Investigating the Sense of Presence Between Handcrafted and Panorama Based Virtual Environments

TL;DR

This paper compares handcrafted 3D virtual environments with panorama-based environments, finding that panoramas can effectively substitute detailed 3D models in certain VR scenarios, saving costs and effort.

Contribution

It provides an empirical investigation into the equivalence of panorama images and handcrafted 3D environments regarding user presence in VR.

Findings

Panorama images can serve as effective substitutes for 3D environments.

User experience with panoramas is comparable to handcrafted models.

Using panoramas reduces development costs and complexity.

Abstract

Virtual Reality applications are becoming increasingly mature. The requirements and complexity of such systems is steadily increasing. Realistic and detailed environments are often omitted in order to concentrate on the interaction possibilities within the application. Creating an accurate and realistic virtual environment is not a task for laypeople, but for experts in 3D design and modeling. To save costs and avoid hiring experts, panorama images are often used to create realistic looking virtual environments. These images can be captured and provided by non-experts. Panorama images are an alternative to handcrafted 3D models in many cases because they offer immersion and a scene can be captured in great detail with the touch of a button. This work investigates whether it is advisable to recreate an environment in detail by hand or whether it is recommended to use panorama images for virtual environments in certain scenarios. For this purpose, an interactive virtual environment was created in which a handmade 3D environment is almost indistinguishable from an environment created with panorama images. Interactive elements were added and a user study was conducted to investigate the effect of both environments to the user. The study conducted indicates that panorama images can be a useful substitute for 3D modeled environments.