Collaborative immersive authoring tool for real-time creation of multisensory VR experiences

Multimedia Tools and Applications - With the appearance of innovative virtual reality (VR) technologies, the need to create immersive content arose. Although there are already some non-immersive...     

The virtual playground: an educational virtual reality environment for evaluating interactivity and conceptual learning

The research presented in this paper aims at investigating user interaction in immersive virtual learning environments, focusing on the role and the effect of interactivity on conceptual learning. The goal has been to examine if the learning of young users improves through interacting in (i.e. exploring, reacting to, and acting upon) an immersive virtual environment (VE) compared to non-interactive or non-immersive environments. Empirical work was carried out with more than 55 primary school students between the ages of 8 and 12, in different between-group experiments: an exploratory study, a pilot study, and a large-scale experiment. The latter was conducted in a virtual environment designed to simulate a playground. In this “Virtual Playground,” each participant was asked to complete a set of tasks designed to address arithmetical “fractions” problems. Three different conditions, two experimental virtual reality (VR) conditions and a non-VR condition, that varied the levels of activity and interactivity, were designed to evaluate how children accomplish the various tasks. Pre-tests, post-tests, interviews, video, audio, and log files were collected for each participant, and analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. This paper presents a selection of case studies extracted from the qualitative analysis, which illustrate the variety of approaches taken by children in the VEs in response to visual cues and system feedback. Results suggest that the fully interactive VE aided children in problem solving but did not provide a strong evidence of conceptual change as expected; rather, it was the passive VR environment, where activity was guided by a virtual robot, that seemed to support student reflection and recall, leading to indications of conceptual change.     

How virtual reality affects perceived learning effectiveness: a task–technology fit perspective

The application of virtual reality (VR) in improving users’ learning outcomes, especially in perceived learning effectiveness, is a new area. VR provides visualisation and interaction within a virtual world that closely resembles a real world, bringing an immersive study experience. It also has two special features: representational fidelity and immediacy of control. However, only when the technology fits the tasks that users are performing will it be adopted. In addition, technology itself cannot improve learning outcomes; certain learning behaviours, such as reflective thinking, should be prompted first so that learning outcomes can be improved. The research hypotheses derived from this model have empirically been validated using the responses to a survey among 180 users. These responses have been examined through SmartPLS 2.0. Surprisingly, task–technology fit does not moderate the relationship between VR and technology quality and the relationship between VR and technology accessibility. From this study, we can conclude that VR will influence reflective thinking and further indirectly improve perceived learning effectiveness.     

Perceiving interpersonally-mediated risk in virtual environments

Using virtual reality (VR) to examine risky behavior that is mediated by interpersonal contact, such as agreeing to have sex, drink, or smoke with someone, offers particular promise and challenges. Social contextual stimuli that might trigger impulsive responses can be carefully controlled in virtual environments (VE), and yet manipulations of risk might be implausible to participants if they do not feel sufficiently immersed in the environment. The current study examined whether individuals can display adequate evidence of presence in a VE that involved potential interpersonally-induced risk: meeting a potential dating partner. Results offered some evidence for the potential of VR for the study of such interpersonal risk situations. Participants’ reaction to the scenario and risk-associated responses to the situation suggested that the embodied nature of virtual reality override the reality of the risk’s impossibility, allowing participants to experience adequate situational embedding, or presence.     

Seeing size and feeling weight: the size-weight illusion in natural and virtual reality

OBJECTIVE: We experimentally tested the degree that the size-weight illusion depends on perceptual conditions allowing the observer to assume that both the visual and the kinesthetic stimuli of a weight seen and lifted emanate from the same object. We expected that the degree of the illusion depended on the "realism" provided by different kinds of virtual reality (VR) used when the weights are seen in virtual reality and at the same time lifted in natural reality. BACKGROUND: Welch and Warren (1980) reported that an intermodal influence can be expected only if perceptual information of different modalities is compellingly related to only one object. METHOD: Objects of different sizes and weights were presented to 50 participants in natural reality or in four virtual realities: two immersive head-mounted display VRs (with or without head tracking) and two nonimmersive desktop VRs (with or without screening from input of the natural environment using a visor). The objects' heaviness was scaled using the magnitude estimation method. RESULTS: Data show that the degree of the illusion is largest in immersive and lowest in nonimmersive virtual realities. CONCLUSION: The higher the degree of the illusion is, the more compelling the situation is perceived and the more the observed data are in correspondence with the data predicted for the illusion in natural reality. This shows that the kind of mediating technology used strongly influences the presence experienced. APPLICATION: The size-weight illusion's sensitivity to conditions that affect the sense of presence makes it a promising objective presence measure.     

