Substitutional reality: Towards a research agenda

Abstract

In our previous work on Substitutional Reality, we presented an exploration of a class of Virtual Environments where every physical object surrounding the user is associated with appropriate virtual counterparts. Differently from “passive haptics”, Substitutional Reality assumes the existence of a discrepancy in the association. This previous work explored how far this mismatch can be pushed and its impact on the believability of the experience. In this paper we discuss three main research directions for Substitutional Reality. Firstly, the design space is largely unexplored as the initial investigation focused on the mismatch between real and virtual objects. Secondly, the development of systems enabling a dynamic substitution process represents a key challenge. Thirdly, we discuss the meta-design process of these experiences.