One of the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a loss of spatial navigation. In this work, we improved an existing screening test for AD that analyzed a patient’s spatial navigation ability. The existing screening test was made more immersive, and therefore more reliable, by integrating support for a leading-edge consumer-targeted Head-Mounted Display (HMD). This integration brought some technical and usability challenges, that were addressed. Furthermore, we investigated the rehabilitative potential of Virtual Reality Navigational (VRN) activities in two case studies: an Early Stage AD (ESA) participant and a Late Stage AD (LSA) participant. We found that the ESA participant was able to significantly improve his navigation skills, and we observed some qualitative improvements in memory and navigation in his personal life. The LSA participant did not improve noticeably at the VRN tasks, but his mood improved after participating in the treatment sessions. These case studies suggested that VRN treatment may be beneficial for people with AD, especially at the onset stage. / February 2017

Virtual reality is a concept that has existed for some time but the recent advances in the performance of commercial computers has led the development of different commercial head mounted displays, for example the Oculus Rift. With this growing interest in virtual reality, it is important to evaluate existing techniques used when designing user interfaces. In addition, it is also important to develop new techniques to be able to give the user the best experience when using virtual reality applications. This thesis investigates the design of a user interface for a virtual reality using Oculus Rift combined with the Razer Hydra and Leap Motion as input devices. A set of different graphical user interface components were developed and, together with the different input devices, evaluated with a user test to try to determine their advantages. During the implementation of the project the importance of giving the user feedback was shown. Adding both visual and aural feedback when interacting with the GUI increases the usability of the system. According to the conducted user test, people preferred using the Leap Motion even if it was not the easiest input device to use. It also showed that the current implementation of input devices was not precise enough to be able to draw conclusions about the different user interface components.

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Modern virtual reality is an ever growing subject in today’s society. I delved deeper into some key moments in the development of modern virtual reality. Oculus Rift has shown incredible potential. Some developments even seek to envelope the human senses in virtual reality as well.   With several different approaches to the same solution there are many ways that the experience can affect the overall immersion of a consumer into the product.  The tests I performed were primarily focused around the interaction between the human senses and immersion. The immersion can be increased or decreased by basic means of stimulating the human senses. This test was implemented by having volunteers participate in two phases in a supervised environment. In the first phase, the participants were subjected to an increase in immersion by stimulating senses other than their eyes and ears. The second phase involved reducing the participants’ sensory stimulation to see what the difference in immersion would be between the two phases.  The results of the investigation show that manipulating the human senses does have an impact on immersion when using virtual reality. Immersion can be affected by increasing or decreasing the stimuli for the human senses.

Virtual reality (VR) is a medium of human interaction which is becoming more popular by the day in today's technological advancements. The applications are being developed at the same rate as the technology itself and we have only seen the start of the possible benefits it could bring society. As the technology advances it will gain a lot of trust, and the potential use cases of virtual environments will be allowed to become more complex. Already today, they often involve network streaming components which often has very strict optimization requirements in order to be able to run in real-time with minimal delay under normal network conditions. In order to reach the required optimizations it is important to understand how users interact with such virtual environments. To support and facilitate the understanding of this kind of interaction we have developed a method for creating qualitative datasets containing extensive information about the 3D scene as well as the sensor data from the head-mounted display (HMD). We then apply this method to create a sample dataset from a virtual 3D environment and try to analyze the data collected through some simple methods for demonstrational purposes.