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.     

Context analysis to support development of virtual reality applications

To develop a usable Virtual Reality system, the prospective context of use of such a system may need to be considered in order to make sure it meets the requirements and restrictions of that context. In this paper, a contextual analysis is described for a virtual reality system to aid medical diagnosis and treatment planning of vascular disorders. Semi-structured interviews were coupled with observations in an ethnographic approach to requirements gathering in the daily work environment of (interventional) radiologists and vascular surgeons. The identified potential usability problems of a fully immersive prototype, coupled with the needs, requirements and real-life environment of the end-users lead to guidelines for the development of a VR application on a semi-immersive desktop environment. The findings lead us to believe that contextual analysis can be a powerful way to inform the design of a VR application by offering an understanding of the context of use and to inform developers of the most appropriate degree of immersiveness of the VR environment.     

Three views of virtual reality: nonimmersive virtual reality

Nonimmersive virtual reality (VR), which places the user in a 3D environment that can be directly manipulated with a conventional graphics workstation using a monitor, a keyboard; and a mouse, is discussed. The scene is displayed with the same 3D depth cues used in immersive VR: perspective view, hidden-surface elimination, color, texture, lighting, shading and shadows. As in immersive VR, animation and simulation are interactively controlled in response to the user's direct manipulation. Much of the technology used to support immersive and nonimmersive VR is the same. They use the same 3D modeling and rendering and many of the same interaction techniques. The advantages and applications of nonimmersive VR systems are discussed. Immersive and nonimmersive VR systems are compared and hybrid possibilities are reviewed     

How level of realism influences anxiety in virtual reality environments for a job interview

This study describes how the level of graphical realism required in a virtual social simulation setting can be therapeutically useful in reducing job interview anxiety through exposure. We developed a virtual job interview simulation at a university career service to help student populations faced with the prospect of their first job interview. The virtual job interview simulation can deliver a realistic mock job interview within a high-quality immersive system that is similar to professional virtual reality (VR) systems. We conducted two experimental studies with a common theme: the role of graphical reality of the virtual interviewer and the immersive visual display in the virtual job interview simulation. The results are presented in this study based on a psycho-physiological approach, revealing variation in the distribution of participants′ anxiety state across various VR conditions. The overall conclusion of this study is that the sense of anxiety is less correlated to the graphical realism in VR environment even though the more graphically detailed the virtual human was, the more it provoked a sense of presence. In addition, at least some degree of physical immersion is needed to maintain anxiety levels over the course of VR exposure.     

Geometric calibration of head-mounted displays and its effects on distance estimation

Head-mounted displays (HMDs) allow users to observe virtual environments (VEs) from an egocentric perspective. However, several experiments have provided evidence that egocentric distances are perceived as compressed in VEs relative to the real world. Recent experiments suggest that the virtual view frustum set for rendering the VE has an essential impact on the user's estimation of distances. In this article we analyze if distance estimation can be improved by calibrating the view frustum for a given HMD and user. Unfortunately, in an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment, a full per user calibration is not trivial and manual per user adjustment often leads to mini- or magnification of the scene. Therefore, we propose a novel per user calibration approach with optical see-through displays commonly used in augmented reality (AR). This calibration takes advantage of a geometric scheme based on 2D point - 3D line correspondences, which can be used intuitively by inexperienced users and requires less than a minute to complete. The required user interaction is based on taking aim at a distant target marker with a close marker, which ensures non-planar measurements covering a large area of the interaction space while also reducing the number of required measurements to five. We found the tendency that a calibrated view frustum reduced the average distance underestimation of users in an immersive VR environment, but even the correctly calibrated view frustum could not entirely compensate for the distance underestimation effects.     

