The VR motion tracker: visualising movement of non-participants in desktop virtual reality experiences

In this paper we present the VR Motion Tracker: a widget that informs users of VR applications of the movements of nonparticipants. The design of the widget is inspired by the the motion tracker used in the Alien film franchise. It uses a Kinect to detect other people in the room, besides the user of the VR application. Our system maps this information to a sphere placed within a triangular plane representing the Kinect's field of view. When these non-participants move, the position of the sphere is updated, allowing the user to be aware of nearby movements. We performed a preliminary study where we presented nine participants with our widget design. We found that they considered the widget to be useful and not distracting. We discuss which features they found interesting, and other information and features they considered useful for a future version of this widget.