Entering a new Dimension in Virtual Reality Research: An Overview of Existing Toolkits, their Features and Challenges

Virtual reality becomes a medium to be explored for itself, to study human factors and human behavior within these worlds, and to infer possible behavior in the real world. Among many advantages, building test routines in virtual environments remains a challenge due to the lack of established procedures and toolkits. To encourage research in this direction and lower the barrier to entry, it is necessary to simplify the process of setting up a research environment in virtual reality by providing appropriate toolkits. This paper discusses what challenges need to be overcome, what features might be relevant, and compares available toolkits.