Development of a Touchable VR Planetarium for Both Sighted and Visually Impaired People

The authors proposed and developed a “touchable” VR planetarium. The user wears a VR headset and “touches” the stars with the controllers. Because we can't touch the stars in reality, this application provides the users with additional value and experience of the planetarium. As this feature is valuable for visually impaired people to experience the starry sky, the authors also implemented the functions that help it. In the trial use by visually impaired people, they experienced the starry sky with the support functions and evaluated the VR planetarium as a valuable application.