Relation between ball catching accuracy and camera position in virtual reality

Abstract

Our research aimed to analyse the effects of virtual camera position on 3D interaction in a virtual environment. The participant's task was to try to catch flying balls using different camera setups. The cameras position ranged from natural first person perspective to a third person perspective.

The experiment is motivated by the popularity of third person perspective in video games and the difficulties of natural 3D interaction in such camera position. As our setup, we used the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and PlayStation Move controllers. This setup allows us to achieve an immersive virtual reality experience with a full 6 degrees of freedom tracking of hand and head.

The results show that the natural 3D interaction performance is notably degraded as the camera is positioned far away from the first person perspective.