The Power of Virtual Environments: Creating Comfort and Enjoyment through Technology

When we step into a virtual world, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of exploring new environments and experiencing things we never thought possible. But have you ever stopped to think about what it would be like to feel like "you" in that virtual space? To see yourself as others do, but with the freedom to choose how you want to experience it? This is a concept being explored by researchers and developers of virtual reality (VR) technology, who are working to create immersive experiences that go beyond just entertainment.

Imagine sitting in an airplane, feeling anxious about your height. As a 6-foot person, you're surrounded by other passengers who seem to shrink before your eyes. But what if you could choose to be anyone or anything you want? What if you wanted to feel the thrill of being young again, with the energy and vitality of youth coursing through your veins? This is the idea behind a new concept in VR technology: creating virtual environments that allow users to experience themselves in different forms. By using large mirrors and high-definition displays, researchers are trying to create a sense of self-awareness in the virtual world, where users can explore their own identity in ways they never thought possible.

One of the most exciting applications of this technology is the potential for it to help people with disabilities or phobias. Imagine being afraid of flying, and instead of facing your fears in real life, you could choose to experience the thrill of soaring through the skies as a bird in flight. Or picture yourself exploring the depths of space as an astronaut, without ever having to leave the comfort of your own home. This is the kind of freedom that VR technology offers, where users can create their own experiences and explore new worlds at will.

But creating these virtual environments isn't just about entertainment; it's also about making sure people are comfortable while they're using them. One of the biggest challenges in developing VR technology is motion sickness, which occurs when the body gets conflicting signals from the senses. This can happen when someone walks into a room and sees their reflection moving in a way that doesn't match up with what their body is feeling. It's like trying to navigate a obstacle course without knowing where you are or how to get out.

To overcome this challenge, researchers are working on developing new interfaces that allow users to move around in the virtual world in a way that feels natural and safe. One approach being explored is using tools that measure heart rate and body temperature to gauge the user's comfort level. If someone starts to feel sick or uncomfortable, the system can adjust its pace and movement to help them relax. Another technique involves "mismatching" the user's movements in a way that simulates real-life experiences, such as walking on uneven terrain or navigating through crowded spaces.

One of the most promising applications of this technology is in the field of entertainment. Imagine being able to experience your favorite video game or movie in a way that feels more immersive and interactive than ever before. Or picture yourself exploring exotic destinations like Tokyo or New York without ever leaving your home. The possibilities are endless, and researchers are working hard to make sure that these virtual environments are not only fun but also safe and comfortable for users.

The partnership between researchers and developers is key in creating a cohesive experience, which can be challenging. One of the partners at Barcelona Elena Koka does some really amazing work where the idea is is that you could maybe move really a lot in the virtual world but only in in reality moving like this right so that you could still move in your seat but you experience your virtual self as really moving like Superman right moving really fast through the space. This approach allows users to feel like they are moving in the virtual world without actually having to do it in real life.

