Utilization of viewer location based projection effects on ODV video display in CAVE like environments

The thesis work provides an overview of the CAVE-like virtual environments by describing and comparing different kinds of virtual environments and the technologies behind them. It provides through information about presence, immersion and user experience of a virtual environment. It also explains the concept of omni directional videos, which are used in CAVE virtual environment. The study involves a CAVE-like virtual environment hardware setup situated at University of Tampere. The system is evaluated by conducting an experiment where the participants are viewing objects in omni directional (360-degree) videos (ODV). The participants were asked to perform certain tasks within virtual environments. The study objective is to understand how adjusting virtual camera parameters based on the user’s physical head location effects the user experience of viewing 360-degree videos in a CAVE-like environment. Three conditions are tested which are termed as scaling conditions. In each scaling condition, the virtual camera moved differently based on the user’s head movements. The results are collected through questionnaires, observations and interviews. The questionnaire data is compiled using statistical analysis. The results describe the overall user experience of CAVE-like virtual environment, the level of immersion and presence felt by the user and any possible cyber-sickness. The study conducted paves way to explore different dimensions of CAVE-based ODV viewing and how to improve it