Virtual Reality Space Research Articles

Meet me in VR! Can VR space help remote teams connect: A seven-week study with Horizon Workrooms

In 2020, office life switched abruptly toward a remote work model. Office meetings have since moved to virtual spaces. Unfortunately, remote video meetings have become associated with declines in engagement, collaboration, and learning, as well as ‘Zoom fatigue’. In this article, we study the potential of virtual reality (VR) technology as a solution to these problems and as a medium to enrich remote work environments. For seven weeks, we collected data on the meetings of a team of eighteen knowledge workers. For five of those weeks, the meetings were organized in VR. We used a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to gather feedback on those sessions and to compare them with a regular video conferencing baseline. Our results demonstrate that both technologies have applications in the work environment—albeit in different situations. We provide best-practice guidelines for the use of VR by remote teams and present design implications for VR collaborative spaces.

Virtual Reality applications for visualization of 6000-year-old Neolithic graves from Lenzburg (Switzerland)

The last decade has seen a steady increase in the application of virtual 3D approaches in cultural heritage research. Although a large literature exists about the advantages of 3D methods in this field, here we go one step further and elucidate a) how image-based 3D reconstructions can be displayed in virtual reality (VR) space using freeware game engine software and low-cost VR hardware and b) highlight the relative benefits and advantages with a focus on interactive museum displays of relatively large archaeological objects. Specifically, we present three 3D models of different stone grave structures from the Neolithic necropolis of Lenzburg (Northern Switzerland, 4450-3500 BCE). The site has been excavated in 1959/60 and certain graves were subsequently preserved for museum display. By means of VR applications, it is now possible to experience these approximately 6000-year-old tombs with an innovative approach circumventing various barriers or constraints and offering interactive display options.

Co‐designing a virtual reality social connecting space for older adults living with dementia

AbstractBackgroundOlder adults living with dementia often experience reduced social connectedness and must be supported to enhance or maintain their social connections. Digital technology is increasingly being used to address this area. In particular, virtual reality (VR) has shown promising benefits for sociability despite not being designed for this purpose. Research has highlighted the need to design social VR spaces which can enable multi‐user experiences to foster social connectedness. Such a design process needs to meaningfully involve older adults living with dementia and their support persons from the outset.MethodsAction research was used to co‐design a VR social connecting space for older adults living with dementia. The research aimed to explore one’s experience and perception of social connectedness and how VR may be used to help older adults living with dementia stay socially connected. Using participatory methods of data collection, older adults living with dementia and their support person had the opportunity to use a VR technology probe and participate in a series of semi‐structured interviews, group meetings and design workshops. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze transcripts alongside observational field notes taken by the researcher. The findings from each phase of data collection were used to inform subsequent research activities.ResultsThe meaning and importance of social connectedness is dynamic and transient. Older adults living with dementia experience several barriers and facilitators to social connectedness and their support person often plays an important role in maintaining existing connections. VR was considered a novel and enticing technology to enhance and maintain one’s connections. Older adults living with dementia and their support person expressed preferences for shared experiences and these were translated into the virtual environment (VE). Design preferences to facilitate co‐location and co‐presence in the VE were also integrated into the social connecting space.ConclusionVR was considered an enticing technology to enhance or maintain the social connectedness of older adults living with dementia. Older adults living with dementia and their support person contributed to the design decisions which shaped the development of the social connecting space.

How Important are Detailed Hand Motions for Communication for a Virtual Character Through the Lens of Charades?

Detailed hand motions play an important role in face-to-face communication to emphasize points, describe objects, clarify concepts, or replace words altogether. While shared virtual reality (VR) spaces are becoming more popular, these spaces do not, in most cases, capture and display accurate hand motions. In this article, we investigate the consequences of such errors in hand and finger motions on comprehension, character perception, social presence, and user comfort. We conduct three perceptual experiments where participants guess words and movie titles based on motion captured movements. We introduce errors and alterations to the hand movements and apply techniques to synthesize or correct hand motions. We collect data from more than 1000 Amazon Mechanical Turk participants in two large experiments, and conduct a third experiment in VR. As results might differ depending on the virtual character used, we investigate all effects on two virtual characters of different levels of realism. We furthermore investigate the effects of clip length in our experiments. Amongst other results, we show that the absence of finger motion significantly reduces comprehension and negatively affects people’s perception of a virtual character and their social presence. Adding some hand motions, even random ones, does attenuate some of these effects when it comes to the perception of the virtual character or social presence, but it does not necessarily improve comprehension. Slightly inaccurate or erroneous hand motions are sufficient to achieve the same level of comprehension as with accurate hand motions. They might however still affect the viewers’ impression of a character. Finally, jittering hand motions should be avoided as they significantly decrease user comfort.

