Design and evaluation of a wind display for virtual reality

One of the goals in the design of virtual environments (VE) is to give the user the feeling of existence within the VE, known as presence. Employing multimodality is one way to increase presence, and as such, numerous multimodal input and output devices have been used in the context of virtual reality (VR). However, the simulation and investigation into the effects of the wind (or air flow) has not been treated much in the VR research community. In this paper, we introduce a wind display system, called the "WindCube," designed for virtual reality applications. The WindCube consists of a number of small fans attached to a cubical structure in which a VR system user interacts with the VE. We first discuss the design parameters of the proposed display device such as the type of the fan used, and the appropriate number, locations and directions of the fans in relation to providing the minimum level of the wind effects and enhanced presence. In order to simulate the effects of the wind, a wind field is first specified within the virtual environment. We describe how the specified wind field is rendered to the user through the proposed device. Finally, we investigate the effects of the proposed wind display to user felt presence through an experiment. It is our belief that wind display is very important and cost effective modality to consider and employ, because it involves "air," a medium that makes the VE felt more "livable," in contrast to many VE's that looks vaccum.