Towards context-sensitive reorientation for real walking in virtual reality

Abstract

Redirected walking techniques have been introduced to overcome physical limitations for natural locomotion in virtual reality. Although subtle perceptual manipulations are helpful to keep users within relatively small tracked spaces, it is inevitable that users will approach critical boundary limits. Current solutions to this problem involve breaks in presence by introducing distractors, or freezing the virtual world relative to the user's perspective. We propose an approach that integrates into the virtual world narrative to draw users' attention and to cause them to temporarily alter their course to avoid going off bounds. This method ties together unnoticeable translation, rotation, and curvature gains, efficiently reorienting the user while maintaining the user's sense of immersion. We also discuss how this new method can be effectively used in conjunction with other reorientation techniques.