Organizer
Betty Mohler
Panelists
Mary Whitton
Rudolph Darken
Victoria Interrante
Heinrich H. Buelthoff
Abstract
In the real world we navigate our environment with ease by walking, running, riding, driving, or flying, but in the virtual world this is difficult to replicate realistically. While naturally navigating our environment, sensory information, such as, vestibular, proprioceptive and visual information create consistent multi-sensory cues that indicate one’s acceleration, speed and direction of travel. Virtual environments were initially restricted to visual displays, combined with interactive devices that provided unnatural inputs to generate self-motion (e.g. a joystick). Now, however, increasingly more investigators are considering the impacts of providing natural, multi-modal methods of generating self-motion and there is a need to evaluate what impact these systems have on “getting around” in virtual environments. These impacts can be perceptual/cognitive, etc. or functional. This panel will discuss the different locomotion methods currently available, along with their benefits and consequences for specific virtual environment applications. The panel members chosen for this discussion have researched different locomotion techniques and/or their impact on human navigation, perception and/or presence in virtual environments. More specifically, this panel will discuss different engineering devices and methods of interaction that have been used to allow for more natural navigation of virtual spaces. Finally, experiments that have examined these different methods of locomotion will be presented, along with suggestions for deciding on and evaluating different methods of locomotion for various virtual environment applications.
Biographies
Dr. Betty Mohler received her PhD from the University of Utah in 2007. She is now in her second year of a post-doctoral research position at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, where she collaborates with engineers, neuroscientists and psychologists. Her main research interest is in understanding the human observer towards the aim of improving virtual environment applications. She is specifically interested in the visual-motor processes underlying human locomotion and enabling humans to naturally travel within an immersive virtual environment. Towards this aim, she has investigated both the influence of visual information within an immersive virtual environment on human locomotor behavior and also the process of human adaptation within immersive virtual environments.
Citations of specific interest
Mohler, B., J. Campos, M. Weyel and H. H. Bülthoff. Gait parameters while walking in a head-mounted display virtual environment and the real world. Eurographics 2007, 85-88 (07/15/ 2007)
Mohler, B., W. B. Thompson, S. H. Creem-Regehr, P. Willemsen, H. L. Pick, Jr. and J. J. Rieser. Calibration of locomotion due to visual motion in a treadmill-based virtual environment. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception 4(1), 20-32 (01 2007)
Mohler, B. J., W. B. Thompson, S. H. Creem-Regehr, H. L. Pick, Jr. and W. H. Warren. Visual flow influences gait transition speed and preferred walking speed. Exp. Brain Res 181(2), 1-16 (08 2007)
Prof. Mary C. Whitton is a research associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been working in high-performance graphics, visualization, and virtual environments since 1978 when she co-founded the first of her two entrepreneurial ventures. At UNC since 1994, her research focuses on what makes virtual environment systems effective and on developing techniques to make them more effective when used in applications such as simulation, training, and rehabilitation. Ms. Whitton earned M.S. degrees in Guidance and Personnel Services (1974) and Electrical Engineering (1984) from North Carolina State University.
Citations of specific interest
Peck, Tabitha, M. Whitton, H. Fuchs (2008) “Evaluation of Reorientation Techniques for Walking in Large Virtual Environments,” to appear in Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality 2008.
Whitton, M. C. and Razzaque, S. (2008). Locomotion Interfaces. In Kortum, P. (Ed.), HCI Beyond the GUI: Design for Haptic, Speech, Olfactory and OtherNontraditional Interfaces (pp TBD). Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.
Feasel, J., J.D. Wendt, M. C. Whitton (2008). LLCM-WIP: Low-Latency, Continuous-Motion Walking-in-Place. Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces 2008.
Whitton, M., Cohn, J., Feasel, J., Zimmons, P., Razzaque, S., Poulton, S., McLeod, B., Brooks, F., “Comparing VE Locomotion Interfaces,” (2005) in Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality 2005, (Bonn, Germany March, 2005), 123-130, IEEE Computer Society
Razzaque, S., D. Swapp, M. Slater, M. C. Whitton and A. Steed (2002). “Redirected Walking in Place.” Proceedings of Eighth Eurographics Workshop onVirtual Environments (2002), 123-130, ACM- The Eurographics Association.
Prof. Rudolph Darken is the Technical Director of Human Performance Engineering for the MOVES Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is an Associate Professor of Computer Science, joining the department in July of 1996. He is also the Chair of the MOVES Academic Committee and serves as its Academic Council Representative. His research has been primarily focused on human factors and training in virtual environments with emphasis on navigation and wayfinding in large-scale virtual worlds. His background includes experience in interface design, mobile computing, collaborative computing, computer augmented training systems, team training systems, real-time visual simulation, computer graphics, and computer animation. He is best known for his work on design principles supporting navigation in complex virtual environments, both in terms of training systems and in improving human performance.
