Error Correction in Redirection: Rotational Manipulation for Natural Walking and Control of Walking Paths

Abstract

This study proposes a novel rotational manipulation method for redirection when users attempt to turn around a corner within a virtual environment. The basic manipulation of conventional redirection can be classified into translational, rotational, and curvature manipulations. In conventional rotational manipulation, users must stop and rotate. However, this behavior is not natural in everyday walking. In addition, because the manipulated rotation varies depending on the amount of the user's rotation, this manipulated rotation could differ from the assumed rotation if the user does not rotate by the assumed angle during this manipulation. Correspondingly, the actual walking path may deviate from the planned path. Misalignment of the walking path may cause a deviation in the interaction with an object in real space, thus resulting in collision with real-space objects and other users. We devised a basic manipulation of redirection and formulated a novel method for manipulating the amount of rotation when users rotate while moving. Using this method, we changed the axis of rotational manipulation for preventing mismatches between real and virtual environments, and set an area to correct the error in rotational manipulation. The results of our experiments demonstrated that it is possible to control the walking paths and manipulate the amount of rotation during movement without changing the amount of rotation perceived by users, and without increasing discomfort. The results demonstrated that our method is useful for manipulating the viewpoint when a user walks naturally.