TutoriVR

Although the stereoscopic effect in 3D virtual reality (VR) space has been studied, its influence on motor performance, specifically how stereoscopic objects affect behavioral outcomes like reaching, remains unclear. Previous research has primarily focused on perceptual aspects rather than on how stereoscopic visual input impacts motor control at the behavioral level. Thus, we investigated the effects of stereoscopic objects in a VR environment on reaching performance, examining whether the stereoscopic effect of objects is a significant aspect enough to affect performance at the behavioral level. While doing so, we investigated young and older adults separately, as age is a critical factor influencing motor performance. Fourteen young and 23 older participants performed a reaching task in the VR space. The target objects were 2D and 3D, deviating from the initial position by 10 and 20 cm. The movement attributed to feedforward control was analyzed using end-point error and smoothness of movement. Our results revealed that older participants had significantly worse predictive control than young participants in the 3D long task, suggesting that the positions of 3D objects were more difficult to predict than those of 2D objects. Young participants showed a significant difference in smoothness between 2D and 3D objects, which was not observed in older participants. This may reflect the floor effect in older participants. Under the short-distance condition, neither group showed a significant difference, suggesting the ceiling effect by distance. We confirmed that the effect of stereoscopic objects was not drastic but it did hamper the reaching performance.

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 this paper, we provide an approach for authenticating users in virtual reality (VR) environments by tracking the behavior of users as they perform goal-oriented tasks, such as throwing a ball at a target. With the pervasion of VR in mission-critical applications such as manufacturing, navigation, military training, education, and therapy, validating the identity of users using VR systems is becoming paramount to prevent tampering of the VR environments, and to ensure user safety. Unlike prior work, which uses PIN and pattern based passwords to authenticate users in VR environments, our approach authenticates users based on their natural interactions within the virtual space by matching the 3D trajectory of the dominant hand gesture controller in a display-based head-mounted VR system to a library of trajectories. To handle natural differences in wait times between multiple parts of an action such as picking a ball and throwing it, our matching approach uses a symmetric sum-squared distance between the nearest neighbors across the query and library trajectories. Our work enables seamless authentication without requiring the user to stop their activity and enter specific credentials, and can be used to continually validate the identity of the user. We conduct a pilot study with 14 subjects throwing a ball at a target in VR using the gesture controller and achieve a maximum accuracy of 92.86% by comparing to a library of 10 trajectories per subject, and 90.00% by comparing to 6 trajectories per subject.

This paper describes four scenarios of cooperation between a user in virtual reality and a user using interaction through computer peripherals. User cooperation is used in applications for Industry 4.0 in the field of employee training or in the deployment of digital twin companies. Four scenarios are devoted to the possibility of displaying scenes and the use of avatars in virtual reality using outside in tracked headsets and a user using a monitor display with control via a keyboard and computer mouse. Within the scenarios, we define the VR view, the use of a free camera, the character mode, and the automatic orbit camera, the movement of which depends on the position and orientation of the user in space in virtual reality. We show the applications of individual scenarios in a case study of user training in the field of mining and production in industrial enterprises. In the tests, we compared the increase in productivity of employees after training with the use of assisted VR in a multiuser environment.

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 ergonomic design of control elements in real life has been researched in detail. Various studies exist on the optimal dimensioning, their haptic and acoustic feedback to achieve high control accuracy and user experience. But the development of products is increasingly done with virtual prototypes. Virtual reality (VR) allows these prototypes to be tested in a highly immersive environment. However, the findings from reality cannot be transferred to VR directly. For example, users in VR interact with the prototypes using controllers, which affects haptic feedback. This study investigates how rotary dials and joysticks must be designed and programmed in VR so that control tasks can be performed efficiently and generate a high user experience and perceived presence.In user tests, subjects (n = 25) evaluate the control of a joystick and a rotary dial in VR. In a virtual crane operator's cabin or at a virtual table, the subjects (f = 10, m = 15, age: 24 +- 3) perform four predefined tasks per control element. On two screens in VR, subjects see a vertical bar graph with a scale from 0 to 100 % controlled by the joystick and separately a numerical value between 0 and 100 % which is controlled by the rotary dial. The screens display the task to the subjects, e.g., "Set the value from 0 % to 42 %". According to the method “design of experiments”, 14 factors, such as vibration feedback, acoustic feedback, position of the subject or the sensitivity of the control element are systematically varied on two respectively three levels (e.g., diameter of actuator 40 mm, 80 mm or 110 mm). For each trial, the control accuracy and the time required to complete the task are determined. In addition, the perceived presence is assessed using the Slater-Usoh-Steed-Questionnaire and the user experience is surveyed using the User Experience Questionnaire. The effect of a change of level on the response parameters is investigated using multifactorial ANOVA (α = .05). Linear regression is used to calculate a mathematical relationship between factor and response parameter. These mathematical models are used to calculate which factor values can be used to achieve a high level of control accuracy with a low time requirement and a high level of user experience and perceived presence. The factors angular resolution, inclination, shape of the rotary dial and position of the subject have a highly significant effect (p ≤ .001) on the time required to complete the tasks with the rotary dial. On the control accuracy of the rotary dial, the angular resolution, the VR-controller and the interaction of angular resolution and diameter of the rotary dial have a significant effect. On the user experience, a total of six factors and two interactions have a significant effect. On the perceived presence of the subjects, the VR environment and the diameter of the rotary dial have a significant effect. The calculated optimized design is a rotary dial with vibration feedback, without acoustic feedback, with visualization of a rough knurling, an angular resolution of 10-12 degree/value, a 40 mm diameter and no inclination. Visualization of the hand should be avoided.Sensitivity, size, subject position, VR environment, and the interaction of subject position and VR environment have a significant effect on the time required to perform the control tasks with the joystick. Three factors and one interaction have a significant effect on the control accuracy of the joystick. The interaction of the factors vibration feedback and visualization of the hand has a significant effect on the perceived presence of the subjects. On user experience, nine factors and five interactions have a significant effect. The calculated optimized levels of factors for the joystick are vibration and acoustic feedback, no visual feedback, vertical handle with a height of 20-24 cm, a five-level angular resolution, a maximum deflection angle of +- 15°, a sensitivity of 8 %/sec and a visualization of the hand.The trials show a high degree of scatter. The residuals show outliers in the experiments. These deviations are mainly due to the individual previous experience of the test subjects in handling VR systems. Nevertheless, significant effects could be identified. A screening experimental design was used in this study. In a follow-up study, detailed investigations with a full factorial experimental design must be performed with the significant factors. The factors will be tested at multiple levels and with a significantly increased number of trials to further increase the accuracy of the mathematical models.

