Physical Space Requirements for Redirected Walking: How Size and Shape Affect Performance

Mahdi Azmandian, Timofey Grechkin, Mark Bolas, Evan Suma

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

64 Scopus citations

Abstract

Redirected walking provides a compelling solution to explore large virtual environments in a natural way. However, research literature provides few guidelines regarding trade-offs involved in selecting size and layout for physical tracked space. We designed a rigorously controlled benchmarking framework and conducted two simulated user experiments to systematically investigate how the total area and dimensions of the tracked space affect performance of steer-to-center and steer-to-orbit algorithms. The results indicate that minimum viable size of physical tracked space for these redirected walking algorithms is approximately 6m × 6m with performance continuously improving in larger tracked spaces. At the same time, no “optimal” tracked space size can guarantee the absence of contacts with the boundary. We also found that square tracked spaces enabled best overall performance with steer-to-center algorithm also performing well in moderately elongated rectangular spaces. Finally, we demonstrate that introducing translation gains can provide a useful boost in performance, particularly when physical space is constrained. We conclude with the discussion of potential applications of our benchmarking toolkit to other problems related to performance of redirected walking platforms.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationInternational Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence and Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments, ICAT-EGVE 2015
EditorsMasataka Imura, Pablo Figueroa, Betty J. Mohler
PublisherEurographics Association
Pages93-100
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9783905674842
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event25th International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence, ICAT 2015 and the 20h Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments, EGVE 2015 - Kyoto, Japan
Duration: Oct 28 2015Oct 30 2015

Publication series

NameInternational Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence and Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments, ICAT-EGVE 2015

Conference

Conference25th International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence, ICAT 2015 and the 20h Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments, EGVE 2015
Country/TerritoryJapan
CityKyoto
Period10/28/1510/30/15

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Eurographics Association 2015.

Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

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