Quality of Experience for a Virtual Reality simulator

Abstract

In this study, we investigate a VR simulator of a forestry crane used for loading logs onto a truck, mainly looking at Quality of Experience (QoE) aspects that may be relevant for task completion, but also whether there are any discomfort related symptoms experienced during task execution. The QoE test has been designed to capture both the general subjective experience of using the simulator and to study task completion rate. Moreover, a specific focus has been to study the effects of latency on the subjective experience, with regards both to delays in the crane control interface as well as lag in the visual scene rendering in the head mounted display (HMD). Two larger formal subjective studies have been performed: one with the VR-system as it is and one where we have added controlled delay to the display update and to the joystick signals. The baseline study shows that most people are more or less happy with the VR-system and that it does not have strong effects on any symptoms as listed in the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ). In the delay study we found significant effects on Comfort Quality and Immersion Quality for higher Display delay (30 ms), but very small impact of joystick delay. Furthermore, the Display delay had strong influence on the symptoms in the SSQ, and causing test subjects to decide not to continue with the complete experiments. We found that this was especially connected to the longer added Display delays (≥ 20 ms).