Virtual reality and restorative environments

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Virtual reality and restorative

environments

Jonatan Holmgren

Jonatan.Holmgren@hotmail.com

Interaktionsdesign Bachelor 22.5HP VT 2019 Supervisor: Li Jönsson

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Abstract

The technology Virtual Reality (VR) is being used in many different aspects and techniques, it is a method to visualize a virtual world which a user can immerse themselves in. The following study covers the process of creating and testing a simulated restorative

environment in VR. The goal was to create an experience that could help young adults at their office or university by immersing them in the simulated environment for a short time. The findings showed that the user found the simulated environment restorative and had a positive effect on them according to the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) and personal feedback.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank BIMobject for providing me with resources and time for my user-testing and scanning, all the participants and Alnarp who assisted me with interviews and research. I would also like to thank Li Jönsson my supervisor for help and guidance during my project.

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1 Introduction

During the years 2010 to 2015 the initiated cases of sick leave from Försäkringskassan increased by 98000. Out of these 59% were related to psychological diagnosis and the increase was significantly higher than other areas (Försäkringskassan, 2015). The statistics show an increase in depression and stress trend among specifically young adults with a majority of woman.

According to Folkhälsomyndigheten (2019) 16% of people in the ages between 16-84 are feeling stressed or very stressed, among these the ages 16-29 have a significantly higher representation. This exposed group consists of both students and employees in the early stages of their career and work life. Long term stress has shown tendencies to lead to heart and vascular diseases, adjustment disorders and depression. Technology is often seen as a contributing factor to why young people are stressed out but not often talked about as a tool of relaxation.

This project explores how virtual reality, nature and design can work together with the goal of increasing the mental health among young adults.

- How does a simulated nature environment affect users when treated as a

restorative environment in VR?

1.1 Background

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) is becoming more advanced and compared to 2D screens the immersiveness is comparable to reality and sometimes even surpasses it in some experiences (Barnes, 2016). Stores now have the possibility to showcase both their product and the lifestyle they are selling in a simulated VR environment, companies can bring their

advertising and brand into the home of a customer through VR (Glazer, Hobson, Deming, Royer & Fehlhaber, 2017). There are simple variants such as Google Cardboard which uses your phone in a holder with two holes, one for each eye, and more complex systems such as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive which take advantage of many sensors and interactions

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1.2 Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to see if a simulated nature VR experience can be equivalent with the reality of going out in the nature. Is it better to experience a simulated environment compared to no simulated environment? The negative trend regarding stress is a growing problem, with immersion and VR I see an opportunity in the way we relate to nature and stress. My hopes are that my work can contribute to a better psychological wellbeing in stressful environments and further explore the field of VR and nature.

1.3 Intended target group

The target group for this application is young adults in the ages from 18-30 whom are either studying or working in a stressful environment. This group is overrepresented in stress and anxiety (Försäkringskassan, 2015). The setting where this product would be applicable are office spaces and universities where people are often in stressful situations without proper resources nor time for relaxation and destressing.

1.4 Limitations

VR works well for most users but can also cause motion sickness, dizziness and similar side effects. To negate this in my application there will be limited actions and movement the user can do, no forced movement where the player is automatically moved. Also using a market leading VR station such as HTC Vive will help with reducing lag and response times for actions and movement which can cause motion sickness and nausea due to a disconnect between the sensory system and the visual systems field of view (Lin, Duh, Parker, Abi-Rached & Furness, 2002). The study is also reliant the more expensive version of VR which is not portable and therefore testing and designing is limited to the specific requirements of HTC-vive and the place where it is located.

1.5 Ethical principles

During this project I have followed and worked according to the guidelines provided by Vetenskapsrådet (2017). This means that participants have acknowledged and understood in written form the scope and purpose of this project and that no personal information will be kept in any form. If they want to withdraw or redact any information, they are free to do so at any time, all information gathered is for researching purposes only.

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2 Theory

The following section will cover different theories I have worked with in my project and design process, it consists of different research and aspects regarding nature, design, sound, immersion, stress and virtual reality. The research from these topics are the foundation of this project.

