Exploring Three-Dimensional Locomotion Techniques in Virtual Reality.

Most existing Virtual Reality (VR) locomotion interfaces are designed for ground-based locomotion, limiting the degrees of freedom (DoF) during movement as they would in the real world. However, an optimized three-dimensional travel technique is required for certain virtual scenes such as flying and diving. This study evaluated three different interface types: Slider, Teleport, and Point-Tug, that were created based on existing ground-based locomotion methods in order to investigate the features required for three-dimensional (3D) movement. We conducted a within-subjects study with 3D navigation tasks and evaluated the performance when navigating a virtual environment using three different 3D locomotion interfaces. The results show that Slider, which allows users to move continuously, has an advantage over the others, and interfaces such as teleportation, which are widely used in ground-based locomotion, are likely to be perceived differently in 3D locomotion.