Intuitive Body Operations Suppressing VR Sickness

Abstract: We propose a user interface that provides users feeling of immersion in virtual space. Recently technological progress of devices that give users illusions as if they were exercising their arms and legs in virtual space have been remarkable, and contents for such devices have been popular. Especially, Virtual Reality (VR) contents that provide interaction between users and objects in virtual space have attracted more and more attention. Some of them help users to immerse in virtual space. VR technology has put many interactions into practice that are impossible in physical space. In the current practice, however, most user’s behaviors in VR contents are limited to ones that are possible in physical space such as exploring a dungeon in a fantasy game. In this paper, we propose a novel and intuitive moving manner of users’ body in virtual space. Traditionally, in most VR contents, a user has moved by walking or riding a vehicle two dimensionally. If he would like to move three dimensionally, he has to rely on a conventional operation such as a joystick, mouse or keyboard other than intuitive body actions. Such three dimensional movements in the virtual space through conventional operations, however, causes VR sickness because of movement of the sight without any body action. There are measures of mitigation to prevent VR sickness. For examples, some systems suppress the VR sickness through a body action such as stepping to go forward. We have designed a moving manner including up-and-down movement with intuitive and highly immersive body actions. In our system, a user rides a popular fitness equipment, which has two pedals for left and right feet, and he or she can open or close his legs by sliding the pedals to the sides on it. On the equipment, the user can designate movement to any directions through body actions. If he wants to go forward, he can wave his arms as if he is walking. Also, if he wants to go up, he can shake his legs in a flurrying manner as if a bird flaps its wings. In order to stay in the air, he holds his legs widely. On the other hand, in order to go down, he holds his legs narrowly. Those movement of limbs’ actions give the user feeling of motions, which contributes to enhancing his immersion while suppressing VR sickness. In order to show the effectiveness of our approach, we conducted experiments to compare our method with a conventional method using a controller. We had the subjects move around the same course in a 3D virtual stage with these methods, and verified the degree of the sense of immersion and development of VR sickness. As a result, we observed that our method increases the sense of immersion and reduces VR sickness.

Keywords: Virtual Reality, User Interface, Vr Sickness

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1001120

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