Locomotion in virtual reality for room scale tracked areas

Virtual reality (VR) is becoming a more popular and available technology, with the new generation systems and more content specifically developed for this medium. One of the crucial components of VR applications is locomotion, which is used for moving the viewpoint of user in virtual environments. Locomotion in VR is expected to have a direct effect on user experience in terms of effort, enjoyment, frustration, motion sickness and presence. To date, many locomotion techniques for VR have been studied. However, these techniques were primarily evaluated in large tracked areas (larger than 16 ft by 16 ft). On the contrary, emerging consumer VR systems typically track within smaller room scales. In this study, eight VR locomotion techniques were investigated in a room-scale tracked area (8 ft by 8 ft). These eight locomotion techniques are: redirected walking, walk-in-place, stepper machine, point & teleport, joystick, trackball, hand flapping and flying. A user study was performed with 15 participants. Results indicated that point & teleport, joystick and redirected walking were suitable VR locomotion techniques for room scale tracked areas whereas hand flapping and flying were not suitable.