Human behavior in virtual environments
Michitaka Hirose, Koichi Hirota, Ryugo Kijima · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1992
Object manipulation performance in a virtual environment is discussed. Factors which affect performance such as stereo visual cues, motion parallax, and force sensation are discussed. For visual factor research, tasks such as placing a virtual cylindrical object onto a virtual platform were assigned to the subjects. The hardware to generate virtual 3D space consisted of a fixed stereo CRT and glasses with LC shutters or HMD. A VPL Data Glove was used for virtual object manipulation. Results showed that the use of stereo display and motion parallax are very helpful for this type of task. Also, the existence of physical laws such as self- alignment through physical constraints is very helpful. Force/touch factors are also investigated by adding force display to the system mentioned above. A mechanical master arm was used to provide these sensations. The assigned task was to place a cubic object into a hole. The results from this example were a good indication that force sensation is indispensable for performing these types of tasks. Particularly, the boundary constraints for the motion of an operator played an important role in providing realistic sensations. Through these experiments, the importance of the aforementioned factors in providing realistic sensations within a virtual environment was clarified quantitatively.