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Christian Mai, Tim Wiltzius, Florian Alt, Heinrich Hussmann
Feeling Alone in Public. Investigating the Influence of Spatial Layout on Users' VR Experience
In Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. ACM, New York, NY, USA. (bib)

While the eyes are very important in human communication, once a user puts on a head mounted display (HMD), the face is obscured from the outside worldâs perspective. This leads to communication problems when bystanders approach or collaborate with an HMD user. We introduce TransparentHMD, which employs a head-coupled perspective technique to produce an illusion of a transparent HMD to bystanders. We created a self contained system, based on a mobile device mounted on the HMD with the screen facing bystanders. By tracking the relative position of the bystander using the smartphoneâs camera, we render an adapting perspective view in realtime that creates the illusion of a transparent HMD. By revealing the userâs face to bystanders, our easy to implement system allows for opportunities to investigate a plethora of research questions particularly related to collaborative VR systems.