Improvements To Virtual Teleportation
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Authors
Prithul, Aniruddha
Issue Date
2023
Type
Dissertation
Language
Keywords
HCI , Locomotion , Teleport , Virtual Reality , VR
Alternative Title
Abstract
The problem of virtual locomotion is among the chief problems VR users face. While the most natural form of locomotion would be to map one's real-world physical movement one-to-one to their virtual avatar, it is rarely practical due to the restrictions posed by the available physical space. Thus most VR applications implement some form of Virtual Locomotion Technique (VLT). Among the VLTs, teleportation has become one of the most widespread due to its accessible nature. A thorough understanding of teleportation is thus essential to ensure its usability. To this end, with this thesis we aim to 1) put forward new insights regarding teleportation from user navigation, perception, and usability perspectives, and 2) propose designs of teleportation variants that improve upon existing teleportation techniques incorporating these insights.In this dissertation, we first explore the literature on VR locomotion to identify and categorize the extent of variants that exist in the design of teleportation. Insights from this help us identify areas for further research and improvements. Following this, we analyze user navigation behavior in a competitive multi-user scenario to identify several critical behavioral aspects. Based on this, we outline design considerations that might be employed when designing similar VR experiences. Finally, building upon our previous work, we propose two variants to improve teleportation by making it more accessible and user-friendly, 1) Hands-free teleportations, and 2) 360-Teleportation. These locomotions are then evaluated empirically to ensure their usability.