Master-Thesis

Intro

This is a post on my master thesis with the lovely and short name: “Navigation and Manipulation of Multiple Live Viewpoints for Virtual Reality Head-mounted Displays in a Museum Setting”. It was part of my MMT master studies at the University of Applied Science in Salzburg.

The thesis and it’s source can be found on my Github.

What it is about

So basically what this thesis does is compare two distinct methods of placing and manipulating multiple live viewpoints in VR. The two methods are a restricted yet automate approach based on a HoverCam and a more free approach based on a DroneCam.

During the process of writing the thesis another approach was briefly tested. This was a OrbitCam this was however scrapped and replaced with the HoverCam.

Every Viewpoint-Camera was always connected to a freely placeable and adjustable View-Panel which displays the cameras stream. In addition to that, the selected camera is highlighted with a coloured outline.

The two approaches where compared in a within subject study and assessed with a handful of quantitative questionnaires. The task for the participants was to find three hidden objects in a distant life-sized diorama whilst utilising the systems.

The result of study was the the DroneCam was favoured for the exploration of the scene however the HoverCam was preferred for viewing objects in detail.

Technical Details

For the thesis I have worked with a Meta Quest 2 in Unity utilising the XR Interaction Toolkit.

For further detail and sources check out the thesis itself ;)