Abstract
Immersive virtual environment (IVE) technology offers a wide range of potential benefits to research focused on understanding how individuals perceive and respond to built and natural environments. In an effort to broaden awareness and use of IVE technology in perception, preference and behavior research, this review paper describes how IVE technology can be used to complement more traditional methods commonly applied in public health research. The paper also describes a relatively simple workflow for creating and displaying 360° virtual environments of built and natural settings and presents two freely-available and customizable applications that scientists from a variety of disciplines, including public health, can use to advance their research into human preferences, perceptions and behaviors related to built and natural settings.
Highlights
Research on how individuals’ values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors are influenced by built and natural settings is inherently interdisciplinary and has used a variety of research methodologies.Participant observation, social surveys and laboratory experiments are widely used and indispensible tools
The first objective is to describe how immersive virtual environment (IVE) technology can be used to complement traditional methodologies used to investigate how individuals perceive and respond to built and natural environments; emphasis is placed on potential applications to public health research
The second objective of this paper is to describe a relatively simple workflow for creating and displaying 360° virtual environments of built and natural settings
Summary
Research on how individuals’ values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors are influenced by built and natural settings is inherently interdisciplinary and has used a variety of research methodologies. Res. Public Health 2015, 12 become interested in the use of immersive virtual environment (IVE) technology as a complementary methodological tool given its capabilities of representing and controlling environmental stimuli [1,2]. The first objective is to describe how IVE technology can be used to complement traditional methodologies used to investigate how individuals perceive and respond to built and natural environments; emphasis is placed on potential applications to public health research. The second objective of this paper is to describe a relatively simple workflow for creating and displaying 360° virtual environments of built and natural settings. The final objective is to present two editable and customizable applications that scientists from a variety of disciplines, including public health, can use to advance their research into human preferences, perceptions and behaviors related to built and natural settings
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