Virtual Reality Navigation Research Project
people: Calinikos Price | SaumyaPuruBakshi | Aaron Gabryluk | Dr. Scott Moffat | Dr.Bruce Walker
The VR Navigation Project aimed to enhance a virtual environment’s fidelity and conduct a laboratory study comparing various locomotion methods—desktop setup, VR headset, and OMNI treadmill. The project sought to understand how different movement methods affect a person’s directional sense and spatial memory in VR compared to real-world navigation. Key objectives included constructing and refining the virtual environment, implementing training and assessment tasks, and evaluating the spatial memory and navigational abilities of participants across different modalities.
The New Town virtual environment was improved with additional roads, distinct buildings, large skyscrapers, and mountains to make it more navigable and support spatial memory assessments. Enhancing the environment’s fidelity involved adding textures, buildings, and lighting using Unity store assets. The project incorporated several tasks: the Relative Spatial Memory Task, where participants navigated New Town and pointed to buildings from various teleportation points; the Exploratory Task, which initially used glowing orbs, later replaced by arrows to focus on surroundings; the Training Task, featuring a river path and fences to keep participants on track and record deviations; and the Placement Task, requiring participants to place buildings on a bird’s eye view map of New Town.
Spatial Memory and Exploratory Tasks
The Relative Spatial Memory Task required participants to navigate New Town and point to buildings from various teleportation points, using a visual UI prompt display. Feedback led to iterations in the task design, eventually standardizing the pointing task in desktop mode to ensure controlled conditions. An Exploratory Task was also created, where participants followed a path marked initially by glowing orbs, later replaced by arrows to shift focus to surroundings rather than the path itself. The use of a compass was eventually discarded as it became redundant with the introduction of arrows. These changes aimed to balance the exploration experience across different modalities, such as the OMNI treadmill and desktop computer, standardizing speed to ensure fairness.
Training and Placement Tasks
A Training Task was implemented to help participants acclimate to their respective modalities, using a pre-existing Unity scene featuring a river path up to a mountain. Participants’ deviations from the path were tracked using a bump counter, ensuring they remained on course and providing immediate feedback on their training performance. The final Placement Task involved participants placing buildings on a bird’s eye view map of New Town, relying on both relative and large-scale spatial memory. Participants could adjust placements before confirming their final selection. Earlier iterations of the Placement Task, involving a building construction kit and tabletop setup, were deemed impractical due to visibility issues and were replaced with a more user-friendly interface. The iterative design approach allowed continuous refinement based on feedback, improving user experience and reducing errors.
