Analysis of Differences in the Manner to Move Objects in a Real and Virtual Space

Abstract

One crucial property of virtual reality (VR) is “self-projection”. This means that an avatar representing a user in a virtual space is the user itself with a higher level of reality. It can be referred to as a “sense of embodiment (SoE)”. Using head-mounted display (HMD), a three-dimensional (3D) virtual space that is generated by a computer with visual sense can be recognized. Besides, if the user can touch objects in the virtual space and feel the haptic sense on one’s hands using haptic devices, the SoE will undoubtedly increase. However, since the workspace of the user’s hand in using the haptic device has limitations, the task performed in the virtual space differs from the task performed in the real space. Therefore, in this paper, we evaluate the degree of agreement between the performance of a task in a virtual space and real space through experiments consisting of the same task. As the haptic device for virtual space we used SPIDAR-GCC, which is a type of parallel wire haptic device. In the real space, we asked seven research participants to move a tennis ball and a cola-can placed on a desk to a prescribed position. With regard to the experiments in the virtual space, we developed two 3D spaces where a tennis ball or a cola-can are placed on a desk. Then, using HMD and SPIDAR-GCC, we asked the participants to move these objects to a prescribed position. We recorded these tasks in the form of videos and analyzed them. The result of the analyses revealed that there are significant differences in the manner in which these objects were moved.