Peripheral Teleportation: A Rest Frame Design to Mitigate Cybersickness During Virtual Locomotion

TL;DR

This paper tackles cybersickness during virtual locomotion and introduces peripheral teleportation, a rest-frame periphery rendering technique that uses two RF cameras to create an Earth-referent peripheral view. By discretely teleporting the RF cameras and blending peripherally with a dithering transition, the method preserves visible detail while aligning optical flow with physical motion, mitigating discomfort. In a between-subjects study (N=90) against a traditional black FOV restrictor and an unrestricted control, peripheral teleportation reduced discomfort (ADS and RDS) and enabled longer task engagement, outperforming the FOV restriction in some metrics. The work demonstrates that rest-frame based peripheral rendering can be a practical, software-based addition to cybersickness mitigation strategies, with potential for further optimization via gaze-contingent design and trajectory prediction.

Abstract

Mitigating cybersickness can improve the usability of virtual reality (VR) and increase its adoption. The most widely used technique, dynamic field-of-view (FOV) restriction, mitigates cybersickness by blacking out the peripheral region of the user's FOV. However, this approach reduces the visibility of the virtual environment. We propose peripheral teleportation, a novel technique that creates a rest frame (RF) in the user's peripheral vision using content rendered from the current virtual environment. Specifically, the peripheral region is rendered by a pair of RF cameras whose transforms are updated by the user's physical motion. We apply alternating teleportations during translations, or snap turns during rotations, to the RF cameras to keep them close to the current viewpoint transformation. Consequently, the optical flow generated by RF cameras matches the user's physical motion, creating a stable peripheral view. In a between-subjects study (N = 90), we compared peripheral teleportation with a traditional black FOV restrictor and an unrestricted control condition. The results showed that peripheral teleportation significantly reduced discomfort and enabled participants to stay immersed in the virtual environment for a longer duration of time. Overall, these findings suggest that peripheral teleportation is a promising technique that VR practitioners may consider adding to their cybersickness mitigation toolset.

Figures (9)

• Figure 1: An overview of the peripheral teleportation technique. Two extra rest frame cameras $RF_0$ and $RF_1$ were rendering images beside the main camera. Their positions in the VE are illustrated in (f). The red arrow denotes the moving direction of the user. Figures (a-c) are the output of the main camera, $RF_0$, and $RF_1$. The rest frame (d) is a linear interpolation of images rendered by $RF_0$ and $RF_1$ (b, c). Finally, peripheral teleportation replaces the peripheral region of (a) with the rest frame (d)'s peripheral region, creating an output like figure (e).
• Figure 2: During translation, the appearance of a symmetric FOV mask in the black FOV restrictor condition (a) and the peripheral teleportation condition (c) is a circle. During turning, we used an asymmetric mask that shifted its center into the turn (b, d). All images were for the left eye.
• Figure 3: The alpha blending (a) and dithering (b) transition effect between the fovea and the periphery. For the dithering effect, the probability of a pixel between the inner and outer radius of the restrictor showing the image of the rest frame decreases from 1 to 0 as it moves from the outer radius to the inner radius.
• Figure 4: An overhead view of the virtual environment. The environment was about $130 m\times 100 m$ in size. Participants followed paths defined by coins and arrows in different trials, which were visualized in yellow lines.
• Figure 5: Bar charts with the mean and standard deviation of SSQ scores. There were no significant differences between conditions.