Stereoscopic objects affect reaching performance in virtual reality environments: influence of age on motor control

Virtual Reality painting is a form of 3D-painting done in a Virtual Reality (VR) space. Being a relatively new kind of art form, there is a growing interest within the creative practices community to learn it. Currently, most users learn using community posted 2D-videos on the internet, which are a screencast recording of the painting process by an instructor. While such an approach may suffice for teaching 2D-software tools, these videos by themselves fail in delivering crucial details that required by the user to understand actions in a VR space. We conduct a formative study to identify challenges faced by users in learning to VR-paint using such video-based tutorials. Informed by results of this study, we develop a VR-embedded tutorial system that supplements video tutorials with 3D and contextual aids directly in the user's VR environment. An exploratory evaluation showed users were positive about the system and were able to use the proposed system to recreate painting tasks in VR.

In recent years, the application of virtual reality (VR) for spatial evaluation has gained traction in the fields of architecture and interior design. However, for VR to serve as a viable substitute for real-world environments, it is essential that experiences within VR elicit emotional responses comparable to those evoked by actual spaces. Despite this prerequisite, there remains a paucity of studies that objectively compare and evaluate the emotional responses elicited by VR and real-world environments. Consequently, it is not yet fully understood whether VR can reliably replicate the emotional experiences induced by physical spaces. This study aims to investigate the influence of presentation modality on emotional responses by comparing a VR space and a real-world space with identical designs. The comparison was conducted using both subjective evaluations (Semantic Differential method) and physiological indices (electroencephalography and heart rate variability). The results indicated that the real-world environment was associated with impressions of comfort and preference, whereas the VR environment evoked impressions characterized by heightened arousal. Additionally, elevated beta wave activity and increased beta/alpha ratios were observed in the VR condition, suggesting a state of high arousal, as further supported by positioning on the Emotion Map. Moreover, analysis of pNN50 revealed a transient increase in parasympathetic nervous activity during the VR experience. This study is positioned as a pilot investigation to explore physiological and emotional differences between VR and real spaces.

There are three main types of walking techniques for moving in a virtual reality (VR) space. However, these techniques are far from real walking and cause discomfort when walking. This study proposes a method for natural walking in VR space. The proposed method uses a turntable to rotate only the body in real space, thereby extending the walking range. Furthermore, we evaluate the efficiency of the proposed method by comparing the subjective evaluation of walking sensation with two other representative movement methods. In the experiment, we evaluated the sense of natural gait by comparing the scores from a questionnaire on the sense of gait. The experimental results suggest that the proposed method is the most natural way to walk in the VR space compared to other methods. The results also indicated that the perception of space differed depending on the means of movement in the VR space, suggesting the need for further investigation.KeywordsVirtual realityNatural walkingTurntable

In a virtual reality (VR) space, wearing a head-mounted display can help with the visualization of objects; however, users cannot experience realistic tactile sensations. Recently, several force feedback devices have been developed, including wearable devices that use straight-fiber-type pneumatic muscles and magnetorheological fluids. This allows the devices to render elastic, frictional, and viscous forces during spatially unrestricted movement. Nevertheless, a problem remains in that previous devices could handle many bilateral upper limb movement tasks. Therefore, this study aims to develop a device that can handle movements that interact with both arms. Based on experiments concerning the pushing motion in a VR space, the influence of the pseudo force sense was determined to not be small. In addition, we confirmed that the force sensation presented by this system was more realistic when the robot was operated with both arms than when operated with the right arm.

Virtual Reality (VR) provides immersive environments where users watch objects and scenes as if they were in front of users. This is a significant advantage while applying to 3D visualization systems. However, it is often difficult for novice users to make the best use of VR to reproduce the objects and scenes precisely and the comprehensively depending on the skills of users and the complexity of objects and scenes. One of the problems is that the allowed operations in VR are too flexible. Here, we propose a viewpoint selection method that allows every user to watch the objects and scenes easily and carefully in a VR space. The viewpoint is not fixed but can be shifted to the most favorable position according to the demand of users. Regarding the selected viewpoint as the initial position, users can easily go towards the target part with fewer movements. This system helps users to understand the complex objects in the VR space precisely with less time. We demonstrate our system on the observation of mode water pairs and discuss the comparative visualization results.

