OVRlap: Perceiving Multiple Locations Simultaneously to Improve Interaction in VR

We introduce OVRlap, a VR interaction technique that lets the user perceive multiple places at the same time from a first-person perspective. OVRlap achieves this by overlapping viewpoints. At any time, only one viewpoint is active, meaning that the user may interact with objects therein. Objects seen from the active viewpoint are opaque, whereas objects seen from passive viewpoints are transparent. This allows users to perceive multiple locations at once and easily switch to the one in which they want to interact. We compare OVRlap and a single-viewpoint technique in a study where 20 participants complete object-collection and monitoring tasks. We find that in both tasks, participants are significantly faster and move their head significantly less with OVRlap. We propose how the technique might be improved through automated switching of the active viewpoint and intelligent viewpoint rendering.