Virtual reality, VR, has become more popular in the last decade thanks to the rapid development of the technology, and thanks to becoming more accessible. One of the demands that users have is that the VR experience should be immersive, which means that the computer-generated world should be perceived as if it was real. This is achieved by taking all senses into account. In addition to the visual impression, the sound is essential and contributes information to the user. When locating audio sources, a three-dimensional sound image is necessary. A part of the localization includes estimating the distance to the audio source. Our perception of distance is based upon two impressions, the volume and the relationship between direct and diffuse sound. The direct sound is the sound that reaches the listener directly, and the diffuse sound is the sound that arrives at the listener after being reflected against the surroundings [4]. This study aims to explore how the relationship between direct and diffuse sound affects the perception of distance to audio sources in VR. The study consisted of two phases: A design phase for building the test environment and a test phase where physical tests were conducted. The test environment was built in Unity and consisted of four scenes, two of which were for educational purposes and two for test purposes. It was also analyzed whether any previous experience of VR or playing an instrument affected the result. No evident trends could be seen in the results, and therefore no conclusions could be drawn from the study. Noticeable from the data was that the answers became more extreme when the reverberation was increased. And that the answers were more evenly distributed when the reverberation was reduced. It was also noted that the reverberation affected the participants' perception of space more than the perception of distance. The most prominent reasons for the vague result are believed to be that the study group was too small and that the test was too difficult. Another factor that impacted the result was the software used. Although no conclusions could be drawn from this study, it will continue to be interesting to investigate further what can affect the perception of distance in VR. / Virtuell verklighet, VR, har blivit mer och mer populärt under det senaste årtiondet tack vare att tekniken utvecklats och tack vare att den har blivit mer tillgänglig. Ett av de största kraven som användarna ställer på VR-upplevelsen är att den ska vara omslutande, vilket innebär att den datorgenererade världen ska uppfattas som om den var verklig. För att det ska uppnås måste alla sinnen tas i beaktning. Förutom synintrycket, är ljudupplevelsen ett viktigt stimuli som bidrar med information till användaren. För att kunna lokalisera ljudkällor är en tredimensionell ljudbild nödvändig. En del av lokaliseringen innefattar att uppskatta avståndet till ljudkällan. Vår avståndsuppfattning bygger på två intryck, ljudstyrkan och förhållandet mellan direkt och diffust ljud. Det direkta ljudet är det ljud som når lyssnaren direkt och det diffusa ljudet är det som når lyssnaren efter att ha reflekterats mot omgivningen [4]. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur förhållandet mellan direkt och diffust ljud påverkar avståndsuppfattningen till ljudkällor i VR. Studien har bestått av två faser: En designfas där testmiljön byggdes, och en testfas där det utfördes fysiska tester på deltagarna. Testmiljön byggdes i Unity och bestod av fyra scener, varav två var i utbildande syfte och de andra två utgjorde testet. Det analyserades även om tidigare erfarenhet av VR eller instrumentspelande hade någon påverkan på resultatet. Det gick inte att se några tydliga trender i resultatet och därav kan inga slutsatser dras av undersökningen. Det mest utmärkande i datan var att svaren blev mer extrema vid ökad efterklang och mer jämt fördelade vid minskad efterklang. Det noterades att efterklangen påverkade deltagarnas rumsuppfattning mer än uppfattningen om avståndet till ljudkällan. De mest framträdande anledningarna till det vaga resultatet tros vara att studiegruppen var för liten och att testet var för svårt. Den använda programvaran har även haft påverkan på utfallet. Trots att inga slutsatser kunde dras så är det fortsatt intressant att undersöka vad som kan påverka avståndsuppfattningen i VR.

Within Gällö skog there is an increasing need for meetings in the forest at a distance. This is because many landowners do not live at or close to their forest property. The aim of this work was therefore to find a 3D conference solution for Gällö skog. The work has been carried out using the design process and Pugh's relative decision matrix. First, a requirement specification was made for both hardware and software selection. Then the Facebook Spaces, Rumii and AltSpaceVR software were investigated against this. When none of the aforementioned software was sufficiently satisfactory for this work, it was decided to develop a software. The developed software is based on a website and was developed by modifying an existing project from github.com. Through the modification made in the project, all requirements in the specification could ultimately be achieved. However, with some restrictions. The software works best in the Mozilla Firefox browser, and is not compatible with the iPhone. The user friendliness of Gällö skog also has development potential. The hardware in this work was chosen by comparing the VR glasses HTC Vive and Oculus Rift against each other and the developed requirement specification. As a result, HTC Vive was bought for the project. This because it fulfilled most of the work requirements, and that it had other features that enabled the headset to be used in future work. Finally, The conclusion of this work was that until this technology has come further, this solution may be insufficient. The idea is good, the solution is good, but the technology needs to come further for fully satisfactory results. When the VR technololgy have advanced further, a solution like this could be something that could be useful to companies. This because the inertaction of a 3D conference is improved compared to today's video chat. / Inom Gällö skog finns ett ökande behov av att hålla möten i skogen på distans. Detta eftersom många markägare inte bor på, eller vid sin skogsfastighet. Målet med detta arbete var därför att hitta en 3D-konferenslösning åt Gällö skog. Arbetet har genomförts med hjälp av designprocessen samt Pughs relativa beslutsmatris. Först togs en kravspecifikation fram både för val av hårdvara och mjukvara. Efter det undersöktes mjukvarorna Facebook Spaces, Rumii och AltSpaceVR mot denna. När ingen av de nämnda mjukvarorna var tillräckligt tillfredsställande för detta arbete så valdes att ta fram en egen mjukvara. Den framtagna mjukvaran baseras på en webbplats och togs fram genom att modifiera ett befintligt projekt från github.com. Genom den modifikation som gjordes i projektet så kunde alla krav i kravspecifikationen till slut uppnås. Dock med vissa restriktioner. Mjukvaran fungerar bäst i webbläsaren Mozilla Firefox, och är ej kompatibel med Iphone. Även användarvänligheten för Gällö skog har utvecklingspotential. Hårdvaran i detta arbete togs fram genom att jämföra VR-glasögonen HTC Vive och Oculus Rift mot varandra och den framtagna kravspecifikationen. Resultatet av detta blev att HTC Vive köptes in till projektet. Detta för att de uppfyllde flest av arbetets krav, samt att de hade övriga funktioner som gjorde att de kan användas även i framtida arbeten. Slutsatsen av detta arbete blev till slut att tills dess att tekniken kring detta har hunnit längre så blir denna lösning möjligtvis otillräcklig. Tanken är god, lösningen bra, men tekniken behöver komma längre för fullt tillfredsställande resultat. När VR-tekniken kommit längre skulle en lösning likt denna kunna vara något som kan bli användbart för fler företag. Detta eftersom interaktionen i en 3D-konferens förbättras jämfört med dagens videochattar.

