UIST2018 ShareSpace: Facilitating Shared Use of the Physical Space by both VR Head-Mounted Display

目录

ABSTRACT

Key Points

Results

CONCLUSION

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ABSTRACT
 

Currently, “walkable” virtual reality (VR) is achieved by dedicating a room-sized space for VR activities, which is not
shared with non-HMD users engaged in their own activities.
To achieve the goal of allowing shared use of space for all users
while overcoming the obvious difficulty of integrating use with
those immersed in a VR experience, we present ShareSpace, a
system that allows external users to communicate their needs
for physical space to those wearing an HMD and immersed in
their VR experience. ShareSpace works by allowing external
users to place “shields” in the virtual environment by using
a set of physical shield tools. A pad visualizer helps this process by allowing external users to examine the arrangement
of virtual shields. We also discuss interaction techniques that
minimize the interference between the respective activities of
the HMD wearers and the other users of the same physical
space. To evaluate our design, a user study was conducted to
collect user feedback from participants in four trial scenarios.
The results indicate that our ShareSpace system allows users to
perform their respective activities with improved engagement
and safety. In addition, this study shows that while the HMD
users did perceive a considerable degree of interference due
to the internal visual indications from the ShareSpace system,
they were still more engaged in their VR experience than when
interrupted by direct external physical interference initiated by
external users.
 

Key Points

ShareSpace’s main contribution, along with our interaction
designs as a proof-of-concept, is the concept of allowing a
VR zone that accommodates both HMD and external users
engaged in their own respective activities. We believe this
is an important concern to increase installation rate of VR
systems in average homes as well as to improve the overall
safety and comfort in use of all users.
 

After each session, the participants completed a corresponding questionnaire about the experience of their role playing,
consisting of three statements for rated agreement in regard to
the Safety, Engagement and Interruption dimension, namely:
“I feel safe during the activity of the task.”;, “I can concentrate
on the activity of the task.”; and “The activity of the task was
not interrupted b VR/external user’s activity.” in continuous
7-point Likert Scale (1: not agree, 7: very agree). After all sessions, an interview was conducted to gather further feedback.
The study took on average 1.5 h per pair of participants.

Results

 

CONCLUSION

We have presented our ShareSpace system, a means to enable
external users the capability to negotiate space with HMD
users, with the goal to accommodate their respective activities in the same physical space while avoiding direct communications as long as possible, so that their engagement in
respective activities is protected. To this purpose, we have
presented shield tools, a pad visualizer and related interaction
techniques, which are herein evaluated via a user study of four
trial scenarios. The results demonstrate enhancement of safety
and engagement for respective activities using the ShareSpace
system. Through our preliminary exploration and study, we
believe that ShareSpace is an effective way to facilitate mixed
activities in a VR room, but also that there are a number of
concerns that remain to be addressed requiring further study
regarding the handling of conflicts.