A metaverse-oriented CP-ABE scheme with cryptographic reverse firewall

Metaverse is an immersive, hyperspace virtual reality space. Due to its characteristics of hyperspace and immersive realism, metaverse has a bright future, but ubiquitous user analysis and calculation make it difficult to achieve one-to-multiple data sharing. As an innovative encryption algorithm, ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) can realize one-to-multiple secure file sharing through fine-grained access control. Many evidences show that attackers may add backdoors to internal devices to make encryption algorithms insecure, CP-ABE also faces the above threats. In order to deal with such attacks, researchers put forward the notion of cryptographic reverse firewall (CRF), which has the ability of resistance to insider attack. However, the existing ABE scheme supporting CRF have the problems of low efficiency and no support for malicious user tracking. To improve safety and efficiency, we constructed an efficient CP-ABE scheme supporting CRF protection which has function of outsourcing decryption, offline encryption and black-box tracking.

Metaverse platform ecosystems

Traditionally, the metaverse has been defined as a virtual reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users. Nowadays, it is much more than that—the metaverse can be described as a variety of digital platforms and ecosystems, with each ecosystem as an independent universe with its own material, complementors, and functionalities. Creating metaverse ecosystems and integrated platforms results in different roles and responsibilities for complementors, consumers, platform owners, and orchestrators. The term metaverse platforms is further structured and clarified by four perspectives: innovation, production, transaction, and social interaction. Consequently, this fundamental paper defines it as: “A Metaverse is a massively scaled and interoperable meta-ecosystem of other digital ecosystems of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds which can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an unlimited number of complementors and consumers with an increased user experience caused by a creativity-guided co-creation of goods managed by orchestrators and supported by platform owners.” Consequently, the metaverse offers vast opportunities for digital innovations beyond traditional social media or computer games and creates new infrastructures for add-on innovations in all areas of the digital economy.

Virtual Reality System for Monte Carlo Transport Simulation Codes Using Web Technology and Commodity Devices

A virtual reality (VR) system for Monte Carlo (MC) transport simulation codes, MCNP and Particle and Heavy Ion Transport Code System (PHITS), was developed. This system is aimed to provide a more reliable confirmation of the simulation geometry through an intuitive user interface. The VR system is implemented by extending the Geometry and CROSS Section VIEWer (Gxsview) code to run in a JavaScript environment, and it takes advantage of web technology and does not require dedicated hardware or geometry information supplied by computer-aided design software. Therefore, only WebXR-compatible head-mounted displays and browsers are required on the user side. In the VR space, visualization of the calculation geometry, cell selection, and cell grabbing operations is possible with a handheld controller. Further enhancements will be made in the future, such as performing shielding calculations with the cell changed by grabbing operations.

MINDFUL SPACE IN SENTENCES - A DATASET OF VIRTUAL EMOTIONS FOR NATURAL LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATION

Spatial emotions have played a critical role in visual-spatial environmental assessment, which can be assessed using bio-sensors and language description. However, information on virtual spatial emotion assessment with objective emotion labels and natural language processing (NLP) is insufficient in literature. Thus, designers’ ability to assess spatial design quantitatively and cost effectively is limited before the design is finalized. This research measures the emotions expressed using electroencephalograms (EEGs) and descriptions in virtual reality (VR) spaces with different parameters. First, 26 subjects experienced 10 designed virtual spaces with a VR headset (Quest 2 device) corresponding to the different space parameters of shape, height, width, and length. Simultaneously, the EEG measured the emotions of the subjects using four electrodes and the five brain waves. Second, two labels – calm and active – were produced using EEGs to describe these virtual reality spaces. Last, this labeled emotion dataset compared the differences among the virtual spaces, human feelings, and the language description of the participants in the VR spatial experience. Experimental results show that the parameter changes of VR spaces can arouse significant fluctuations in the five brain waves. The EEG brain wave signals, in turn, can label the virtual rooms with calm and active emotions. Specifically, in terms of VR spaces and emotions, the experiments find that more relative spatial height results in less active emotions, while round spaces arouse calmness in the human brain waves. Moreover, the precise connection among VR spaces, brain waves in emotion, and languages still needs further research. This research attempts to offer a useful emotion measurement tool in virtual architectural design and description using EEGs. This research identifies potentials for future applications combining physiological metrics and AI methods, i.e., machine learning for synthetic design generation and evaluation.