Motivation,engagement, and performance across multiple virtual reality sessions and levels of immersion

This study investigated changes in learners' motivation, engagement, performance, and spatial reasoning over time and across different levels of virtual reality (VR) immersion. Undergraduate participants explored a virtual solar system via a moderately immersive or highly immersive VR platform over three sessions. In a third condition, participants initially learned with moderate immersion and transitioned to higher immersion after the second session. Following research on novelty effects, we explored whether subjective experiences and performance would decline over time (e.g., decreasing motivation or performance) as participants became familiar with the virtual environment and tools. However, we hypothesized that transitional immersion (i.e., switching from moderate to higher immersion) might lead to a renewed sense of novelty. Results suggested that both moderate and higher levels of immersion were motivating, engaging, and supportive of learning. In contrast to predictions based on novelty effects, these outcomes did not decline overall as learners gained familiarity with the systems. However, transitional immersion emerged as a promising and testable pedagogical approach for future VR education. All participants also showed gains in spatial reasoning.     

Vision‐tangible interactive display method for mixed and virtual reality: Toward the human‐centered editable reality

Building a human‐centered editable world can be fully realized in a virtual environment. Both mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR) are feasible solutions to support the attribute of edition. Based on the current development of MR and VR, we present the vision‐tangible interactive display method and its implementation in both MR and VR. We address the issue of MR and VR together because they are similar regarding the proposed method. The editable mixed and virtual reality system is useful for studies, which exploit it as a platform. In this paper, we construct a virtual reality environment based on the Oculus Rift, and an MR system based on a binocular optical see‐through head‐mounted display. In the MR system about manipulating the Rubik's cube, and the VR system about deforming the virtual objects, the proposed vision‐tangible interactive display method is utilized to provide users with a more immersive environment. Experimental results indicate that the vision‐tangible interactive display method can improve the user experience and can be a promising way to make the virtual environment better.     

Perceived usefulness of,engagement with,and effectiveness of virtual reality environments in learning industrial operations: the moderating role of openness to experience

The development of virtual reality (VR) in enhancing the effectiveness of the learning process, with its interactive, immersive, and intuitive pedagogical environment, has become a necessity for corporations with increasingly complex operations. However, VR users’ perceptions, openness and learning effectiveness are seldom comprehensively evaluated, particularly in learning complex industrial operations. In this study, grounded in the technology acceptance model, a moderated mediation model of perceived usefulness, ease of use, openness to experience, and engagement in VR-based learning was developed. The model was empirically validated using responses collected from 321 users who were trained on aircraft and cargo terminal operations powered by a novel VR-based learning platform. A survey to measure openness to experience and a pre-training performance test were carried out, followed by a post-training survey of learners’ intrinsic factors, including the influence of perceived usefulness, openness to experience, and attitude towards learning. The study revealed that learners with an open attitude towards experiencing new technology tend to perceive VR technology as a useful platform for training. In addition, the learners with more positive views of VR technology-supported training were more engaged in learning.

     

Can a More Neutral Position of the Forearm When Operating a Computer Mouse Reduce the Pain Level for Visual Display Unit Operators? A Prospective Epidemiological Intervention Study: Part II

In virtual reality (VR) applications the user's subjective experiences and responses to the same VR technology, like the presence experience, can differ enormously between people. Such interindividual differences are not well examined yet. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between personality variables and presence in VR. Thirty female participants completed different personality questionnaires before they were exposed to an interactive and immersive virtual environment. Afterward, they completed various presence questionnaires to determine whether correlations between personality and presence depend on the used presence measure, or if different presence questionnaires reveal comparable results. Significant positive correlations were found among the different presence questionnaires. Nevertheless, personality variables like impulsive tendencies, empathy, locus of control, or the Big Five personality traits showed heterogeneous correlations with presence, depending on the presence questionnaire used. Absorption seemed to be the best predictor for the feeling of presence in VR and showed the strongest relationship with presence, independent of the used presence measure. Mental imagination, perspective taking, and immersive tendencies showed significant correlations with presence too, which were comparable between different presence measures. Hence, to find valid and meaningful relationships between personality variables and presence in VR it is beneficial to use different measures to assess presence.     

