Virtual Reality: How Much Immersion Is Enough?

1. Virtual Reality: How Much Immersion Is Enough? Angela McCarthy CP5080, SP1 2010

2. Overview • Paper Insights • Authors • Introduction • Success Stories • Immersion Benefits • Demonstrating Benefits • Results • Future Work • Metadata • Conclusion

3. Paper Insights • Published in July, 2007 • Under IEEE Computer Society as a cover feature in Computer, Volume 40

4. Authors • Doug A Bowman • Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech • Completed Ph. D., in the College of Computing and the GVU Center at Georgia Tech • 100+ publications • 1997-2009 • Ryan P McMahan • Ph. D., Computer Science and Applications. Expected May 2010 at Virginia Tech • 4 Publications • 2006-2008

5. Introduction • Small history of Virtual Reality (VR) • Immersion, Virtual Environments (VE) • Features • Head Mounted Displays • Multiscreen Stereoscopic Displays • Looking at how much immersion is required for user experience

6. Success Stories • Phobia Therapy • Public Speaking • Military Training • Infantry Training in urban combat tactics • Entertainment • DisneyQuest – placing visitors inside the game • Success due to the reliance of the realistic experience • Requires high level of sensory fidelity • Visual, Auditory and other sensory cues

7. Immersion’s Benefits • Increased sense of presence • More realistic experience • Depth Cues • Users exercise their built-in capacity for understanding stereopsis and motion parallax • Uses in scientific visualization, design review, and virtual prototyping. • Traditional Approach: Immersion > Presence > Application Effetiveness • Authors Approach: Immersion Components > Immersion Benefits > Application Effectiveness

8. Demonstrating Benefits • Controlled empirical studies • Immersions effect on task performance • E.g. Increasing display size/resolution to track time taken to complete a visual searching task • Comparing stereo to non-stereo • Head-tracking vs no head-tracking • Multiscreensvs single screens • For each scenario, there were noticeable increases/decreases on users task performance

9. Results • Positive effects of immersion on spatial thinking • Found that some visualisations that are less complex may perform as well as more immersive ones • Higher levels of immersion • Contributes to improved interaction task performance • Reduces information clutter • Display size/resolution effects task completion time • High Resolution displays producing best results

10. Future Work • Understanding various components of immersion • Measurable user performance • Understanding • Preference • Two conflicting goals • VR to thrive/succeed due to benefits • Help others avoid costly situations where high immersion not necessary

11. Metadata • Cover Feature for Computer, IEEE • Language • E.g. “If all that these technologies provide for the user are oohs and ahs and a unique user experience, it would be difficult to justify the expense and development complexity that immersive VR requires” • Images • Diagrams

12. Images appropriate for medium, helps reader visualise with text Diagrams and tables provide quick reference points, easy to read, straight to point

13. Metadata continued… • Small number of references (13) • Some references examples of VR applications • Acronyms/Abbreviations presented early as possible • Allows non-IT readers to read with ease • Appearance

15. Conclusion • Good balance of technical and general information (technical information set in yellow boxes separate from general text) • Easy to read, keeps the reader engaged • Makes good use of real-world applications to further engage readers • Good structure/flow

16. Questions? Thanks for listening!