Overall, the power of virtual environments lies in their ability to create new experiences and possibilities for us. Whether we're exploring new worlds or simply enjoying a more comfortable and immersive way to experience entertainment, VR technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we live and interact with each other.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso we're letting Mirabel see herself a virtual self that we can transform so we can transform it in its posture how relaxed it is you can see mirbel sitting up we could make it so that the legs are sticking out um we can transform it in its gender in how big it is and here at the max plank we do a lot of that so we study what it would be like to have a larger BMI or a smaller BMI so how do you experience the world if all of a sudden you look down and you've lost a few kilograms or pounds right Stones whatever you measure them in we can use Virtual Reality to make people see what it's like to be a different person but we can also do things that are really impossible so a lot of times what we do here is we transform the hand so that the hand is just a lot bigger and then we can understand the relationship between your own body size and the way you perceive the world around you but what Mirabel is experiencing is we're letting her look at herself in the face right so she can actually use this as a hand mirror this track object and look and see what her face looks like and that's really awesome because though headsets today are really impressive they have a little bit of a low field of view so if you look at a a girl in a mirror that's you know out to the distance that the mirror is here then you don't see the face so well but here she can bring the mirror right up to her face and she sees a really nice resolution Bas and this Avatar that she's seeing here is the average female from a database of a large number of humans that have been body scanned they've done that here in Germany as well as at the Brown University and they've taken really tens of thousands of people and done a 3D body scan um and then they do amazing research where they um can actually put them all into a registered scan so if they scanned me and you they would be able to understand exactly the shape difference that turns me into you right how to morph me into you and exactly what makes a person look male and what makes them look female and is that is that all data than it fight would yeah it's I mean it's really impressive large scale data actually so they do a lot of research with that what we benefit from from that work is that we can actually manipulate the way people look so we have research right now which is what I said before where we can take advantage of that database and really plausibly make me fatter so not just make me have more fat but actually model mathematically what I would look like if I gained a certain amount of BMI which is really awesome uh research so unfortunately we can change the BMI of her but we can change her to a male many people that demo in our lab we ask them do you want to be a male or a female and so many of them say the opposite gender that they are because obviously in the real world you can't so quickly and easily and what's cool about what she's seeing is and capability that we have is that we can do all this motion tracking right yakim talked about that right now we're just using inverse kinematics so that she can really see her Avatar's hand move as as her hand moves and research really shows that's called visual motor synchrony it shows that when you can actually see your body moving um visually as it is physically that you have a really strong experience of that being your body right right even if it looks different than you in this case it's a male if it was a very large person or the skin color was different people still take ownership over it and it's a fascinating tool then because you can really research as our collaborator Mel Slater has done a lot of how people's attitudes change when they become a different race or a different gender what we do as well is we put people into a full body motion capture suit and then they can really walk around freely move and they see that Avatar move as they do we've really in the past had a lot of people have a rejection of that and say that's not me but it it comes out of an experience of wait what if that was me right and they want to express but wait a minute that's not that's not who I am that's not perfectly me and it's very often when they look at the face so especially what I was talking about before they see their body it's moving and they think oh that's me and then when we give a large mirror and they look they say but wait that's not me so there is sort of a an idea that this is you in the virtual world you know you don't always want to be you when you're in the airplane and you're a six-foot guy you don't want to be there you don't want to be a super tall guy in an airplane so maybe you want to become really small or if you're older and you're tired and you just want to remember what it was like to be young and someone can offer you that experience say hey here's the younger you yeah that's what this technology could enable people to have yeah and why not let the airplanes give it to us right when you're flying you're exhausted why not have a rejuvenating experience of what it's like to be young or smaller you know how how often someone who's Big probably looks at me and says oh man I wish I had her short legs right when they're in the airplane um and that's the only time I'm happy to have my short legs but still it's really um powerful what you can give people yeah and that's something we really it's important for us here is really to build into the environment the person can really say hey I want to be this person or I want to be in this environment and they get to say they want to be in the mountains they want to be at the sea they want to be in a bigger space yeah I mean some people are afraid of flying and so they might not like to be in a bigger space they might certainly not like to be in the clouds right so maybe what they'd like to do is be back in their room in a small confined space that is calming and so you can't really make the assumption that everybody wants this big open space when they're in an airplane maybe they want it to be cozy and maybe without all the other people do you have many people who feel nauseous or anything yeah so we're really mostly Lucky in fact that's exactly what we're studying the experiment that's running right now with the Cyber motion simulator is exactly asking whether or not and to what degree people get sick and what we've had in the past is typically if you have people walking in this room the most time people have gotten sick is when they're walking in this room and our scientists are mismapping the way they're walking so they walk forward and the the world is spinning around them right so because this motion sickness mostly comes from a mismapping or um if we're trying to do it perfectly it comes from the fact that you can accelerate your head really fast and then the tracking has a very challenging job of making that work perfectly right so um this is where I think most people get sick we have the luxury that we if anybody says they're feeling sick or they look a little pale we just stop the experience right um but for VR hyperspace we really want to see how long people can experience it and enjoy it right so I'm a lucky person I don't get that sick but still the question arises could I be in a headmount of display for two hours or three hours right um and what would be the consequences right to my physical health not just motion sickness and our partners again at Barcelona are looking into that because obviously you'd want to be moving a little bit right because if you're just sitting there even with watching a movie you start to feel a little sick right so we're trying to integrate some tools in to get people moving and to make sure we have an awareness of their sickness and another thing that we're doing there is measuring their heart rate and measuring how much they're sweating because these things might give us an indicator even before you knew that you started to feel sick hey let's back off the experience or have him start moving more slowly because that might prevent motion sickness so the work from Barcelona um our colleague Elena Koka she does some really amazing work where the idea is is that you could maybe move really a lot in the virtual world but only in in reality moving like this right so that you could still move in your seat but you experience your virtual self as really moving like Superman right moving really fast through the space um and that really works if you move just a small amount and you see that hand reaching really far or if you move your legs just a little bit and you're walking through the space people like that that's a natural interface right and so that's something that's important to us because we don't want people to use VR and then ultimately