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The Accuracy and Precision of Position and Orientation Tracking in the HTC Vive Virtual Reality System for Scientific Research

Niehorster, Diederick C LU orcid ; Li, Li and Lappe, Markus (2017) In i-Perception 8(3).
Abstract

The advent of inexpensive consumer virtual reality equipment enables many more researchers to study perception with naturally moving observers. One such system, the HTC Vive, offers a large field-of-view, high-resolution head mounted display together with a room-scale tracking system for less than a thousand U.S. dollars. If the position and orientation tracking of this system is of sufficient accuracy and precision, it could be suitable for much research that is currently done with far more expensive systems. Here we present a quantitative test of the HTC Vive's position and orientation tracking as well as its end-to-end system latency. We report that while the precision of the Vive's tracking measurements is high and its system... (More)

The advent of inexpensive consumer virtual reality equipment enables many more researchers to study perception with naturally moving observers. One such system, the HTC Vive, offers a large field-of-view, high-resolution head mounted display together with a room-scale tracking system for less than a thousand U.S. dollars. If the position and orientation tracking of this system is of sufficient accuracy and precision, it could be suitable for much research that is currently done with far more expensive systems. Here we present a quantitative test of the HTC Vive's position and orientation tracking as well as its end-to-end system latency. We report that while the precision of the Vive's tracking measurements is high and its system latency (22 ms) is low, its position and orientation measurements are provided in a coordinate system that is tilted with respect to the physical ground plane. Because large changes in offset were found whenever tracking was briefly lost, it cannot be corrected for with a one-time calibration procedure. We conclude that the varying offset between the virtual and the physical tracking space makes the HTC Vive at present unsuitable for scientific experiments that require accurate visual stimulation of self-motion through a virtual world. It may however be suited for other experiments that do not have this requirement.

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author
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type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
i-Perception
volume
8
issue
3
publisher
Pion Ltd
external identifiers
  • pmid:28567271
  • scopus:85020069588
ISSN
2041-6695
DOI
10.1177/2041669517708205
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
bb329e44-1204-4f2b-9b69-27d1748cd240
date added to LUP
2017-06-06 22:07:10
date last changed
2024-06-24 22:03:22
@article{bb329e44-1204-4f2b-9b69-27d1748cd240,
  abstract     = {{<p>The advent of inexpensive consumer virtual reality equipment enables many more researchers to study perception with naturally moving observers. One such system, the HTC Vive, offers a large field-of-view, high-resolution head mounted display together with a room-scale tracking system for less than a thousand U.S. dollars. If the position and orientation tracking of this system is of sufficient accuracy and precision, it could be suitable for much research that is currently done with far more expensive systems. Here we present a quantitative test of the HTC Vive's position and orientation tracking as well as its end-to-end system latency. We report that while the precision of the Vive's tracking measurements is high and its system latency (22 ms) is low, its position and orientation measurements are provided in a coordinate system that is tilted with respect to the physical ground plane. Because large changes in offset were found whenever tracking was briefly lost, it cannot be corrected for with a one-time calibration procedure. We conclude that the varying offset between the virtual and the physical tracking space makes the HTC Vive at present unsuitable for scientific experiments that require accurate visual stimulation of self-motion through a virtual world. It may however be suited for other experiments that do not have this requirement.</p>}},
  author       = {{Niehorster, Diederick C and Li, Li and Lappe, Markus}},
  issn         = {{2041-6695}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{06}},
  number       = {{3}},
  publisher    = {{Pion Ltd}},
  series       = {{i-Perception}},
  title        = {{The Accuracy and Precision of Position and Orientation Tracking in the HTC Vive Virtual Reality System for Scientific Research}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2041669517708205}},
  doi          = {{10.1177/2041669517708205}},
  volume       = {{8}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}