The immersive effect of adaptive architecture

This paper explores the role of immersion in the generation of specific interactive effects, within the context of the emerging research field of Adaptive Architecture. Drawing on an existing biofeedback-driven prototype that links a person’s respiration to the form of their environment, the study presented here compared an immersive condition with a non-immersive condition to capture differences in participant experiences. The immersive condition afforded the majority of participants a relaxed, embodied experience, whereas the non-immersive condition left people unconnected. The study did not surface statistically significant differences in participants’ physiological responses between the two conditions. The study findings contribute to the understanding of our relationship with adaptive environments, underpinned by pervasive computing technologies, as they emerge in the Arts and Architecture.     

A virtual reality-based experimentation environment for the verification of human-related factors in assembly processes

This paper investigates the use of virtual reality (VR)-based methods for the verification of performance factors related to manual assembly processes. An immersive and interactive virtual environment has been created to provide functionality for realistic process experimentation. Ergonomic models and functions have been embedded into the VR environment to support verification and constrain experimentation to ergonomically acceptable conditions. A specific assembly test case is presented, for which a semi-empirical time model is developed employing statistical design experimentation in the virtual environment. The virtual experimentation results enable the quantification and prediction of the influence of a number of process parameters and their combination at the process cycle time.     

支持力反馈的沉浸式物理学习环境的构建

随着虚拟现实(VR)技术的发展,沉浸式学习环境在教育教学领域应用前景日趋广阔,如物理实验仿真教学.然而,现有虚拟学习环境大多只能提供视觉与听觉的交互,不支持力触觉交互,存在弊端.项目组将力反馈技术应用于虚拟学习环境,描述一个支持力反馈的沉浸式物理学习环境的总体框架和开发流程.使用Touch力反馈设备,借助Unity3D...     

How the physical appearance of companions affects females with high or low social physique anxiety: a virtual reality exercise study

Virtual Reality - Technologies such as virtual reality (VR), an immersive computer-based environment that induces a feeling of mental and physical presence, are becoming increasingly popular for...     

Intelligent virtual environments for virtual reality art

The development of virtual reality (VR) art installations is faced with considerable difficulties, especially when one wishes to explore complex notions related to user interaction. We describe the development of a VR platform, which supports the development of such installations, from an art+science perspective. The system is based on a CAVE™-like immersive display using a game engine to support visualisation and interaction, which has been adapted for stereoscopic visualisation and real-time tracking. In addition, some architectural elements of game engines, such as their reliance on event-based systems have been used to support the principled definition of alternative laws of Physics. We illustrate this research through the development of a fully implemented artistic brief that explores the notion of causality in a virtual environment. After describing the hardware architecture supporting immersive visualisation we show how causality can be redefined using artificial intelligence technologies inspired from action representation in planning and how this symbolic definition of behaviour can support new forms of user experience in VR.     

A virtual reality keyboard with realistic haptic feedback in a fully immersive virtual environment

This study presents a 3D virtual reality (VR) keyboard system with realistic haptic feedback. The system uses two five-fingered data gloves to track finger positions and postures, uses micro-speakers to create simulated vibrations, and uses a head-mounted display (HMD) for 3D display. When users press a virtual key in the VR environment, the system can provide realistic simulated key click haptic feedback to users. The results of this study show that the advantages of the haptic VR keyboard are that users can use it when wearing HMDs (users do not need to remove HMDs to use the VR keyboard), the haptic VR keyboard can pop-up display at any location in the VR environments (users do not need to go to a specific location to use an actual physical keyboard), and the haptic VR keyboard can be used to provide realistic key click haptic feedback (which other studies have shown enhances user performance). The results also show that the haptic VR keyboard system can be used to create complex vibrations that simulate measured vibrations from a real keyboard and enhance keyboard interaction in a fully immersive VR environment.