THESIS
2002
xviii, 115 leaves : ill. (some col.) ; 30 cm
Abstract
Users of virtual reality (VR) systems can experience cybersickness. This phenomenon has been referred to as visually-induced motion sickness and hence scene complexity should play an important role in causing this problem. A previous study quantified scene complexity using 'spatial frequency' (unit: cycles per degree, cpd) but did not thoroughly study its relationship with cybersickness. Also, the effect of color was assumed to be negligible....[
Read more ]
Users of virtual reality (VR) systems can experience cybersickness. This phenomenon has been referred to as visually-induced motion sickness and hence scene complexity should play an important role in causing this problem. A previous study quantified scene complexity using 'spatial frequency' (unit: cycles per degree, cpd) but did not thoroughly study its relationship with cybersickness. Also, the effect of color was assumed to be negligible.
The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the effects of spatial frequency and color of virtual environments (VEs) on cybersickness. In addition, the method of quantifying scene complexity with spatial frequency was optimized. Two experiments with 144 participants were conducted. Experimental results showed that levels of cybersickness significantly increase with increasing spatial frequency until 0.076cpd (p<0.05). Beyond a spatial frequency of 0.076cpd, the levels of cybersickness remained steady even when the spatial frequency increased to 0.413cpd. Color, on the other hand, did not show any significant effect on the levels of cybersickness (p>0.4). This verified the previous assumption that the color of a VE did not affect the associated cybersickness. An algorithm was developed to determine the optimal number of pictures to be randomly captured during a VR simulation in order to estimate the average spatial frequency of that simulation. This algorithm has been shown to reduce the number of pictures needed to be captured during a 30-minute VR simulation session from 3600 to below 60.
The experimental findings are anchored with the past literature concerning visually-induced motion sickness with rotating drums. In particular, the consistency among the findings, the two visual systems theory, and the past findings with rotating drums are discussed.
Post a Comment