The Omni-Directional Treadmill: A Locomotion Device for Virtual Worlds
Author
Darken, Rudolph P.
Cockayne, William R.
Carmein, David
Date
1997Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The Omni-Directional Treadmill (ODT) is a revolutionary
device for locomotion in large-scale virtual environments.
The device allows its user to walk or jog in any direction of
travel. It is the third generation in a series of devices built
for this purpose for the U.S. Army’s Dismounted Infantry
Training Program. We first describe the device in terms of
its construction and operating characteristics. We then
report on an analysis consisting of a series of locomotion
and maneuvering tasks on the ODT. We observed user
motions and system responses to those motions from the
perspective of the user. Each task is described in terms of
what causes certain motions to trigger unpredictable
responses causing loss of balance or at least causing the user
to become consciously aware of their movements. We conclude
that the two primary shortcomings in the ODT are its
tracking system and machine control mechanism for centering
the user on the treads.
Description
Appears in the Proceedings of UIST ‘97, Banff, Canada October 14-17, 1997, pp. 213-221
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Locomotion in virtual environments and analysis of a new virtual walking device
Onder, Murat (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 2005-03);This thesis investigates user interfaces for locomotion in virtual environments (VEs). It looks initially at virtual environments and user interfaces, then concentrates on locomotion interfaces, specifically on the ... -
Improved usability of locomotion devices using human-centric taxonomy
Mabini, Alex T. (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 2009-03);This thesis investigates the failure of early taxonomies for locomotion to provide a comprehensive enough framework in facilitating the development of usable locomotion devices due to an inadequate classification of the ... -
The effects of natural locomotion on maneuvering task performance in virtual and real environments
Unguder, Eray (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 2001-09);This thesis investigates human performance differences on maneuvering tasks in virtual and real spaces when a natural locomotion technique is used as opposed to an abstraction through a device such as a treadmill. The ...