Evaluating the user experience of omnidirectional VR walking simulators

Abstract Omnidirectional treadmills (ODTs) have been traditionally proposed as a promising solution for users’ navigation in large-scale virtual environments. These mechanical devices enable users to perform locomotive motion with 360-deg freedom, while keeping their position fixed in the physical world. However, most locomotion approaches based on omnidirectional treadmills have presented either high acquisition or maintenance costs, being the capabilities of the general public, or a limited reliability. In this paper, we present a comparative usability and acceptance study with real users evaluating the two most common approaches for the development of this type of Virtual Reality (VR) wa…