Evaluation of a Low-Cost Virtual Reality Surround-Screen Projection System

Area of Science:

• Virtual Reality
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Computer Graphics

Background:

• Head-mounted displays (HMDs) are increasingly affordable and popular for virtual reality (VR).
• CAVE Automatic Virtual Environments (CAVEs) remain costly, limiting their accessibility to researchers.
• A need exists for cost-effective VR systems that offer comparable experiences to advanced setups.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a low-cost, CAVE-like monoscopic surround-screen projection system.
• To compare its objective and subjective characteristics against advanced VR systems and HMDs.
• To assess its viability for visual search tasks outside personal space.

Main Methods:

• Objective: Measured head position accuracy and precision of a low-cost infrared (IR) tracking system against a laboratory-grade system.
• Subjective: Assessed user sense of presence and cybersickness during a visual search task.
• Participants: Thirty individuals evaluated the low-cost CAVE-like system and a modern HMD.

Main Results:

• The low-cost tracking system demonstrated an accuracy error of 1.66 cm and precision jitter of 0.4 mm.
• Users reported a sense of presence, though lower than with HMDs.
• The system induced significantly less cybersickness compared to HMDs.

Conclusions:

• A low-cost VR surround-screen system can be a viable alternative to laboratory-grade CAVEs for specific tasks like visual search.
• The system provides a cost-effective solution for VR research, particularly for tasks where stereo vision is less critical.
• Further research can explore optimizing low-cost VR systems for broader applications.