Global Scene Filtering, Exploration, and Pointing in Occluded Virtual Space

Target acquisition in an occluded environment is challenging given the omni-directional and first-person view in virtual reality (VR). We propose Solar-Casting, a global scene filtering technique to manage occlusion in VR. To improve target search, users control a reference sphere centered at their head through varied occlusion management modes: Hide, SemiT (Semi-Transparent), Rotate. In a preliminary study, we find SemiT to be better suited for understanding the context without sacrificing performance by applying semi-transparency to targets within the controlled sphere. We then compare Solar-Casting to highly efficient selection techniques to acquire targets in a dense and occluded VR environment. We find that Solar-Casting performs competitively to other techniques in known environments, where the target location information is revealed. However, in unknown environments, requiring target search, Solar-Casting outperforms existing approaches. We conclude with scenarios demonstrating how Solar-Casting can be applied to crowded and occluded environments in VR applications.