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.

IMPACT: This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that systematically altering limb dynamics with two exoskeleton devices alters ingrained, bilateral upper-limb coordination with the potential to rehabilitate functional reaching in chronic stroke survivors OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Advances in virtual reality and exoskeleton technologies have allowed researchers to alter upper limb coordination with more precision than ever before. The goal of this study was to systematically enhance the use of the nondominant limb during a bimanual reaching task, with an eye towards improving rehabilitative strategies post stroke. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Healthy, right-handed volunteers performed a bimanual reaching task in virtual reality (VR) space while simultaneously moving under the influence of two exoskeleton devices. The VR task had participants move a shared cursor, displayed at the midpoint between the hands, to targets arranged at shoulder and eye levels and located at 70% of full arm extension. Two exoskeleton devices applied either resistive torque to the dominant limb or assistive torque to the non-dominant limb. Three-dimensional hand position data were recorded at 50 Hz and analyzed offline. The primary outcome measure was relative contribution, calculated as the ratio of dominant/non-dominant displacement. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Preliminary results from 3 participants showed that during baseline trials, when no torque was applied by the exoskeletons, relative contribution was 50.6% in favor of the dominant hand, with the dominant hand reaching on average 1.1cm farther than the left. When the exoskeletons resisted movement in the dominant limb while simultaneously assisting movement in the non-dominant limb, relative contribution was 49.7% indicating an increase in non-dominant limb usage. Further analysis showed that this effect was driven by one participant who reached 3.7cm farther with her non-dominant hand compared to baseline. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: These pilot data suggest our testing platform is capable of altering normal coordination patterns and is likely the result of participants adopting an optimal control strategy imposed by the shared cursor. These findings will form the basis for a rehabilitation intervention to promote the use of the paretic limb in chronic stroke survivors.

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.

BackgroundTechnology-based assessments using 2D virtual reality (VR) environments and goal-directed instrumented tasks can deliver digital health metrics describing upper limb sensorimotor function that are expected to provide sensitive endpoints for clinical studies. Open questions remain about the influence of the VR environment and task complexity on such metrics and their clinimetric properties.MethodsWe aim to investigate the influence of VR and task complexity on the clinimetric properties of digital health metrics describing upper limb function. We relied on the Virtual Peg Insertion Test (VPIT), a haptic VR-based assessment with a virtual manipulation task. To evaluate the influence of VR and task complexity, we designed two novel tasks derived from the VPIT, the VPIT-2H (VR environment with reduced task complexity) and the PPIT (physical task with reduced task complexity). These were administered in an observational longitudinal study with 27 able-bodied participants and 31 participants with multiple sclerosis (pwMS, VPIT and PPIT only) and the value of kinematic and kinetic metrics, their clinimetric properties, and the usability of the assessment tasks were compared.ResultsIntra-participant variability strongly increased with increasing task complexity (coefficient of variation + 56%) and was higher in the VR compared to the physical environment (+ 27%). Surprisingly, this did not translate into significant differences in the metrics’ measurement error and test–retest reliability across task conditions (p > 0.05). Responsiveness to longitudinal changes in pwMS was even significantly higher (effect size + 0.35, p < 0.05) for the VR task with high task complexity compared to the physical instrumented task with low task complexity. Increased inter-participant variability might have compensated for the increased intra-participant variability to maintain good clinimetric properties. No significant influence of task condition on concurrent validity was present in pwMS. Lastly, pwMS rated the PPIT with higher usability than the VPIT (System Usability Scale + 7.5, p < 0.05).ConclusionThe metrics of both the VR haptic- and physical task-based instrumented assessments showed adequate clinimetric properties. The VR haptic-based assessment may be superior when longitudinally assessing pwMS due to its increased responsiveness. The physical instrumented task may be advantageous for regular clinical use due to its higher usability. These findings highlight that both assessments should be further validated for their ideal use-cases.

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.