More than 15 years have passed since Razzaque et al. presented their seminal paper introducing redirected walking to the scientic community. By inducing unnoticeable rotations to the virtual environment around users wearing a head-mounted display the users could be given the illusion of walking in any direction for innite time and distance in a virtual environment while, in reality, they were redirected to walk back and forth in the tracked physical space. What started as a simple idea has led to several publications, open source software libraries, multiple commercial applications, and has directly or indirectly inuenced many other disciplines of research. In this article we present a survey of the literature on redirected walking that ranges from Razzaque et al.s original technique to recent improvements, and discuss challenges for the scientic community to guide future research.

Recent technological developments have finally brought virtual reality (VR) out of the laboratory and into the hands of developers and consumers. However, a number of challenges remain. Virtual travel is one of the most common and universal tasks performed inside virtual environments, yet enabling users to navigate virtual environments is not a trivial challenge—especially if the user is walking. In this article, we initially provide an overview of the numerous virtual travel techniques that have been proposed prior to the commercialization of VR. Then we turn to the mode of travel that is the most difficult to facilitate, that is, walking. The challenge of providing users with natural walking experiences in VR can be divided into two separate, albeit related, challenges: (1) enabling unconstrained walking in virtual worlds that are larger than the tracked physical space and (2) providing users with appropriate multisensory stimuli in response to their interaction with the virtual environment. In regard to the first challenge, we present walking techniques falling into three general categories: repositioning systems, locomotion based on proxy gestures, and redirected walking. With respect to multimodal stimuli, we focus on how to provide three types of information: external sensory information (visual, auditory, and cutaneous), internal sensory information (vestibular and kinesthetic/proprioceptive), and efferent information. Finally, we discuss how the different categories of walking techniques compare and discuss the challenges still facing the research community.

Recent technological advances have brought Virtual Reality (VR) into the homes of consumers, and there is a growing interest in bringing cinematic experiences from the screen and into VR. However, cinematic VR limits filmmakers' ability to effectively guide the audience's attention. In this paper we present a taxonomy of approaches to guiding users' attention, and present a study comparing two such approaches with a control condition devoid of guidance. One approach guides users by controlling their body's orientation, and the other implicitly directs their attention by encouraging them to follow a firefly with their gaze. The results revealed interesting, albeit statistically insignificant, indications that assuming control of the user's action may negatively influence presence, whereas the firefly was perceived as significantly more helpful.

The rapid development and availability of low-cost technologies have created a wide interest in virtual reality. In the field of computer music, the term “virtual musical instruments” has been used for a long time to describe software simulations, extensions of existing musical instruments, and ways to control them with new interfaces for musical expression. Virtual reality musical instruments (VRMIs) that include a simulated visual component delivered via a head-mounted display or other forms of immersive visualization have not yet received much attention. In this article, we present a field overview of VRMIs from the viewpoint of the performer. We propose nine design guidelines, describe evaluation methods, analyze case studies, and consider future challenges.