Automatic Data Acquisition and Visualization for Usability Evaluation of Virtual Reality Systems

Abstract

Evaluating the usability of a Virtual Reality system is a common practice nowadays. However, gathering and analyzing the necessary data are time-consuming tasks and sometimes involve inconvenient changes to the system. The VR-based safety training system SAVE suffered from this problem. Therefore, independent modules have been developed to acquire and visualize usability relevant data to allow extensive evaluation sessions to be performed efficiently. Interaction and simulation data is acquired automatically and joined with external physiological data to be visualized inside a complete 3D representation of the training scenario. Visualizations can be performed in real-time while acquiring the data during a session, or from recorded data after the session has been completed. Because the visualization is coupled with a VR authoring tool, it is also possible to analyze the usability of a VR scenario and perform changes instantly.