Preliminary Environment Mapping for Redirected Walking

Abstract

Redirected walking applications allow a user to explore large virtual environments in a smaller physical space by employing so-called redirection techniques. To further improve the immersion of a virtual experience, path planner algorithms were developed which choose redirection techniques based on the current position and orientation of the user. In order to ensure a reliable performance, planning algorithms depend on accurate position tracking using an external tracking system. However, the disadvantage of such a tracking method is the time-consuming preparation of the physical environment which renders the system immobile. A possible solution to eliminate this dependency is to replace the external tracking system with a state-of-the-art inside-out tracker based on the concept of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). In this paper, we present an approach in which we attach a commercially available SLAM device to a head-mounted display to track the head motion of a user. From sensor recordings of the device, we construct a map of the surrounding environment for future processing in an existing path planner for redirected walking.