Viewpoint Animation With a Dynamic Tether for Supporting Navigation in a Virtual Environment

Abstract

This study examined the concept of dynamic viewpoint tethering for enhancing performance in 3-D avatar control tasks. Dynamic viewpoint tethering refers to a viewpoint animation technique that couples a display viewpoint to a controlled avatar through a virtual tether. A dynamic tether, modeled as a mass spring damper system, can potentially generate desirable viewpoint behavior because of its ability to produce frequency-separated viewpoint responses. This study investigated the impact of a tether's rigidity and damping properties on users' navigational performance. Twelve participants took part in a simulated 3-D aerial navigational task. Performance was evaluated with respect to local guidance and global awareness. Root mean square error scores revealed a decrease in local guidance performance when (a) the tether was either severely underdamped or overdamped and (b) the tether's rigidity approached either zero or infinity. In addition, (c) global performance was better for higher-frequency forcing functions. Critical damping and medium rigidity can be optimized during design for enhancing users' navigational efficiency. Guidelines generated from this study support future viewpoint design in interactive virtual reality applications.