VirtualSpace - Overloading Physical Space with Multiple Virtual Reality Users
Journal
2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Pages
241:1–241:10
ISBN
978-1-4503-5620-6
Date Issued
2018
Author(s)
Marwecki, Sebastian
Brehm, Maximilian
Wagner, Lukas
Mueller, Florian 'Floyd'
Baudisch, Patrick
Abstract
Although virtual reality hardware is now widely available, the uptake of real walking is hindered by the fact that it requires often impractically large amounts of physical space. To address this, we present VirtualSpace, a novel system that allows overloading multiple users immersed in different VR experiences into the same physical space. VirtualSpace accomplishes this by containing each user in a subset of the physical space at all times, which we call tiles; app-invoked maneuvers then shuffle tiles and users across the entire physical space. This allows apps to move their users to where their narrative requires them to be while hiding from users that they are confined to a tile. We show how this enables VirtualSpace to pack four users into 16m2. In our study we found that VirtualSpace allowed participants to use more space and to feel less confined than in a control condition with static, pre-allocated space.
Publisher
ACM
Type
conference paper