Projektet skapades från viljan att framställa en virtuell träningsmiljö där blivande lärare kan öva och bättra på sin icke-verbala kommunikation när dem undervisar. Projektet funkar genom att fånga användarens rörelser och rendera virtuella agenter på en skärm framför användaren. Att stå framför en statisk skärm och undervisa kan dock inte kännas helt realistiskt. Denna rapport kommer gå igenom implementationen av en huvudmonterad display, mer specifikt Oculus Rift, för att skapa en virtuell verklighet och utökningen av de virtuella agenternas beetende och nya sätt att interagera med agenterna. De täcker även resultaten från experimenten där den nya funktionaliteten blev utvärderad. Experimenten gjordes genom att låta 18 personer testa systemet i både den gamla och nya uppsättningen och sedan fylla i frågeformulär efteråt. / This project was created from the desire to provide a virtual training environment for teachers-intraining to practice and improve their non-verbal communication with students. The project worked by capturing the user’s movements and rendering the virtual agent’s to a screen in front of the user. Standing in front of a static screen to hold a lecture might however not feel entirely realistic. This report covers the implementation of a head-mounted display, specifically the Oculus Rift, to create a virtual reality as well as the extension of the virtual agent’s behavior and new ways to interact with the virtual agent’s. It also covers the results of an experiment where the new functionality was evaluated. The experiment was done by allowing 18 persons to test the system in both the old and new configurations and fill in questionnaires afterwards.

While the accessibility and technology behind industrial robots is improving as well as becomingless expensive, the installation and conguration of industrial robot cells still proves tobe an expensive venture, especially for small and mid-sized companies. It is therefore of greatinterest to simulate robot cell installations, both for verication of system functionality as wellas for demonstration purposes for clients.However, the construction and conguration of a simulated robot cell is a time-consumingprocess and requires expertise that is often only found in engineers who are experienced withsoftware programming and spacial kinematics. If the process were to be simplied it would bringgreat advantages not only concerning the more ecient use of the time of software engineers butalso in marketing applications.As this paper will show, the use of Virtual Reality (VR) in simulating, displaying andcontrolling robots is a well investigated subject. It has been shown that VR can be used to showrobot simulation in more detail and to specify path movement in task programming. This paperfocuses upon nding and evaluating an intuitive Human Robot Interface (HRI) for interactingwith simulated robots using virtual reality.An HRI is proposed and evaluated, using the Oculus Rift Head Mounted Display (HMD)to display a 3-dimensional (3D) VR environment of a Robot Cell in ABB RobotStudio. Usingmarker-based tracking enabled by ARToolkit, the user's position in real world coordinates isforwarded to the virtual world, along with the position and orientation of a hand-held tool thatallows the user to manipulate the robot targets that are part of the simulated robots program.The system as an HRI was successful in giving the user a strong sense of immersion andgiving them a much better understanding of the robot cell and the positions of the dened robottargets. All participants were also able to dene robot targets much faster with the proposedinterface than when using the standard RobotStudio tools. Results show that the performance ofthe tracking system is adequate with regards to latency and accuracy for updating user positionand hand-held tool when using a video capture resolution of 640x480.

This thesis explores how virtual reality solutions affect children in their learning through educational games. The goal is to improve educational games in terms of how engaging they are. Therefore, a game was developed for both desktop monitors and VR, some children played both versions and were then interviewed. The collected data indicates that VR engages the pupils more, however it does not seem to necessarily make them learn more. This may be in part because of VR’s novelty, only gaining a mainstream status in the recent years. / Denna uppsats undersöker hur virtuell verklighet (VR) påverkar barns lärande genom utbildningsspel. Målet är att förbättra utbildningsspel för att öka elevernas engagemang. Därför utvecklades ett spel för både datorskärmar och VR-glasögon, några barn fick spela båda versionerna och blev därefter intervjuade. Resultatet av undersökningen indikerar att VR ökar elevernas engagemang, men inte nödvändigtvis att de lär sig mer. Detta kan delvis bero på att VR är relativt nytt och endast börjat bli allmänt förekommande under de senaste åren.