Application of Redirected Walking in Room-Scale VR

Redirected walking (RDW) promises to allow near-natural walking in an infinitely large virtual environment (VE) by subtle manipu- lations of the virtual camera. Previous experiments showed that a physical radius of at least 22 meters is required for undetectable RDW. However, we found that it is possible to decrease this radius and to apply RDW to room-scale VR, i. e., up to approximately 5m × 5m. This is done by using curved paths in the VE instead of straight paths, and by coupling them together in a way that enables continuous walking. Furthermore, the corresponding paths in the real world are laid out in a way that fits perfectly into room-scale VR. In this research demo, users can experience RDW in a room-scale head-mounted display VR setup and explore a VE of approximately 25m × 25m.

@InProceedings{LLBS17a,
  author       = "Langbehn, Eike and Lubos, Paul and Bruder, Gerd and Steinicke, Frank",
  title        = "Application of Redirected Walking in Room-Scale VR",
  booktitle    = "Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality (VR) (Demo)",
  pages        = "449--450",
  year         = "2017",
  url          = "http://basilic.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/Publications/2017/LLBS17a"
}