Reliability of distance estimation in virtual reality space: A quantitative approach for construction management

This paper reports a study aimed at assessing the reliability of decision-making for construction management based on visual observation of the built environment in virtual reality. The focus of this study is on egocentric distance perception, a critical factor in construction management decisions based on visual observation. The study evaluates the accuracy of distance estimation and walking a target distance in virtual reality, as compared to the real world, through experiments. The experimental results demonstrate that participants consistently underestimate distance and walk beyond the target distance. Notably, in virtual reality, they underestimated the distance by 22% more than they did in the real world, and they overwalked 53% more than they did in the real world. These findings offer valuable insights for construction managers reviewing digital twin models in virtual reality to make informed decisions. Furthermore, this study lays a foundation for future research on the reliability of understanding space occupancy in virtual reality.

Exploring the Potential of EEG for Real-Time Interactions in Immersive Virtual Reality

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can use data from non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG) to transform different brain signals into binary code, often aiming to gain control utility of an end-effector (e.g mouse cursor). In the past several years, advances in wearable and immersive technologies have made it possible to integrate EEG with virtual reality (VR) headsets. These advances have enabled a new generation of user studies that help researchers improve understanding of various issues in current VR design (e.g. cybersickness and locomotion). The main challenge for integrating EEG-based BCIs into VR environments is to develop communication architectures that deliver robust, reliable and lossless data flows. Furthermore, user comfort and near real-time interactivity create additional challenges. We conducted two experiments in which a consumer-grade EEG headband (Muse2) was utilized to assess the feasibility of an EEG-based BCI in virtual environments. We first conducted a pilot experiment that consisted of a simple task of object re-scaling inside the VR space using focus values generated from the user’s EEG. The subsequent study experiment consisted of two groups (control and experimental) performing two tasks: telekinesis and teleportation. Our user research study shows the viability of EEG for real-time interactions in non-serious applications such as games. We further suggest that a simplified way of calculating the mean EEG values is adequate for this type of use. We , in addition, discuss the findings to help improve the design of user research studies that deploy similar EEG-based BCIs in VR environments.

Development of Virtual Reality Walking Collision Detection Test on Head-mounted display.

Detecting and avoiding collisions during walking is critical for safe mobility. To determine the effectiveness of clinical interventions, a realistic objective outcome measure is needed. A real-world obstacle course with moving hazards has numerous limitations (e.g., safety concerns of physical collision, inability to control events, maintaining event consistency, and event randomization). Virtual reality (VR) platforms may overcome such limitations. We developed a VR walking collision detection test using a standalone head-mounted display (HMD, Meta Quest 2) with the Unity 3D engine to enable subjects' physical walking within a VR environment (i.e., a busy shopping mall). The performance measures focus on the detection and avoidance of potential collisions, where a pedestrian may (or may not) walks toward a collision with the subject, while various non-colliding pedestrians are presented simultaneously. The physical space required for the system was minimized. During the development, we addressed expected and unexpected hurdles, such as mismatch of visual perception of VR space, limited field of view (FOV) afforded by the HMD, design of pedestrian paths, design of the subject task, handling of subject's response (detection or avoidance behavior), use of mixed reality (MR) for walking path calibration. We report the initial implementation of the HMD VR walking collision detection and avoidance scenarios that showed promising potential as clinical outcome measures.

A novel MR remote collaboration system using 3D spatial area cue and visual notification

In remote collaboration for emergency maintenance or training, since local workers may lack relevant experience and knowledge, it is very important to support remote experts to annotate 3D spatial areas for local workers in their workspace, such as risky spatial areas that need to be avoided for safe operation when assembling replacement parts. Recently, many researchers have studied various visual communication cues for expressing spatial information in Mixed Reality (MR) remote collaboration systems for physical tasks. However, the expression and transmission of 3D spatial area information have not been well explored, especially in tasks that need to annotate specific spatial areas in 3D space (such as risky 3D spatial areas). In the study, we developed a novel MR remote collaboration system that supports remote experts using 3D spatial area cues and visual notification to create Augmented Reality (AR) instructions for local workers on the shared 3D stereoscopic scene of the local workspace in the Virtual Reality (VR) space. We performed a user study to explore the effect of three interfaces on remote collaborative physical assembly tasks in the workspace with risky 3D spatial areas: 3D sketch cue (3DS) which is the baseline solution, 3D sketch cue combines the novel 3D spatial area cue (3DSA), and 3D sketch cue combines 3D spatial area cue and visual notification (3DSAN). We found the 3DSAN can significantly improve collaboration efficiency, reduce operation errors, and improve the usability and collaboration experience (especially the level of awareness), among industrial remote collaborative physical tasks requiring 3D spatial area reference.

