Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 11
Stepping-Driven Locomotion Interfaces
Mary C. Whitton and Tabitha C. Peck
Abstract Walking-in-place and real-walking locomotion interfaces for virtual
environment systems are interfaces that are driven by the user's actual stepping
motions and do not include treadmills or other mechanical devices. While both
walking-in-place and real-walking interfaces compute the user's speed and direc-
tion and convert those values into viewpoint movement between frames, they differ
in how they enable the user to move to any distant location in very large virtual
scenes. Walking-in-place constrains the user's actual movement to a small area and
translates stepping-in-place motions into viewpoint movement. Real-walking applies
one of several techniques to transform the virtual scene so that the user's physical
path stays within the available laboratory space. This chapter discusses implementa-
tions of these two types of interfaces with particular regard to how walking-in-place
interfaces generate smooth motion and how real-walking interfaces modify the user's
view of the scene so deviations from her real motion are less detectable.
11.1 Designing Stepping-Driven Locomotion for Virtual
Environment Systems
Arguably, the locomotion interfaces for Immersive Virtual Environment (IVE) sys-
tems that are most natural are those that employ a steppingmetaphor, i.e., they require
that users repeatedly move their feet up and down, just as if walking in the real world.
( B )
Department of Computer Science, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
Chapel Hill, NC, USA
e-mail: whitton@cs.unc.edu
T. C. Peck
Event Lab, Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona,
Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: tabitha.peck@gmail.com
M. C. Whitton
 
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