Evaluating Positional Head-Tracking in Immersive VR for 3D Designers

With the ongoing introduction of wide-FOV VR head-worn displays into the consumer market, the application of VR 3D UIs to professional work environments is attracting increasing attention. One of the most conspicuous concepts is immersive 3D modeling and content creation. In spite of the long research history, there have been very few analyses of the effect of 3D UIs on productivity in 3D design. In this work, we explore the effect of positional head-tracking on task performance in 3D design. Previous studies have come to different conclusions on the importance of headtracking and did not investigate professional 3D modeling tools. In contrast, we performed a user study with design students using professional software on a task that closely emulates their work. Surprisingly, we did not find a significant effect of head-tracking on task-completion time, neither when using a traditional 2D mouse nor when using a pinch glove as a 3D input device.