. Two Virtual Environments based on the layout of a real room (middle): a medieval courtyard (left) and the bridge of a spaceship (right). In these Substitutional Environments, every physical object is paired, with some degree of discrepancy, to a contextually appropriate virtual object. Experiencing Virtual Reality in domestic and other uncon trolled settings is challenging due to the presence of physical objects and furniture that are not usually defined in the Virtual Environment. To address this challenge, we explore the con cept of Substitutional Reality in the context of Virtual Reality: a class of Virtual Environments where every physical object surrounding a user is paired, with some degree of discrep ancy, to a virtual counterpart. We present a model of poten tial substitutions and validate it in two user studies. In the first study we investigated factors that affect participants' suspen sion of disbelief and ease of use. We systematically altered the virtual representation of a physical object and recorded re sponses from 20 participants. The second study investigated users' levels of engagement as the physical proxy for a virtual object varied. From the results, we derive a set of guidelines for the design of future Substitutional Reality experiences.
In the context of Virtual Reality, Substitutional Reality refers to a class of Virtual Environments where every physical object surrounding the user has been paired to a virtual object, on the assumption that a mismatch exists between the two REF .
Substitutional Reality: Using the Physical Environment to Design Virtual Reality Experiences
Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Computer Science