The effect of different viewing devices for the sense of presence and immersion in virtual environments

Displays for virtual environments (VE) are in focus of many discussions in ergonomics. Some tests have been performed in the field of ergonomics of head mounted displays (HMD) but there is no comparison between different immersive viewing devices for VEs. This paper gives an overview of two experiments we conducted to compare different viewing devices for VEs like HMDs, monitors, and screen based projections (SBP) in combination with shutter techniques for time-multiplexed images. Since we included a stereoprojection with large screens and the fact that those devices are actually not a typical work environment, we performed the experiments under laboratory conditions. We supplied the experiments by query techniques in form of questionnaires. We paid attention to the "socially desirable" meaning of the words in the questionnaires to avoid mistakes. From the literature, most usability test or evaluation of user interfaces use inexperienced participants who perform determined tasks and fi lled out questionnaires . In this study, Immersive projection technologies (IPTs) should be compared in an interactive environment. In such VEs there are different view projection paradigms with either a fixed eye-point model (camera view) or a moving eye-point model (off-axis projection). Normally, HMDs are using the camera view. Monitors and SBP for example use single or connected off-axis projections. For both of the techniques, a device for most precise tracking the head position and orientation should be used. Actually an electromagnetic tracker is used with a filter for the cached data. Since there were a lot of tasks for improvements, these experiments should be understood as a preliminary investigation only.