Strafing Gain: A Novel Redirected Walking Technique

Abstract

Redirected walking enables natural locomotion in virtual environments that are larger than the user’s real world space. However, in complex setups with physical obstacles, existing redirection techniques that were originally designed for empty spaces may be sub-optimal. This poster presents strafing gains, a novel redirected walking technique that can be used to shift the user laterally away from obstacles without disrupting their current orientation. In the future, we plan to conduct a study to identify perceptual detection thresholds and investigate new algorithms that can use strafing gains in combination with other existing redirection techniques to achieve superior obstacle avoidance in complex physical spaces.