Skillful manipulation of virtual objects: Implementation of juggling in a virtual environment

This paper describes our study on skillful object manipulation in virtual environments. The study deals with juggling balls and aims to implement a virtual environment in which juggling operations similar to those in the real world are possible. The juggling task requires precise ball handling and quick hand motion and the virtual environment must respond to the user accurately and quickly. This paper focuses on the implementation of such a virtual environment. A visual display based on immersive projection technology was employed to cover a wide vertical field of view and computation algorithm for interaction was improved to simulate fast motion collision. In addition, auditory feedback was introduced to compensate for the lack of force and tactile sensations. The prototype environment was evaluated through experiments using subjects, and it was proved that users can perform two-ball juggling in the virtual environment, although their performance is poorer than that in the real world, and that auditory contact feedback improves the performance.