ITR/SY: Collaborative/RUI Research on the Perceptual Aspects of Locomotion Interfaces

这是一个标准的奖项，以三个机构之一，合作伙伴汤普森的项目（0121084）。 目前没有一个系统允许一个人自然地穿过大规模的虚拟环境。 这种运动界面的可用性将对广泛的应用产生影响，包括教育和培训、设计和原型制作、身体健康和康复;对于其中一些应用，自然行走提供了如果通过模拟世界的运动由诸如操纵杆的设备控制则无法获得的真实感水平，而对于其他应用，真实行走是基本要求。原型已经建立了各种计算机控制的设备上，一个人可以走，但一直很少调查的效用，这些设备作为接口的虚拟世界，几乎没有研究在所有的视觉和生物力学的感知线索在这些设备的相互作用。 该项目解决了关键的开放性问题，如果运动接口提供用户和计算机模拟之间的有效交互，则需要这些问题的答案。 一个有效的运动界面必须为用户提供准确的视觉和生物力学的步行感觉，因此，这项工作的一个关键目标是确定如何协同联合收割机产生的计算机图形与生物力学信息的设备，模拟行走在真实的表面上产生的视觉信息相结合。 汤普森和他的合作者将研究允许在运动界面中更准确地行走的方法，同时准确地传达正在走过的空间的感觉。 要考虑的具体问题包括如何促进对行进的速度和距离的感知，如何在实际沿着弯曲路径沿着行走是不可能的时提供令人信服的转向感，如何给予用户他/她正在倾斜表面上行走的感觉，以及更一般地，如何给予用户正在行走的空间的尺度和结构的清晰感觉。 该团队在这些问题上的发现将与运动界面的可能方法的范围相关。

This is a standard award to one of three institutions collaborating as partners on Thompson's project (0121084). No current system allows a person to naturally walk through a large-scale virtual environment. The availability of such a locomotion interface would have impacts on a broad range of applications, including education and training, design and prototyping, physical fitness, and rehabilitation; for some of these applications natural walking provides a level of realism not obtainable if movement through the simulated world is controlled by devices such as a joystick, while for others realistic walking is a fundamental requirement. Prototypes have been built for a variety of computer-controlled devices on which a person can walk, but there has been little investigation of the utility of such devices as interfaces to a virtual world and almost no study at all of the interactions of visual and biomechanical perceptual cues in such devices. This project addresses key open questions, the answers to which are needed if locomotion interfaces are to offer effective interaction between users and computer simulations. An effective locomotion interface must provide users with accurate visual and biomechanical sensations of walking; thus, a key objective of this work is to determine how to synergistically combine visual information generated by computer graphics with biomechanical information generated by devices that simulate walking on real surfaces. Thompson and his collaborators will investigates methods that allow more accurate walking in a locomotion interface while accurately conveying a sense of the spaces being walked through. Specific issues to be considered include how to facilitate the perception of speed and distance traveled, how to provide a compelling sense of turning when actual walking along a curved path is not possible, how to give a user the sense that he/she is walking over a sloped surface, and more generally how to give a user a clear sense of the scale and structure of the spaces being walked through. The team's findings on these issues will be relevant across the spectrum of possible approaches to locomotion interfaces.