Remote Virtual Showdown

Abstract

The virtual reality was originally developed for people with normal vision and therefore, people with visual impairment (PVI) had difficulties in accessing virtual reality (VR). In this project, we developed a virtual showdown, a VR sports game for PVI which supports multimodal interfaces. The showdown is one of the sports in Paralympic games, in which PVI plays by using audio feedback and haptic feedback. To implement the showdown in VR, we used the Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) which allows PVI to recognize the location of a virtual ball with a 3D spatial sound. Our showdown game supports two modes: (1) player vs. artificial intelegenc (AI) agent (PvA) mode where PVI plays against an AI agent, and (2) player vs. player (PvP) mode where two players can play against each other remotely. With the remote virtual showdown, PVI not only experiences the virtual reality but also exercises themselves physically. Through the virtual showdown, PVI can play the game with ordinary sighted people.