Preliminary Evaluation of Virtual Cycling System Using Google Street View

Abstract

Overweight and obesity due to lack of physical activities incur a serious social problem. Recently, a large number of people have interest in physical exercise to keep themselves well, but it is not easy to continue to do it. Persuasive technology can provide solutions to encourage them to continue physical activities. Exercise bikes are one of indoor exercise tools, but the users easily get tired of the bikes because they just only pedal at the same spot. Several virtual cycling systems have been developed, which encourage exercise by showing scenery videos or virtual reality CG movies in accordance with the pedaling speed, but the choices of the cycling routes are limited. We are developing a new virtual cycling system with Google Street View to provide almost unlimited route choices to the users. It reproduces scenery along a cycling route by showing Street View images one after another in accordance with the pedaling speed. This paper shows how our system promotes physical exercise as a preliminary evaluation.