The graphics group published two articles at the VRCAI conference held at Brisbane, Australia in November 2019.
“Augmented Reality-Based Procedural Task Training Application for Less Privileged Children and Autistic Individuals” co-authored by Katyayani Singh, Ayushi Srivastava, Krishnaveni Achary, Arindam Dey, and Ojaswa Sharma.
In this work, we evaluate the applicability of using Augmented Reality applications in for enhanced learning experiences for children from less privileged backgrounds, with a focus on autistic population. Such an intervention can prove to be very useful to children with reduced cognitive development. In our evaluation, we compare the AR mode of instruction for a procedural task training, using tangram puzzles, with live demonstration and a desktop-based application. First, we performed a within-subjects user study on neurotypical children in the age group of 9 – 12 years. We asked the children to independently solve a tangram puzzle after being trained through different modes of instruction. Second, we used the same instruction modes to train autistic participants. Our findings indicate that during training, children took the longest time to interact with Desktop-based instruction, and took the shortest time to interact with the live demonstration mode. Children also took the longest time to independently solve the tangram puzzle in the Desktop mode. We also found that autistic participants could use AR-based instructions but required more time to go through the training.
The article can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1145/3359997.3365703
“Conformal Redirected Walking for Shared Indoor Spaces” co-authored by Yash Tomar, Ayushi Srivastava, Arindam Dey, and Ojaswa Sharma.
In this work we present a redirected walking scheme suitable for shared spaces in a virtual reality environment. We show our redirected walking to work for the case of two physical spaces (a host and a guest) being merged into a single virtual host space. The redirection is based on warping the guest space into the host space using a conformal mapping that preserves the local shape and features. We compare our technique with state-of-the art indoor redirection schemes and show its efficiency. We found our method to have better task performance, higher social presence, and less simulator sickness.
The article can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1145/3359997.3365702