Retargeted Self-Haptics for Increased Immersion in VR without Instrumentation
Today’s consumer virtual reality (VR) systems offer immersive graphics and audio, but haptic feedback is rudimentary – deliv- ered through controllers with vibration feedback or is non-existent (i.e., the hands operating freely in the air). In this paper, we ex- plore an alternative, highly mobile and controller-free approach to haptics, where VR applications utilize the user’s own body to provide physical feedback. To achieve this, we warp (retarget) the locations of a user’s hands such that one hand serves as a physical surface or prop for the other hand. For example, a hand holding a virtual nail can serve as a physical backstop for a hand that is virtually hammering, providing a sense of impact in an air-borne and uninstrumented experience. To illustrate this rich design space, we implemented twelve interactive demos across three haptic cate- gories. We conclude with a user study from which we draw design recommendations.
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Reference
Cathy Mengying Fang, Chris Harrison. 2021. Retargeted Self-Haptics for Increased Immersion in VR without Instrumentation. In Proceedings of the 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (October 10 - 13, 2021). UIST '21. ACM, New York, NY. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3472749.3474810