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    A Study of the User Experience of Redirected Walking in Small Tracking Spaces


    Krueger, Linda (2025) A Study of the User Experience of Redirected Walking in Small Tracking Spaces. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.

    Abstract

    In Virtual Reality, real walking is a natural and intuitive form of navigation. With real walking the user physically walks to move in a virtual environment. However, with real walking the size of the physical space needs to match the virtual space. This is rarely feasible, especially for large virtual worlds. Redirected Walking seeks to solve this problem by decoupling the mapping between the virtual trajectory of the user and their physical movement. There are two broad categories of redirected walking. Gain manipulation changes how the user’s viewpoint is moved. For example, the user might turn at a different rate in the virtual environment than they are physically turning. This is called rotation gain. Environment manipulation changes the virtual environment itself - for example an expanding room. This work aims to reduce the amount of physical space required for redirected walking while balancing the impact of redirected walking on user experience. The first part of this work looks at the performance of existing generalised redirected walking methods in a small tracking space. It was found that these existing methods have limited use in such small tracking spaces at levels that are comfortable for users. Next we look at the turning accuracy of users with larger rotation gain. We found, for example, at higher rotation gain levels users turned more than expected and the visual detail of the virtual environment impacted their turning accuracy. Finally, based on these findings, a new method of virtual rotation is created: Segment Addition. With Segment Addition the virtual environment expands and contracts around the user so they must turn further or shorter to reach their goal. It is an example of an environmental manipulation method. A user study using Segment Addition found the environment natural and comfortable for users even when large changes were made to the virtual environment. This demonstrates Segment Addition as a promising new technique for redirecting users in small tracking spaces.
    Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
    Keywords: User Experience; Redirected Walking; Small Tracking Spaces;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering > Computer Science
    Item ID: 20669
    Depositing User: IR eTheses
    Date Deposited: 10 Oct 2025 13:02
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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