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

目前没有一种系统允许一个人自然地在大规模的虚拟环境中行走。这种运动接口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，自然行走提供了一种真实感水平，如果通过模拟世界的运动由操纵杆等设备控制，则无法获得，而对其他应用来说，逼真行走是基本要求。人们已经为各种计算机控制的设备制作了原型，人们可以在这些设备上行走，但对这些设备作为虚拟世界接口的效用的研究很少，几乎没有对这些设备中视觉和生物力学感知线索的相互作用进行研究。这个项目解决了关键的开放问题，如果运动界面要在用户和计算机模拟之间提供有效的交互，这些问题的答案是必要的。一个有效的运动界面必须为用户提供准确的行走视觉和生物力学感觉，因此，这项工作的一个关键目标是确定如何将计算机图形学产生的视觉信息与模拟真实表面行走的设备产生的生物力学信息协同结合。PI和他的合作者将研究允许在移动界面上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：如何促进对行进速度和距离的感知；如何在实际不可能沿着弯曲路径行走时提供令人信服的转折感；如何使用户感觉他/她正行走在倾斜的表面上；以及更一般地，如何使用户清楚地了解所走过的空间的规模和结构。PI在这些问题上的发现将在移动接口的可能方法的范围内具有相关性。

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. The PI 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 PI's findings on these issues will be relevant across the spectrum of possible approaches to locomotion interfaces.