Walking in Place

Original Design

User Perspective

The user is able to walk through the virtual world by "Walking in Place". By turning the body to one side he can change his direction of walking.

Technical Details

Redirected Walking allows the user to navigate through the world without ever having to turn to face the missing wall in a CAVE [1]. A tracker provides the position and orientation of the user's head and torso. The world will rotate until the user is looking at the front wall again.

Our Realization

User Perspective

In accordance with the original design, the user can walk in place to move forward. The distance you cover in the world stands in relaltion to the time you need to perform one step. If you take a longer time for one step, you will cover a greater distance in the world. The viewing direction will change the direction in the world, too. If the user turns his head further to one side, the viewing direction in the world will change faster.

Technical Details

In this realization we use a Wii Balance Board to recognize the steps of a user. Every step a user takes on the board will move him forward in the world. The viewing direction is described by a vector. When this vector changes, the world will be rotated until the user is looking at the front wall again.

Evaluation (details here)

Walking in Place is easy to learn because it is similar to the natural walking.

The evaluation of the user study showed following results:

Easiness:	★★★★☆
Fatigue:	★★☆☆☆
Fun:	★★★★★
Learnability:	★★★★★
Raslism:	★★★★☆

References

1. Razzaque et al (2002): Redirected Walking in Place