Levitation Simulator: Prototyping Ultrasonic Levitation Interfaces in Virtual Reality
This work addresses the problem of high-cost and accessibility barriers for researchers and designers in levitation interface development, though it is incremental as it builds on existing VR and levitation technologies.
The researchers tackled the challenge of prototyping ultrasonic levitation interfaces by developing a Virtual Reality simulator that models particle movement and enables interactive design and testing. Their results show that the simulator achieves performance comparable to real prototypes in a Fitts' Law study and similar user engagement in games.
We present the Levitation Simulator, a system that enables researchers and designers to iteratively develop and prototype levitation interface ideas in Virtual Reality. This includes user tests and formal experiments. We derive a model of the movement of a levitating particle in such an interface. Based on this, we develop an interactive simulation of the levitation interface in VR, which exhibits the dynamical properties of the real interface. The results of a Fitts' Law pointing study show that the Levitation Simulator enables performance, comparable to the real prototype. We developed the first two interactive games, dedicated for levitation interfaces: LeviShooter and BeadBounce, in the Levitation Simulator, and then implemented them on the real interface. Our results indicate that participants experienced similar levels of user engagement when playing the games, in the two environments. We share our Levitation Simulator as Open Source, thereby democratizing levitation research, without the need for a levitation apparatus.