How Far is Too Far? The Trade-Off Between Selection Distance and Accuracy During Teleportation in Immersive Virtual...

Area of Science:

• Virtual Reality
• Human-Computer Interaction
• User Experience Design

Background:

• Target-selection-based teleportation is a key travel method in immersive virtual environments.
• Users specify destinations using a selection ray, impacting usability and immersion.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of parabolic selection ray's maximum reach on teleportation performance.
• To compare parabolic selection ray performance against a straight ray baseline.
• To determine optimal projectile emission velocity for VR teleportation.

Main Methods:

• A user study with 60 participants was conducted.
• Participants teleported as far as possible within accuracy constraints.
• Parabolic selection rays with varying emission velocities were tested against a straight ray.

Main Results:

• A projectile emission velocity of 14 m/s (21.52 m reach) provided the best balance of selection distance and accuracy.
• The parabolic ray with optimal velocity outperformed the straight ray.
• Projectile emission velocity significantly influenced user-selected distance, errors, and controller height.

Conclusions:

• The projectile motion equation's parameters, specifically emission velocity, are crucial for VR teleportation design.
• Optimal projectile emission velocity enhances VR navigation by improving distance and accuracy.
• Future research must report projectile emission velocity for reproducible and comparable VR teleportation studies.