Global Scene Filtering, Exploration, and Pointing in Occluded Virtual Space

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Abstract

Target acquisition in an occluded environment is challenging given the omni-directional and first-person view in virtual reality (VR). We propose Solar-Casting, a global scene filtering technique to manage occlusion in VR. To improve target search, users control a reference sphere centered at their head through varied occlusion management modes: Hide, SemiT (Semi-Transparent), Rotate. In a preliminary study, we find SemiT to be better suited for understanding the context without sacrificing performance by applying semi-transparency to targets within the controlled sphere. We then compare Solar-Casting to highly efficient selection techniques to acquire targets in a dense and occluded VR environment. We find that Solar-Casting performs competitively to other techniques in known environments, where the target location information is revealed. However, in unknown environments, requiring target search, Solar-Casting outperforms existing approaches. We conclude with scenarios demonstrating how Solar-Casting can be applied to crowded and occluded environments in VR applications.

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Publisher Link

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85607-6_11

Citation

Yuan Chen, Junwei Sun, Qiang Xu, Edward Lank, Pourang Irani, and Wei Li. "Global Scene Filtering, Exploration, and Pointing in Occluded Virtual Space." In IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, pp. 156-176. Springer, Cham, 2021.

Bibtext Entry

@InProceedings{10.1007/978-3-030-85607-6_11,
author="Chen, Yuan
and Sun, Junwei
and Xu, Qiang
and Lank, Edward
and Irani, Pourang
and Li, Wei",
editor="Ardito, Carmelo
and Lanzilotti, Rosa
and Malizia, Alessio
and Petrie, Helen
and Piccinno, Antonio
and Desolda, Giuseppe
and Inkpen, Kori",
title="Global Scene Filtering, Exploration, and Pointing in Occluded Virtual Space",
booktitle="Human-Computer-Interaction -- INTERACT 2021",
year="2021",
publisher="Springer International Publishing",
address="Cham",
pages="156--176",
abstract="Target acquisition in an occluded environment is challenging given the omni-directional and first-person view in virtual reality (VR). We propose Solar-Casting, a global scene filtering technique to manage occlusion in VR. To improve target search, users control a reference sphere centered at their head through varied occlusion management modes: Hide, SemiT (Semi-Transparent), Rotate. In a preliminary study, we find SemiT to be better suited for understanding the context without sacrificing performance by applying semi-transparency to targets within the controlled sphere. We then compare Solar-Casting to highly efficient selection techniques to acquire targets in a dense and occluded VR environment. We find that Solar-Casting performs competitively to other techniques in known environments, where the target location information is revealed. However, in unknown environments, requiring target search, Solar-Casting outperforms existing approaches. We conclude with scenarios demonstrating how Solar-Casting can be applied to crowded and occluded environments in VR applications.",
isbn="978-3-030-85607-6"
}