ManiLoco: A VR-Based Locomotion Method for Concurrent Object Manipulation

The use of virtual reality (VR) in laboratory skill training is rapidly increasing. In such applications, users often need to explore a large virtual environment within a limited physical space while completing a series of hand-based tasks (e.g., object manipulation). However, the most widely used controller-based teleport methods may conflict with the users' hand operation and result in a higher cognitive load, negatively affecting their training experiences. To alleviate these limitations, we designed and implemented a locomotion method called ManiLoco to enable hands-free interaction and thus avoid conflicts and interruptions from other tasks. Users can teleport to a remote object's position by taking a step toward the object while looking at it. We evaluated ManiLoco and compared it with state-of-the-art Point & Teleport in a within-subject experiment with 16 participants. The results confirmed the viability of our foot- and head-based approach and better support concurrent object manipulation in VR training tasks. Furthermore, our locomotion method does not require any additional hardware. It solely relies on the VR head-mounted display (HMD) and our implementation of detecting the user's stepping activity, and it can be easily applied to any VR application as a plugin.