Indoor skydiving in immersive virtual reality with embedded storytelling

We describe the Virtual Jump Simulator, which allows subjects toperform an indoor parachute jump in a virtual environment. Thenecessity to jump physically off a platform combined with immersivevirtual reality and tactile feedback creates an experience witha high amount of presence, as the evaluation of the prototype confirms.The system consists of a steel cube, a mechanical absorbersystem with stacked eccentric wheels and counterweights that allowssubjects in the weight range from 35 to 150kg to jump withoutthe need for individual calibration, a virtual reality setup withhigh-quality 3D content and tactile stimuli. In the immersive virtualjump experience, we embed a story using rich multimedia content,such as images and sound. We iteratively tested the entire systemwith users of different backgrounds. Thereby, we gathered userfeedback from the very beginning to create a novel virtual realitysystem that allows for actual physical jumping and flying with freebody movement.