Sensorial Virtualization: Coupling Gaming and Virtual Environment

Abstract

Virtual reality and virtualization are currently used to design complex systems and demonstrate that they represent the functionalities of real systems. However, the design refinement of the virtual environment (VE) and distributed virtual environment (DVE) are still time consuming and costly, as it is mainly based on running experiments and the analysis of data deriving from virtual task execution samples of users. Gaming provides the player with online feedback on his performance communicated to the user through different sensory channels: vision, spatialized audio and haptics. This paper presents a prospective vision and the potential of a novel approach that extends the concept of human-in-the-loop originated form the User-Centred Design to Game-Enhanced VE design. In this concept, the player performance scores are analysed online and used for the optimization of the VE. The dynamic interoperability between the user experience records and the VE properties could shorten the development cycle time and satisfy the requirements of the application domain.