Expert Performance in the Examination of Interior Surfaces in an Automobile: Virtual Reality vs. Reality

For evaluating the appearance and design language of car interiors, the surface quality and shapes are inspected by highly trained professionals. At the same time, virtual reality (VR) is making major progress, pushing the boundaries of this technology. In this paper, we evaluate the applicability of VR using head mounted displays (HMDs) in an experiment where we had experts examine the design quality of an interior in VR and compared the results with the examination on a powerwall as well as in reality. Our goal is to find out in how far current VR hardware can be used in the automotive industry and which advantages and disadvantages occur. Our results show that the experts are able to detect an amount of flaws comparable to reality with the powerwall being the superior medium in terms of flaws identified. Additionally, symptoms of cybersickness and a reduced lack of confidence was measured in the subjects using a HMD.