Floor-based Audio-Haptic Virtual Collision Responses

Virtual collisions are considered an important aspect of creating effective travel interactions for virtual environments; yet, they are not yet well understood. We introduce a new floor based audio-haptic interface for providing virtual collision feedback, the soundfloor. With this device, haptic feedback can be provided through the floor of a projection VR system, without disturbing the visual presentation on the same floor. As the impact of feedback is not yet known for virtual travel, we also present a series of experiments that compare different feedback methods coupled with classic collision handling methods. The results of the experiments show only limited benefits of collision handling and of additional feedback for performance. However, user preference of context appropriate feedback is evident, as well as a preference for the floor based haptic feedback. The experiments provide evidence of best practices for handling virtual travel collisions, namely that context appropriate feedback should be preferred and that quality sounds are sufficient when haptics cannot be provided.