Evaluation of factors affecting distance perception in architectural project review in immersive virtual environments
PubDate: November 2015
Teams:University of Strasbourg
Writers: Sabah Boustila;Antonio Capobianco;Dominique Bechmann
Abstract
Distances are perceived as being more compressed in immersive virtual environments (IVEs) than in real environments. The goal of this study is to identify the most important factors that influence decision making and accuracy of distance perception in the context of architectural project reviews. Technical factors such as field of view, display devices and motion parallax were widely studied. In this paper, we have investigated other individual and contextual factors. We conducted a between-subject experiment using an immersive large screen display to examine the influence of the three factors: 1) the cognitive profile of the user (visual, auditory and kinesthetic - VAK), 2) the furnishing of the house, and 3) the locomotion speed, on distance perception. Results reveal that participants with visual profile were more accurate in distance estimation. Further, furnished houses were more suitable for virtual visits. The locomotion speed also seems to influence virtual visits which were better with a slow locomotion speed. Based on the results of our study, we finally present guidelines for setting up architectural project review tools which employ similar setup.