level-ups: motorized stilts that simulate stair steps in virtual reality

Dominik Schmidt, Robert Kovacs, Vikram Mehta, Udayan Umapathi, Sven Köhler, Lung-Pan Cheng, Patrick Baudisch:

In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI'15
note paper

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“Level-Ups” are computer-controlled stilts that allow virtual reality users to experience elevation in real-walking environment. Each Level-Up unit is a self-contained device worn like a boot. Its main functional element is a vertical actuation mechanism, so called lift-table.



Level-Ups are operated in a typical VR environment. In the below picture Sven is wearing an Oculus Rift and a MacBook on his chest, where the actual VR processing is running. To find out where the user is in the virtual world, we used a motion capture system, in this case Optitrack.




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2023 robert kovacs