Exploring Impossible Spaces: Practical Illusions in Virtual Reality

Speaker
Evan Suma
Post Doctoral Research Associate, The Institute for Creative Technologies, University of Southern California

When
-

Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)

Video
Video link

Description

Providing natural locomotion is one of the fundamental challenges for immersive virtual environments. Numerous studies have shown that when using head-mounted displays, it is beneficial to support the same body motions and energy expenditure as real world movement. However, virtual locomotion techniques, such as joystick-based control mechanisms, are more commonly employed because real walking is impractical for setups with limited physical workspace. In this talk, I will describe experiments with “impossible spaces”—environments that leverage perceptual illusions to relax the physical space constraints when walking naturally through the virtual world. Results have shown that these illusions can successfully fool the senses into believing that an expansive virtual environment is being experienced, despite taking place in a considerably smaller physical workspace.

Speaker's Bio

I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, under the supervision of Mark Bolas. I received my Ph.D. in 2010 from the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. My dissertation, completed under the supervision of Larry F. Hodges, was entitled “Experimental Evaluation of the Cognitive Effects of Travel Technique in Immersive Virtual Environments.” I received my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Ithaca College in 2005, where I worked on various virtual reality research projects under the supervision of Sharon Stansfield.

My research interests broadly include interaction and perception in immersive virtual environments and 3D user interfaces. In particular, I am concerned with the use of perceptual illusions that enable real walking through virtual environments that are larger than the available physical tracking space, commonly known as redirection. Recently, I’ve also begun exploring full-body interaction for virtual environment and serious game-based applications such as motor rehabilitation.

Speaker's Website
http://people.ict.usc.edu/~suma/

Host
Haakon Faste