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Natural Walking in Virtual Reality

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games
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Synonyms

3D user interfaces; Virtual locomotion; Virtual travel

Definition

Travel, or locomotion, is a fundamental and universal task within virtual reality (VR). However, enabling users to freely walk through virtual environments (VE) poses a considerable problem when the VE is larger than the tracked physical space.

Introduction

To most people, the act of moving from one place to another (i.e., locomotion or travel) is a common everyday activity. Similarly, locomotion is a fundamental and universal task within virtual reality (VR). Yet allowing users to freely navigate virtual environments (VEs) on foot is anything but a trivial challenge with respect to virtual reality. In the VE the user’s movement should only be constrained by the virtual topography and architecture. However, in reality the user’s physical movement will always be limited by the size of the tracking space.

Locomotion Techniques for Virtual Walking

The literature on virtual walking describes numerous locomotion...

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Correspondence to Niels Christian Nilsson .

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Nilsson, N.C. (2018). Natural Walking in Virtual Reality. In: Lee, N. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08234-9_201-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08234-9_201-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-08234-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08234-9

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