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Walking in place using the Microsoft Kinect to explore a large VE

Published:30 November 2014Publication History

ABSTRACT

In this work, we present a simple method of "walking in place" (WIP) using the Microsoft Kinect to explore a virtual environment (VE) with a head-mounted display (HMD). Other studies have shown that WIP to explore a VE is equivalent to normal walking in terms of spatial orientation. This suggests that WIP is a promising way to explore a large VE. The Microsoft Kinect sensor is a great tool for implementing WIP because it enables real time skeletal tracking and is relatively inexpensive (110 USD). However, the skeletal information obtained from Kinect sensors can be noisy. Thus, this research discusses how we combined the data from two Kinects to implement a robust WIP algorithm. We evaluate our algorithm and directly compare it to joystick navigation of a large VE. We also explore the possibility of scaling the gain of WIP so that one WIP step forward carries the user two steps forward in virtual space.

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    • Published in

      cover image ACM Conferences
      VRCAI '14: Proceedings of the 13th ACM SIGGRAPH International Conference on Virtual-Reality Continuum and its Applications in Industry
      November 2014
      246 pages
      ISBN:9781450332545
      DOI:10.1145/2670473

      Copyright © 2014 ACM

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      Publication History

      • Published: 30 November 2014

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