Geometric Deformation for Reducing Optic Flow and Cybersickness Dose Value in VR

Abstract

Today virtual reality technologies is becoming more and more widespread and has found strong applications in various domains. However, the fear to experience motion sickness is still an important barrier for VR users. Instead of moving physically, VR users experience virtual locomotion but their vestibular systems do not sense the self-motion that are visually induced by immersive displays. The mismatch in visual and vestibular senses causes sickness. Previous solutions actively reduce user's field-of-view and alter their navigation. In this paper we propose a passive approach that temporarily deforms geometrically the virtual environment according to user navigation. Two deformation methods have been prototyped and tested. The first one reduces the perceived optic flow which is the main cause of visually induced motion sickness. The second one encourages users to adopt smoother trajectories and reduce the cybersickness dose value. Both methods have the potential to be applied generically.