Development of a Bimanual Wearable Force Feedback Device with Pneumatic Artificial Muscles, MR Fluid Brakes, and Sensibility Evaluation Based on Pushing Motion

In a virtual reality (VR) space, wearing a head-mounted display can help with the visualization of objects; however, users cannot experience realistic tactile sensations. Recently, several force feedback devices have been developed, including wearable devices that use straight-fiber-type pneumatic muscles and magnetorheological fluids. This allows the devices to render elastic, frictional, and viscous forces during spatially unrestricted movement. Nevertheless, a problem remains in that previous devices could handle many bilateral upper limb movement tasks. Therefore, this study aims to develop a device that can handle movements that interact with both arms. Based on experiments concerning the pushing motion in a VR space, the influence of the pseudo force sense was determined to not be small. In addition, we confirmed that the force sensation presented by this system was more realistic when the robot was operated with both arms than when operated with the right arm.

Descriptive Markers for the Cognitive Profiling of Desktop 3D Spaces

3D virtual reality spaces, whether running on desktop environments or on immersive displays, have been noted to support a radically new and highly stimulating way of working with digital content in a variety of application domains. At the same time, research in recent decades has produced a number of experimental results showing that the use of 3D, as opposed to 2D interfaces, can lead to performance improvements from a wide range of aspects, including the ability to comprehend and retain knowledge, ability to work collaboratively in more creative and effective ways, and ability to carry out workflows integrating numerous sources of information in less time. In this paper, we first review the relevant literature; then, we describe an exploratory study that we carried out with test subjects, both in a 3D desktop virtual environment and in a 2D web-based environment, while collecting eye tracking data. In the study, subjects were presented with a set of multimedia content on a range of topics within the field of astronomy, based on which they were subsequently asked to fill out a set of questionnaires. By comparing the 2D and 3D cases in terms of correctness of answers, time taken to perform the task, pupil dilation measurements, subjects’ self-reported difficulty assessments, as well as various kinds of high-level interaction patterns employed during the task (in 3D), we were able to identify a set of descriptive markers which may be relevant to the prediction of users’ effectiveness in virtual reality workspaces. In a weaker sense, the results also seem to support previous research works claiming improved effectiveness in 3D spaces compared to 2D web-based interfaces, although further work is needed to more clearly identify the constraints within which such benefits can be guaranteed.

Development of a Training Simulator for Caregivers' Toothbrushing Skill Using Virtual Reality

Oral care is key to maintaining overall health. Elderly people and people with disabilities who require nursing care can have difficulty in brushing their teeth effectively and may require the assistance of a caregiver. However, to date, an effective method for teaching toothbrushing skills to caregivers and a training system that can be implemented in a non-in-person setting have not been established. Therefore, in this study, we developed a training simulator that enables skill acquisition while learning ideal brushing motion and force information from an arbitrary viewpoint in a virtual reality (VR) space. In this simulator, the position and orientation of the toothbrush as measured by six infrared cameras and the brushing force as measured by a small 6-axis force sensor are displayed in a VR space using computer graphics to match the visual information in the VR space with hand-force information in real space. The experiment was conducted in 10 healthy adults with no specialized skills or knowledge regarding oral care. They were trained to brush the cervical and distal parts of the maxillary central incisors while learning the ideal brushing motion shown by the computer graphics and the appropriate range of brushing force. Afterwards, skills were quantified in terms of brushing motion, brushing force, and plaque removal rate, and the overall effectiveness of the training was evaluated. The results showed that in cervical part brushing, the mean error between the participants' brushing motion and the ideal brushing motion in the brushing direction improved from approximately 4.8 mm before training to 3.9 mm after training. In distal part brushing, the error improved from approximately 3.8 mm to 1.9 mm. Similarly, brushing force improved from approximately 0.8 N before training to the appropriate force of 1.5 N after training for both cervical and distal part brushing. The artificial plaque removal rate improved from 40.3% to 68.7% for cervical part brushing and from 39.5% to 63.3% for distal part brushing, indicating the effectiveness of training using the proposed system. This simulator, which can simultaneously teach both brushing motion and brushing force, is expected to be developed as a new method for teaching toothbrushing skills to caregivers.

