Evaluation of immersion in externally directed VR

In this thesis, the impact of humanly controlled, externally triggered effects on immersioninside a virtual reality simulation is researched. The VR simulation is based on theVirtual Jump project [EM15] which not only serves as physical foundation for creating an immersive VR experience, but also provides the original VR content that this thesis build supon. The software for the external interaction console is created as a completely separateapplication from the ground up. By using one of the interaction console applications the user can trigger actions within the VR simulation, either by using traditional input devices like a mouse or by performing hand movements that are captured with the LeapMotion Controller. Both the original Virtual Jump content, as well as the newly created interaction console application are based on the Unity game engine and can be run as stand-alone applications. The interaction between these two applications is realized witha custom, message-based communication approach, that transfer event triggers over a traditional Ethernet connection.With a prototype implementation of the remote interaction console, as well as with a modified version of the original Virtual Jump content, a small-scale user study was carried out. In order to allow the necessary test jumps to be performed with a maximum of safety in mind, even in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, some concessions to the software implementation as well as a variety of changes to the testing procedure andnumber of test subjects had to be made.The majority of my participants, although not being representative due to sample size,claimed that externally triggered effects did in fact have an influence on immersion whenbeing in a VR simulation. Surprisingly, these effects seem to be positive rather than negative. The user study also covers the inter-person interaction between jumpers and controllers, as well as power dynamics that could be observed during the test jumps.To summarize, my user study, although not representative, showed that the degree ofimmersion of my test subjects in VR was mostly affected positively by humanly-controlled,externally triggered effects. It also revealed that the power dynamics between participants within the two roles highly depended on the individual users. Nevertheless, among my participants, both roles seem to have been enjoyed during the test jumps, with the role of the controller seeming to be the more desirable one.