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Walking in place using the Microsoft Kinect to explore a large VE

Published: 30 November 2014 Publication History

Abstract

In this work, we present a simple method of "walking in place" (WIP) using the Microsoft Kinect to explore a virtual environment (VE) with a head-mounted display (HMD). Other studies have shown that WIP to explore a VE is equivalent to normal walking in terms of spatial orientation. This suggests that WIP is a promising way to explore a large VE. The Microsoft Kinect sensor is a great tool for implementing WIP because it enables real time skeletal tracking and is relatively inexpensive (110 USD). However, the skeletal information obtained from Kinect sensors can be noisy. Thus, this research discusses how we combined the data from two Kinects to implement a robust WIP algorithm. We evaluate our algorithm and directly compare it to joystick navigation of a large VE. We also explore the possibility of scaling the gain of WIP so that one WIP step forward carries the user two steps forward in virtual space.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    VRCAI '14: Proceedings of the 13th ACM SIGGRAPH International Conference on Virtual-Reality Continuum and its Applications in Industry
    November 2014
    246 pages
    ISBN:9781450332545
    DOI:10.1145/2670473
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 30 November 2014

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    Author Tags

    1. head-mounted display
    2. locomotion
    3. spatial updating
    4. virtual environment

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    • (2023)Jogging-in-Place: Exploring Body-Steering Methods for Jogging in Virtual EnvironmentsProceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia10.1145/3626705.3627778(377-385)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2023
    • (2023)Leaning-Based Interfaces Improve Ground-Based VR Locomotion in Reach-the-Target, Follow-the-Path, and Racing TasksIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics10.1109/TVCG.2021.313142229:3(1748-1768)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2023
    • (2023)Locomotion techniques with EEG signals in a virtual reality environmentDisplays10.1016/j.displa.2023.10253880(102538)Online publication date: Dec-2023
    • (2023)Seamless-walk: natural and comfortable virtual reality locomotion method with a high-resolution tactile sensorVirtual Reality10.1007/s10055-023-00750-x27:2(1431-1445)Online publication date: 17-Jan-2023
    • (2022)Stage Together: Remote Rehearsal of Theater BlockingProceedings of the 8th International Conference on Movement and Computing10.1145/3537972.3537977(1-5)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2022
    • (2022)Understanding User Experiences Across VR Walking-in-place Locomotion MethodsProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3501975(1-13)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
    • (2022)Evaluating the Impact of Limited Physical Space on the Navigation Performance of Two Locomotion Methods in Immersive Virtual Environments2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)10.1109/VR51125.2022.00104(821-831)Online publication date: Mar-2022
    • (2021)Walking-in-place for omnidirectional VR locomotion using a single RGB cameraVirtual Reality10.1007/s10055-021-00551-026:1(173-186)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2021
    • (2021)User Defined Walking-In-Place Gestures for Intuitive Locomotion in Virtual RealityVirtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality10.1007/978-3-030-77599-5_14(172-182)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2021
    • (2020)Effects of Synchronized Leg Motion in Walk-in-Place Utilizing Deep Neural Networks for Enhanced Body Ownership and Sense of Presence in VRProceedings of the 26th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology10.1145/3385956.3418959(1-10)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2020
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