Accounting for object weight in interaction design for virtual reality

Interaction design for virtual reality (VR) rarely takes the weight of an object – let alone its moment of inertia into account. This clearly reduces user immersion and could lead to a break-in-presence. In this work, we propose methods for providing a higher fidelity in interactions with virtual objects. Specifically, we present different methods for picking up, handling, swinging, and throwing objects based on their weight, size, and affordances. We conduct user studies in order to gauge the differences in performance as well as sense of presence of the proposed techniques compared to conventional interaction techniques. While these methods all rely on the use of unmodified VR controllers, we also investigate the difference between using controllers to simulate a baseball bat and swinging a real baseball bat. Interestingly, we find that realism of the motions during interaction is not necessarily an important concern for all users. Our modified interaction techniques, however, have the ability to push user performance towards the slower motions that we observe when a real bat is used instead of a VR controller on its own.