing. The game integrates respiratory biofeedback, restorative VR and gamification. The game is designed to run on a mobile, all-in-one VR headset. Notably, an integrated VR hand controller is utilized as a sensor to detect respiration-induced movements of the diaphragm. In a longitudinal within-subjects study, we explored the feasibility of the game and tested the effectiveness of six training sessions. Participants reported a pleasant user experience. Moreover, the results show that the brief VR-based breathing training increased perceived breath awareness, improved diaphragmatic breathing, increased relaxation, decreased perceived stress, reduced symptoms of burnout and boosted relaxation-related self-efficacy. Future studies need to address the generalizability and long-term stability of the results, compare the approach with existing treatments and fine-tune the training components.

     

Effects of postural stability,active control,exposure duration and repeated exposures on HMD induced cybersickness

Cybersickness is common during head-mounted display (HMD) based virtual reality. This study examined whether it is possible to: (1) identify people who are more susceptible to this cybersickness; and (2) find general ways to reduce its occurrence and severity. Our participants were exposed to HMD-based virtual reality four times over two different days (using “Freedom Locomotion VR”). During these 10-min trials, participants were either free-standing or posturally restrained as they actively controlled or passively viewed their locomotion through the virtual environment. Cybersickness was found to increase steadily over time during each exposure. While this cybersickness was markedly reduced on day 2 (compared to day 1), it was not significantly altered by either the use of postural restraints or active locomotion control. However, the sick and well participants in our study were found to differ in terms of their spontaneous postural activity (before they entered virtual reality). We found that the participants who experienced stronger vection also tended to report more severe cybersickness in this study. These findings suggest that we should be able to identify people who are more susceptible to cybersickness and help them become more resistant to it (via repeated exposures to HMD-based virtual reality).     

Mission visualization for planning and training

The question often arises whether virtual reality serves any purpose other than for games and entertainment. We believe VR can provide unique benefits to one problem domain: training for operations where classroom instruction is insufficient but “hands-on” practice is dangerous, expensive, logistically complex, or limited in the possible range of experience. Examples of such applications include law enforcement, emergency response, and rapid deployment military operations. Our research focuses specifically on the use of VR to train people for small-team, close-quarters operations. Our interest is in training a person to handle a specific situation or set of scenarios, rather than to perform a given task     

Self-reported discomfort when using commercially targeted virtual reality equipment in discomfort distraction

Commercially targeted virtual reality (VR) equipment is gaining popularity and might be a viable tool for pain distraction. This experimental research aimed to discover whether active distraction techniques (such as commercially targeted VR and video games) result in reduced subjective discomfort relative to passive distraction techniques. The study examined a healthy adult population who experienced an experimentally induced discomfort task. Participants were 27 adults, 14 females and 13 males. Participants completed four tasks, a baseline measure of physical discomfort, video clip distraction (passive distraction), video game distraction (active distraction) and exploring a VR world using an Oculus Rift head-mounted display (active distraction). In all four test conditions, participants were asked to sit on a chair holding their non-dominant leg at a height of approximately 30 cm from the floor, up to a maximum of 5 min. Counterbalancing of task order was conducted to reduce effects of participant fatigue. The participants indicated significantly reduced self-reported discomfort in the active distraction tasks when compared to the passive distraction tasks. While the findings demonstrate the effectiveness of a commercially targeted VR technology in increasing pain tolerance, the relative benefits of this technology over non-immersive video games are not apparent.     

Design and implementation of somatosensory interactive game based on Leap Motion

Recently, virtual reality and interactive somatosensory technology has become one of the hot issues in the research of computer applications. Leap Motion is a new type of interactive somatosensory devices which bring users senses of immersion efficiently. This paper studies a interactive somatosensory game model based on Leap Motion and implemented with Unity. Based on the two core technology philosophy of Leap Motion, i.e., virtual reality technology and body sense of interactive technology, the design implementation of each sub module of the system and Leap Motion game algorithm are thoroughly addressed. This paper has certain significance for future application of Leap Motion in film, television, and interactive games.