Heritage Move. A Natural and Lightweight Navigation Schema for Low-Cost, Non-Stationary Immersive Virtual Environments

Abstract

Experiencing 3D models of historical reconstructions and places is still an active issue considering the wide variety of displaying and interaction devices for immersive Virtual Reality. Moreover, as standards are missing, the sheer endless possibilities to map e.g. gestural input and other input reads to particular needs in navigation and selection, leave an open field of finding the right balance between functionality, usability (especially in an exhibition context), and user experience. In our paper we focus on creating a low-cost, fully immersive and nonstationary Virtual Reality setup, based on novel HMD and sensing devices that allow users to intuitively experience such virtual environments. Our approach enables users to freely walk around inside the virtual space, while keeping them physically inside a limited interaction and sensing space. Our contribution addresses challenges of balancing between system mobility and tracking, freedom of interaction, limited physical spaces and immersion. The goal is to keep position and interaction tracking and display technologies economically and technically affordable for the use in the museum context.