Fitted avatars: automatic skeleton adjustment for self-avatars in virtual reality

TL;DR

This paper introduces an automatic, quick, and affordable method for adjusting virtual avatars in VR to match user dimensions accurately, enhancing embodiment and communication without manual measurements.

Contribution

It presents a novel automatic skeleton adjustment technique using minimal exercises and standard VR equipment, eliminating manual measurement processes.

Findings

Reduces avatar-user misalignment compared to uniform scaling methods.

Improves avatar accuracy without manual measurements.

Enhances user embodiment and gesture communication in VR.

Abstract

In the era of the metaverse, self-avatars are gaining popularity, as they can enhance presence and provide embodiment when a user is immersed in Virtual Reality. They are also very important in collaborative Virtual Reality to improve communication through gestures. Whether we are using a complex motion capture solution or a few trackers with inverse kinematics (IK), it is essential to have a good match in size between the avatar and the user, as otherwise mismatches in self-avatar posture could be noticeable for the user. To achieve such a correct match in dimensions, a manual process is often required, with the need for a second person to take measurements of body limbs and introduce them into the system. This process can be time-consuming, and prone to errors. In this paper, we propose an automatic measuring method that simply requires the user to do a small set of exercises while wearing a Head-Mounted Display (HMD), two hand controllers, and three trackers. Our work provides an affordable and quick method to automatically extract user measurements and adjust the virtual humanoid skeleton to the exact dimensions. Our results show that our method can reduce the misalignment produced by the IK system when compared to other solutions that simply apply a uniform scaling to an avatar based on the height of the HMD, and make assumptions about the locations of joints with respect to the trackers.