IntroductionThis study explored the use of the Virtual Reality Joint Painting Procedure (VR-JPP) to examine the relationship dynamics between mother-daughter dyads in middle childhood (ages 9 to 12). The research focused on art-based interventions conducted in the virtual reality space.MethodsInterviews were conducted with 16 mothers who participated in the VR-JPP.ResultsThe interviews yielded three main themes: dyadic communication in the virtual reality space, the advantages and disadvantages of three-dimensional painting in virtual reality, and the tripartite relationship between the therapist, mother, and daughter in the therapeutic space. The findings suggest that virtual reality fostered an innovative therapeutic space that encourages freer and more open interactions between mothers and daughters using avatars that enable unmediated emotional expression. The virtual space allowed the dyads to focus on emotional and creative communication and increased their grasp of relationship dynamics.DiscussionThe virtual space allowed the dyads to focus on emotional and creative communication and increased their grasp of relationship dynamics. These findings contribute to the literature on the uses of art in the virtual reality space from the perspective of mothers.

The purpose of this study was to identify the considerations for the potential for use of virtual reality(VR) education spaces in special schools. To this end, in-depth interviews were conducted with five special school teachers concerning the operation of their VR education space with an eye toward the positive aspects as well as things to be improved. The results showed that the VR spaces in special schools mainly focused on physical education and were also used for non-curricular activities. The VR space allowed for educational activities that were free from the constraints of the physical environment and had many advantages in terms of teaching and learning. However, due to the limitations of the VR program itself, various efforts were required to increase its future use in education. Based on these results, we discussed several considerations for future educational use of VR were discussed.

In recent years, virtual reality (VR) applications that accompany real-space walking have become popular. In these applications, the expression of steps, such as a stairway, is a technical challenge. Preparing a real step with the same scale as that of the step in the VR space is one alternative; however, it is costly and impractical. We propose using a real step, but one physical step for the expression of various steps, by manipulating the viewpoint and foot position when ascending and descending real steps. The hypothesis is that the height of a step can be complemented to some extent visually, even if the heights of the real step and that in the VR space are different. In this paper, we first propose a viewpoint and foot position manipulation algorithm. T hen we measure the detection threshold of the height difference between the visual and physical step when ascending and descending the physical step using our manipulation algorithm. As a result, we found that the difference can be detected if there is a difference of approximately 1.0 cm between the VR space and the real space, irrespective of the height of the physical step.

In the interior and exterior industry, professionals goes through a painstaking tasks to plan and create functional and aesthetically pleasing indoor and outdoor spaces by selecting materials, colors, finishes, furnitures, and landscaping elements to achieve a harmonious and appealing environment for occupants and visitors. Recently, technological advancements has provided simulation environmemts using Virtual Reality (VR) or Augment Reality (AR) to easily perform these tasks. However the challenge of seamlessly switching between interior and exterior environments while simulating in multi user platforms is still a challenge. This is as a result of each of the spaces are simulated differently in VR space. To address this challenge, our research focus on developing a seamless simulation system for interior and exterior design in a VR space. Our system demonstrate that users can easily switch between interior and exteriors designs in the VR spaces in the multi user platforms as well.

Inhibitory deficits are one of the predominant causes of cognitive aging. This study examined age-related changes in response inhibition. In this study, young and older participants performed a bimanual/bipedal response inhibition task while we measured their brain activity via functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Participants performed most trials bimanually (bipedally). However, they had to occasionally cancel both responses [Stop/Stop (SS) trials] or the response of one hand/foot while responding with the other [Go/Stop (GS) trials]. The participants produced more errors in the selective (GS) than in the nonselective canceling trials (SS), and in by-foot response more than in by-hand response trials, irrespective of their age. However, older participants made more errors in the selective cancelation (GS) trials and by-foot responses than young participants did. Older participants showed more frontal brain activity than young participants. The GS trials triggered more activity in the frontal brain areas than the SS trials irrespective of age at many channels, while older participants recruited more brain activation in the GS trials than in the SS trials compared to young participants. Overall, older participants exhibited higher activity in the right, middle, and inferior frontal gyrus than did young participants when performing selective and nonselective inhibition response. These results suggest that neural activation of the core inhibition network declines with age and that compensational recruitment of additional networks is used to yield an expanded inhibition circuit.

