Travel in immersive virtual environments: An evaluation of viewpoint motion control techniques

We present a categorization of techniques for first-person motion control, or travel, through immersive virtual environments, as well as a framework for evaluating the quality of different techniques for specific virtual environment tasks. We conduct three quantitative experiments within this framework: a comparison of different techniques for moving directly to a target object varying in size and distance, a comparison of different techniques for moving relative to a reference object, and a comparison of different motion techniques and their resulting sense of ''disorienration'' in the user. Results indicate that ''painting'' techniques are advantageous relative to ''gaze-directed'' steering techniques for a relative motion task, and that motion techniques which instantly teleport users to new locations are correlated with increased user disorientation.