Identifying Technical Limitations in Applying Virtual Reality to Human Factor Methodologies

Abstract

Virtual Reality applications still have several technical constraints which result in a series of limitations that must be imposed on the user. From a limited and unnatural motion (often controlled with external devices like a mouse instead of being captured directly from the user), to a kind of interaction that is not realistic (e.g. “grabbing” objects while actually not holding anything), to a visualization that is far from being ‘photo realistic’ (limited image quality is imposed by the need to render at least 30 frames per second). All these factors are normally accepted by the users in traditional fields of application for VR techniques, in exchange for a sense of “immersion” and real-time response by the system. A trade-off that is mainly dictated by technical reasons: a perfectly realistic application is still not possible today and anyway it would have too higher costs. A video-game for example but also an advanced flight-simulator, clearly look “virtual” in most cases, but the user feels like if he were interacting with the scenario, and that is the main goal of those applications.