The learner characteristics, features of desktop 3D virtual reality environments, and college chemistry instruction: A structural equation modeling analysis

Visual data mining with virtual reality spaces are used for the representation of data and symbolic knowledge. The approach is illustrated with data from a geophysical prospecting case in which partially defined fuzzy classes are present. In order to understand the structure of both the data and knowledge extracted in the form of production rules, structure-preserving and maximally discriminative virtual spaces are constructed. High quality visual representations can be obtained using Samann and nonlinear discriminant neural networks. Rough set techniques are used for demonstrating the irreducibility of the set of original attributes and for learning the symbolic knowledge. Grid computing techniques are used for constructing sets of virtual reality spaces and for assessing the behavior of some of the neural network parameters controlling the quality of the virtual worlds. The general properties of the symbolic knowledge can be found with greater ease in the virtual reality space whereas both the prediction of unknown objects to the target class, as well as a derivation of a fuzzy membership function from the virtual reality space and the neural network results are obtained.

Objective: To explore a novel method for preoperative precision assessment of centrally located hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) with blood vessel as axis based on three-dimensional(3D) visualization and virtual reality(VR) technology and its application values. Methods: High-quality thin-layer enhanced CT data were collected from 20 patients with centrally located HCC who treated at First Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University from March 2017 to August 2018 diagnosed by preoperative examination. There were 18 males and 2 females, aged 28 to 69 years, all of Child-Pugh grade A. First of all, 3D reconstruction was performed by a 3D visualization software; then, the reconstructed 3D image was imported into VR development engine for VR research; afterwards, the analysis and evaluation system with blood vessel as axis was established based on 3D visualization classification of centrally located HCC; therefore, the relationship of the tumor to its major peripheral blood vessels was accurately judged and the surgical planning was formulated. Two images were brought into the operating room for navigation in surgery. The assessments results of preoperative data (CT and (or) MRI) and three-dimensional visualization of blood vessels in VR environment were compared; the values of the preoperative and postoperative hemoglobin, serum albumin and bilirubin were recorded and compared. Chi-square test, t-test and non-parametric test were used for the analysis of counting data, continuous measurement data and non-normal distribution measurement data, respectively. Results: 3D visualization modeling was completed in all of the 20 patients with centrally located HCC. According to the results of 3D visualization classification of centrally located HCC, there were 3 cases of type Ⅰ,1 case of type Ⅱ,4 cases of type Ⅲ,7 cases of type Ⅳ and 5 cases of type Ⅴ; according to the assessment and classification based on blood vessel as the axis, there were 6 cases of type Ⅰa,2 cases of type Ⅰb,2 cases of type Ⅱa,9 cases of type Ⅱb and 1 case of type Ⅱc. All patients underwent successful resection of tumor under the guidance of 3D visualization and VR technology. There were 15 cases whose assessment results based on preoperative CT/MRI were consistent with intraoperative findings, with a coincidence rate of 75.0%(15/20); while in VR environment, the assessment results of 3D visualization with blood vessel as axis were all consistent with the intraoperative findings, with coincidence rate of 100%(20/20). There was a statistically significant difference between the groups (χ(2)=5.714, P=0.017). There was no red blood cell transfusion in all patients during the operation. The preoperative hemoglobin was (128.8±14.9)g/L, and it was (119.8±12.5)g/L on postoperative day 1. There was no significant difference between these two sets of data (t=2.07, P=0.054). No death during the perioperative period and no complications such as hepatic failure, hemorrhage and biliary fistula after operation occurred. Conclusion: Preoperative evaluation based on 3D visualization and VR technology with blood vessel as the axis has significant clinical value for preoperative planning and surgical navigation of centrally located HCC.

Propelled by the video game industries, virtual reality (VR) systems are on the verge of entering the electronic mass media market. VR not just allows generating imaginary worlds, but also visualizing real geographies and possible past and future scenarios of real-world environments. However, VR capabilities of current geographic information systems (GIS) are limited as yet, thus challenging the transport of geodata into VR applications. Given the shortcomings of GIS, the present article proposes a practical workflow for the visualization of geographic information with immersive environments. Principal work steps are 3D-modeling, composition, performance optimization and the final dissemination on VR platforms. We will illustrate all elements of our workflow using the example of an immersive VR application of a coral reef in the Mexican Caribbean, thus providing both theoretical and practical background on the visualization of real-world data in VR space.

Proceedings of the 2011 joint ACM workshop on Human gesture and behavior understanding