Redirected walking in virtual reality environments

Abstract

Redirected walking methods are described that may be implemented in virtual reality (VR) systems for guiding or redirecting users' movements within constrained physical environments or in unconstrained physical environments, while the users perceive that they are freely moving about within virtual worlds provided by the VR systems. The methods may involve rendering views of a VR world based at least in part on a user's movements in the real environment, adjusting the views according to the user's position and movements with respect to objects in and boundaries of the real environment, and displaying the adjusted views to the user. In response to visual cues introduced by the methods, the user may adjust their path in the real world environment. For example, a rotation of the VR environment introduced by a shift of one or more views may cause the user to turn in a direction opposite to the rotation.