17-03-2014, 09:59 PM
ABSTRACT
This paper presents an immersive system for building virtual worlds from within the worlds themselves. The system incorporates solutions for editing and texturing terrain, adding foliage, water, structures, and text, adding and controlling lights, including the time of day, and texturing objects in the scene. In a tracked head-mounted display environment, the user controls movement using a hybrid solution combining real walking and pointing-directed flying, and selects and manipulates objects using a hybrid wand and forearm-mounted interaction tablet interface. The user receives immersive cues such as wind from fans mounted around the physical space and audio from headphones. Feedback through a vibrotactile belt and a novel passive floor technique are used to indicate to the user when she is approaching the edge of the tracked space. Preliminary user testing showed positive user experience and suggestions for future improvements.
Keywords: Immersive world building, virtual reality, tablet, wind feedback.
Index Terms: H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces—Input Devices and Strategies.
1 INTRODUCTION
We present an immersive authoring system which provides solutions to many of the required tasks users carry out in virtual environments, including navigation through the environment, creation, selection, and manipulation of objects, symbolic input, and system control [1]. In addition, our system supports terrain (height map) editing, tree- and grass-brushes, ground-texture painting, object texture editing, directional- and spot-light editing, and placement of water bodies (e.g., ponds and rivers). The entire system uses a head-mounted display (HMD), with support from handheld and body-worn input devices.
2 MOTIVATION
Our design was heavily influenced by the short concept film World Builder by Bruce Branit [2]. The film centers around a man who builds a virtual world for his partner who is in a coma. The hospital where she is staying supports neuro-holographic input which allows patients to experience full-sensory virtual worlds. The building process begins with the man standing in an empty space, and building up a rich city scene by combining primitive geometric objects, positioning, scaling, and rotating them, applying textures, cutting and pasting objects, applying lighting effects, and more, all from within the world itself. During the world building process, the man uses many interaction techniques, such as hand gestures, image-based group selection, hand- and forearm-based bimanual interaction, and hybrid hand+tablet selection techniques.
This paper presents an immersive system for building virtual worlds from within the worlds themselves. The system incorporates solutions for editing and texturing terrain, adding foliage, water, structures, and text, adding and controlling lights, including the time of day, and texturing objects in the scene. In a tracked head-mounted display environment, the user controls movement using a hybrid solution combining real walking and pointing-directed flying, and selects and manipulates objects using a hybrid wand and forearm-mounted interaction tablet interface. The user receives immersive cues such as wind from fans mounted around the physical space and audio from headphones. Feedback through a vibrotactile belt and a novel passive floor technique are used to indicate to the user when she is approaching the edge of the tracked space. Preliminary user testing showed positive user experience and suggestions for future improvements.
Keywords: Immersive world building, virtual reality, tablet, wind feedback.
Index Terms: H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces—Input Devices and Strategies.
1 INTRODUCTION
We present an immersive authoring system which provides solutions to many of the required tasks users carry out in virtual environments, including navigation through the environment, creation, selection, and manipulation of objects, symbolic input, and system control [1]. In addition, our system supports terrain (height map) editing, tree- and grass-brushes, ground-texture painting, object texture editing, directional- and spot-light editing, and placement of water bodies (e.g., ponds and rivers). The entire system uses a head-mounted display (HMD), with support from handheld and body-worn input devices.
2 MOTIVATION
Our design was heavily influenced by the short concept film World Builder by Bruce Branit [2]. The film centers around a man who builds a virtual world for his partner who is in a coma. The hospital where she is staying supports neuro-holographic input which allows patients to experience full-sensory virtual worlds. The building process begins with the man standing in an empty space, and building up a rich city scene by combining primitive geometric objects, positioning, scaling, and rotating them, applying textures, cutting and pasting objects, applying lighting effects, and more, all from within the world itself. During the world building process, the man uses many interaction techniques, such as hand gestures, image-based group selection, hand- and forearm-based bimanual interaction, and hybrid hand+tablet selection techniques.