Manual

This is a small tool that helps you to create virtual path layouts for curve-based redirected walking in virtual reality inside the unity3d editor. It is created by Eike Langbehn from the human-computer interaction group of Hamburg University and published under the MIT license.

Introduction

Redirected walking promises to allow near-natural walking in an infinitely large virtual environment by subtle manipulations of the virtual camera. With this tool, you are able to create a path layout for building a virtual environment that is much larger than the available physical tracking space.

This video might give you a first impression of this idea:

If you are interested in more details, you can checkout our research paper:

Bending the Curve: Sensitivity to Bending of Curved Paths and Application in Room-Scale VR Eike Langbehn, Paul Lubos, Gerd Bruder, Frank Steinicke. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), Special Issue on IEEE Virtual Reality (VR), page (accepted) - 2017

Requirements

To use this tool you need the following things:

• A HTC Vive
• A tracking space of at least 3m x 3m size
• The Unity3D game engine (is available for free)

Terms

There are a few terms you should understand while using the tool. This picture shows jointpoints and curves:

And this one shows additionally intersections and paths:

Jointpoint

• A jointpoint is the (real world) crossing of several curves.
• There are only three jointpoints in total.

Curve

• A curve is the (real world) connection between two jointpoints.
• There are only six curves in total.

Intersection

• An intersection is the (virtual world) crossing of several paths.
• Each intersection has one jointpoint as a real world counterpart.

Path

• A path is the (virtual world) connection between two intersections.
• Each path has one curve as a real world counterpart.

Setup

To setup the tool correctly follow these steps:

• Download or clone the repository from github
• Open the project inside Unity3D
• Go to the asset store (Window -> Asset Store), download the SteamVR package and import it to the project
• Open the Example scene
• Add the CameraRig prefab of the SteamVR package to the scene under the PositionOffset GameObject and remove the Camera GameObject that was there before
• Now, it should look like this:

That's it.

Usage

To create a virtual path layout follow these steps:

• Open the Path Generator Window (Window -> Path Generator)
• This will automatically create a data asset in Assets/Resources/data.asset to which the virtual path layout will be stored
• The path Generator Window itself should look like this:

• Mark the checkbox "Generate jointpoints automatically according to tracking space"
• Set the side length to the side length of your tracking space, e.g. 4m
• Click "Create curves"
• Now the scene view should look like this:

• Then, you can choose a start joint, e.g. "A"
• Finally, you can create virtual paths by choosing a start intersection, a corresponding curve, and a gain
• After creating a few paths, your scene view might look like this:

• Then, you can create the virtual environment around this path layout: trails, hallways, forests, houses, etc
• When you are done with that, it's time to try!
• Hit play
• Position yourself at the start joint (in the real world)
• Put on the Head-Mounted Display
• Hit 'space' or 'trigger' when you're ready
• Start walking around!