An Intelligent Virtual Environment for Designers with Reduced Motor Abilities

Conventional CAD modelling software demands substantial utilisation of input modalities like the keyboard and mouse for creating 3-dimensional (3D) models. The dexterity measures involved in controlling input modalities could pose challenges to users with motor disabilities—including the inability to move their limbs, particularly their upper and lower arms, and fingers, due to traumatic damage or congenital problems. In order to meet these challenges, this paper proposes a virtual reality (VR)-based medium to help users with motor disabilities build simple 3D models for architectural design. The concept of operating buttons using head-gaze in the VR environment has been utilised to perform scaling—a 3D object manipulation method—to create simplified building models. Moreover, navigation in the VR space using tilting of the head has been employed with the user seated on a revolving chair, thus eliminating the need for any limbic movement. Unity game engine was used to develop two variations of the VR model with a different button layout for creating simple cuboidal volumes mimicking buildings in the virtual environment. Both variations have been tested with 32 individuals against a specific performance indicator (i.e., task completion time) and self-reported metrics, such as the perception of effort applied and degree of visual clutter, followed by retrospective participant feedback sessions. One of the VR application's variants (i.e., variant 1) produced promising results regarding overall usability and effort demand. This paper also proposes a methodological framework for an AI-based, intelligent, and adaptive VR application interface that caters to the user's abilities and pain points in real-time. In the future, this framework could be instrumental in creating a comprehensive gaze-based VR tool for 3D modelling having multiple functions to help users with motor disabilities.

Effects of core body temperature and room temperature on aggressive behavior toward male characters An experiment using virtual reality spaces

Effects of core body temperature and room temperature on aggressive behavior toward male characters An experiment using virtual reality spaces

Christian Education in the Metaverse

The metaverse, an immersive virtual reality space where users interact with other users, has become a legitimate consideration for organizations as they strategize for the long term. Education is one industry, among many others, which has joined the metaverse with the hope of engaging students in a new way. Given the reach of the metaverse, Christian education and other faith-based educational institutions have the opportunity to interact and learn in a new way on a global scale. The purpose of this reflection is to offer a starting point for Christian educators and organizations to discuss this new endeavour of the future of education.

Cognitive Aspects of 2D Content Integration and Management in 3D Virtual Reality Spaces

The advent of 2D graphical user interfaces in the 1980s shifted user interactions from line-based terminals to icon-based interfaces. As smartphones emerged in the 2010s, portable 2D graphical interfaces became a reality, liberating users from being confined to a single location when accessing digital services. These transformations have profoundly altered our understanding of digital information systems, with impacts that cannot be easily quantified. Current advancements in virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) are on the verge of ushering in the next significant leap in cognitive expansion, introducing portable and highly contextual spatial interfaces, also sometimes referred to as Digital Realities (DRs). As a result, users now anticipate the ability to engage with an increasing array and variety of digital content in ways that are more contextualized and tailored to their needs, taking into account factors such as time, location, personalized goals and user-specific histories. In this paper, we aim to give an overview of cognitive aspects relevant to content integration and management specifically in DR environments, and to propose solutions and / or best practices to address them. Our discussion is centered around a paradigm called the Doing When-Seeing (DWS) paradigm, which we propose for the design of Digital Reality interfaces. We demonstrate the applicability of this paradigm to the design of interfaces for creating content, organizing content, and semantically representing and retreiving content within 3D Digital Reality environments.

A Comprehensive Study Of Metaverse Privacy And Security

The concept of the metaverse has been evolving over time, and it does not have a specific launch date. The term "metaverse" was popularized by Neal Stephenson in his science fiction novel "Snow Crash," published in 1992. The term "metaverse" refers to a virtual reality space or a collective virtual shared space where people can interact with a computer-generated environment and with each other in real-time. It is often described as a digital universe that encompasses various interconnected virtual worlds, augmented reality, and virtual reality experiences. Metaverse privacy refers to the protection of personal information and the preservation of individual privacy within the metaverse or virtual reality environments. As the metaverse becomes more prevalent and people engage in immersive digital experiences, it raises concerns about the collection, use, and sharing of personal data, as well as the potential for privacy breaches and surveillance. In this case study we try to resolve why the security landscape will continually change, and new threats and challenges may emerge.