be in more pain we want more Comfort overall so it's been a real challenge but really interesting to see what you can do in terms of changing people's environments to increase their comfortso we're letting Mirabel see herself a virtual self that we can transform so we can transform it in its posture how relaxed it is you can see mirbel sitting up we could make it so that the legs are sticking out um we can transform it in its gender in how big it is and here at the max plank we do a lot of that so we study what it would be like to have a larger BMI or a smaller BMI so how do you experience the world if all of a sudden you look down and you've lost a few kilograms or pounds right Stones whatever you measure them in we can use Virtual Reality to make people see what it's like to be a different person but we can also do things that are really impossible so a lot of times what we do here is we transform the hand so that the hand is just a lot bigger and then we can understand the relationship between your own body size and the way you perceive the world around you but what Mirabel is experiencing is we're letting her look at herself in the face right so she can actually use this as a hand mirror this track object and look and see what her face looks like and that's really awesome because though headsets today are really impressive they have a little bit of a low field of view so if you look at a a girl in a mirror that's you know out to the distance that the mirror is here then you don't see the face so well but here she can bring the mirror right up to her face and she sees a really nice resolution Bas and this Avatar that she's seeing here is the average female from a database of a large number of humans that have been body scanned they've done that here in Germany as well as at the Brown University and they've taken really tens of thousands of people and done a 3D body scan um and then they do amazing research where they um can actually put them all into a registered scan so if they scanned me and you they would be able to understand exactly the shape difference that turns me into you right how to morph me into you and exactly what makes a person look male and what makes them look female and is that is that all data than it fight would yeah it's I mean it's really impressive large scale data actually so they do a lot of research with that what we benefit from from that work is that we can actually manipulate the way people look so we have research right now which is what I said before where we can take advantage of that database and really plausibly make me fatter so not just make me have more fat but actually model mathematically what I would look like if I gained a certain amount of BMI which is really awesome uh research so unfortunately we can change the BMI of her but we can change her to a male many people that demo in our lab we ask them do you want to be a male or a female and so many of them say the opposite gender that they are because obviously in the real world you can't so quickly and easily and what's cool about what she's seeing is and capability that we have is that we can do all this motion tracking right yakim talked about that right now we're just using inverse kinematics so that she can really see her Avatar's hand move as as her hand moves and research really shows that's called visual motor synchrony it shows that when you can actually see your body moving um visually as it is physically that you have a really strong experience of that being your body right right even if it looks different than you in this case it's a male if it was a very large person or the skin color was different people still take ownership over it and it's a fascinating tool then because you can really research as our collaborator Mel Slater has done a lot of how people's attitudes change when they become a different race or a different gender what we do as well is we put people into a full body motion capture suit and then they can really walk around freely move and they see that Avatar move as they do we've really in the past had a lot of people have a rejection of that and say that's not me but it it comes out of an experience of wait what if that was me right and they want to express but wait a minute that's not that's not who I am that's not perfectly me and it's very often when they look at the face so especially what I was talking about before they see their body it's moving and they think oh that's me and then when we give a large mirror and they look they say but wait that's not me so there is sort of a an idea that this is you in the virtual world you know you don't always want to be you when you're in the airplane and you're a six-foot guy you don't want to be there you don't want to be a super tall guy in an airplane so maybe you want to become really small or if you're older and you're tired and you just want to remember what it was like to be young and someone can offer you that experience say hey here's the younger you yeah that's what this technology could enable people to have yeah and why not let the airplanes give it to us right when you're flying you're exhausted why not have a rejuvenating experience of what it's like to be young or smaller you know how how often someone who's Big probably looks at me and says oh man I wish I had her short legs right when they're in the airplane um and that's the only time I'm happy to have my short legs but still it's really um powerful what you can give people yeah and that's something we really it's important for us here is really to build into the environment the person can really say hey I want to be this person or I want to be in this environment and they get to say they want to be in the mountains they want to be at the sea they want to be in a bigger space yeah I mean some people are afraid of flying and so they might not like to be in a bigger space they might certainly not like to be in the clouds right so maybe what they'd like to do is be back in their room in a small confined space that is calming and so you can't really make the assumption that everybody wants this big open space when they're in an airplane maybe they want it to be cozy and maybe without all the other people do you have many people who feel nauseous or anything yeah so we're really mostly Lucky in fact that's exactly what we're studying the experiment that's running right now with the Cyber motion simulator is exactly asking whether or not and to what degree people get sick and what we've had in the past is typically if you have people walking in this room the most time people have gotten sick is when they're walking in this room and our scientists are mismapping the way they're walking so they walk forward and the the world is spinning around them right so because this motion sickness mostly comes from a mismapping or um if we're trying to do it perfectly it comes from the fact that you can accelerate your head really fast and then the tracking has a very challenging job of making that work perfectly right so um this is where I think most people get sick we have the luxury that we if anybody says they're feeling sick or they look a little pale we just stop the experience right um but for VR hyperspace we really want to see how long people can experience it and enjoy it right so I'm a lucky person I don't get that sick but still the question arises could I be in a headmount of display for two hours or three hours right um and what would be the consequences right to my physical health not just motion sickness and our partners again at Barcelona are looking into that because obviously you'd want to be moving a little bit right because if you're just sitting there even with watching a movie you start to feel a little sick right so we're trying to integrate some tools in to get people moving and to make sure we have an awareness of their sickness and another thing that we're doing there is measuring their heart rate and measuring how much they're sweating because these things might give us an indicator even before you knew that you started to feel sick hey let's back off the experience or have him start moving more slowly because that might prevent motion sickness so the work from Barcelona um our colleague Elena Koka she does some really amazing work where the idea is is that you could maybe move really a lot in the virtual world but only in in reality moving like this right so that you could still move in your seat but you experience your virtual self as really moving like Superman right moving really fast through the space um and that really works if you move just a small amount and you see that hand reaching really far or if you move your legs just a little bit and you're walking through the space people like that that's a natural interface right and so that's something that's important to us because we don't want people to use VR and then ultimately be in more pain we want more Comfort overall so it's been a real challenge but really interesting to see what you can do in terms of changing people's environments to increase their comfort\n"