Citations of specific interest
Darken, R.P., Cockayne, W.R., & Zyda, M. (1999). The Omni-Directional Treadmill: A Locomotion Device for Virtual Worlds. Computers and Graphics.
Sullivan, J., Darken, R., & McLean, T. (1998). Terrain Navigation Training for Helicopter Pilots Using a Virtual Environment. Third Annual Symposium onSituational Awareness in the Tactical Air Environment, June 2-3, 1998, Piney Point, MD.
Darken, R.P., Allard, T., & Achille, L. (1998). Spatial Orientation and Wayfinding in Large-Scale Virtual Spaces: An Introduction. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 7(2), pp. 101-107.
Darken, R.P., & Sibert, J.L. (1996). Navigating in Large Virtual Worlds. The International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 8(1), pp. 49-72.
Prof. Victoria Interrante is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science, a Faculty Member in the Human Factors and Ergonomics program, and an Associate Member of the Center for Cognitive Sciences at the University of Minnesota. She received her PhD in 1996 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and worked from 1996-1998 as a staff scientist at the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering at NASA Langley. The common focus of her research efforts in visualization and computer graphics is on the application of insights from visual perception to the development of more effective techniques for communicating information. She enjoys interdisciplinary collaborations with colleagues from a variety of departments on campus including Aerospace Engineering, Architecture, and the Institute for Child Development. She is also a PECASE recipient (1999) and an Associate Editor of the ACM Transactions on Applied Perception.
Citations of specific interest
Victoria Interrante, Brian Ries, Jason Lindquist, Michael Kaeding and Lee Anderson (2008) Elucidating Factors that can Facilitate Veridical Spatial Perception in Immersive Virtual Environments, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 17(2), April 2008, (special issue featuring extended selected papers from IEEE VR 2007), to appear.
Victoria Interrante, Eleanor O’Rourke, Leanne Gray, Lee Anderson and Brian Ries (2007) A Quantitative Assessment of the Impact on Spatial Understanding of Exploring a Complex Immersive Virtual Environment using Augmented Real Walking versus Flying, Eurographics Workshop on Virtual Environments 2007 - Short Papers and Posters, pp. 75-78.
Victoria Interrante, Brian Ries, Jason Lindquist and Lee Anderson (2007) Seven League Boots: an improved metaphor for augmented locomotion through moderately large- scale immersive virtual environments, IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces, pp. 167-170.
Victoria Interrante, Lee Anderson and Brian Ries (2006) Distance Perception in Immersive Virtual Environments, Revisited, IEEE Virtual Reality 2006, pp. 3-10.
Prof. Heinrich H. Bülthoff is the director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen. He is head of the Psychophysics Department in which a group of about 70 biologists, computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists and psychologists work on psychophysical and computational aspects of higher level visual processes in the following areas: object and face recognition, sensory-motor integration, spatial cognition, computer graphics psychophysics, and perception and behavior in virtual environments. Prof. Bülthoff holds a Ph.D. degree in the natural sciences from the Eberhard-Karls-Universität in Tübingen. From 1980 to 1988 he worked as a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was Assistant, Associate and Full Professor of Cognitive Science at Brown University in Providence from 1988-1993 before becoming director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. Since 1996 he is also Honorary Professor at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität in Tübingen and since 2004 Editor in Chief of the ACM Transactions on Applied Perception.
Citations of specific interest
Berger, D. R., C. Terzibas, K. Beykirch and H. H. Bülthoff: The role of visual cues and whole-body rotations in helicopter hovering control, Paper AIAA-2007-6798. AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies Conference and Exhibit, AIAA, USA, 1-13 (08 2007)
Teufel, H., H.-G. Nusseck, K. Beykirch, J. Butler, M. Kerger and H. H. Bülthoff: MPI Motion Simulator: Development and Analysis of a Novel Motion Simulator. AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies Conference and Exhibit, 8 (08 2007)
Sreenivasa, M., M. O. Ernst, I. Frissen and J. L. Souman: Statistics of Natural Walking. (in preparation) Experimental Brain Research H. H. Bülthoff, M. O. Ernst, L. van Gool, H. Ulbrich, M. Buss, and A. de Luca: European Project-Cyberwalk http://www.cyberwalk-project.org/ Keywords: none