2.1 Interaction design

Design is a broad term that is used in many different fields and the definition of it can at times be hard to grasp. An industrial designer works in a different way than a clothing designer, what every designer has in common is that the design of a product or service is important for every involved party from stakeholders to designers and users.

Paul Ralph and Yair Wand (2009) proposes the following definition for design:

“A specification of an object, manifested by an agent, intended to accomplish goals, in a particular environment, using a set of primitive components, satisfying a set of

requirements, subject to constraints”.

A user may provide information, requirements and testing, this does not result in the user being a designer, they write that to be included as a design agent you must create one or more structural decisions regarding the object that is being designed.

For a designer the design process can be varying depending on what kind of project they are working with, David Ullman (1992) states that no matter what process is being used there will still be a set of generic phases included in every design project. As seen in Figure 1 These are product discovery, project planning, product definition, conceptual design, product development and product support.

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Figure 1. Conceptual Model of Design (as a noun) A Proposal for a Formal Definition of the Design Concept (Retrieved 2019-04-18)

Experience design is a term that is often connected with interaction design, Bill Buxton (2005) writes about the general idea of a designer is that he designs objects that are tangible. Instead Buxton believes that it is experiences that are being designed, even though the outcome often is a tangible object that object has a function to engage and immerse us in an experience.

2.2 Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality is described by Aukstakalnis and David Blatner (1992) as a way of

visualization, interaction and manipulation with complex data. In the beginning VR was divided into different systems: Windows on World systems, Video mapping, Immersive systems, Telepresence and mixed reality (Isdale, 1998). Virtual reality today are further developments on the immersive systems which are using a Head Mounted Display (HMD) often together with two controllers, one for each hand. In 1968 Ivan Sutherland (1968) created one of the first HMDs which had stereo presentation, two offset images, one for each eye that give the sense of 3D depth. The 3D illusions presented by Sutherland felt real and users stated that they could look around in a natural way. Today VR have become a big part of the gaming community and is getting more sophisticated and providing realistic

experiences that the user can immerse themselves in while in their home (McMahan, Bowman, Zielinski & Brady (2012).

2.2.1 Negative effects of Virtual Reality

While VR is getting better and more available for the general society there are still symptoms for some users when using a HMD. According to Sharples, Cobb, Moody & Wilson (2008) HMDs compared to desktop computer, reality and projection had a significantly higher

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percentage of nausea and disorientation among its users. This applies more to applications that does not give users control of their own movement in the virtual environment, such as the camera being moved without the user moving. It is important for the user to have full control of their own movement.

2.2.2 Immersion

Immersion is commonly associated with games and according to Emily Brown and Paul Cairns (2004) there are three levels of immersion, engagement, engrossment and total immersion. Engagement lets the player feel involved in the game by spending time and effort. Engrossment exists when the players emotions are affected by the game construct and time invested. When the player feel detached from reality and the game is all that matters is when total immersion exists.

Gordon Calleja (2011) believes that immersion is connected to perception and argues that if the user has a sense of presence where he is this will give a deeper feeling of immersion at the same time. He writes that immersion can sometimes be looked upon as the holy grail of games because it draws player in and makes them feel like they are a part of it.

Immersion may be summarized as an emotional and deep connection to the game or certain parts of it, it may be the avatar the player is controlling or the storyline of the game. A different way of looking at immersion is in visual patterns that can be applied to guide the attention of the player and increase their immersion as Müller, Sundström, Murer & Tscheligi (2012) writes about, also called a core definition pattern.

2.3 Sound

One of the components of Immersion is how atmospheric or relevant the sound is for the person experiencing it, how well it suits the environment that is being seen (Brown & Cairns, 2004). The sound in a specific setting or location is called a soundscape, it is defined by the study of any acoustic field or setting (Pijanowski et al., 2011). Anywhere where we can isolate an acoustic environment and the events that are being heard, not seen, can be associated with sound scaping.

Keynote sounds, signals and soundmarks are the main characteristics of a soundscape. Keynote is a term derived from music and describes a main tone that is heard without listening consciously, a sound in the background but equally important to how a soundscape is perceived. Signals are the opposite, foreground sounds that are listened to consciously and

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could for example be an alarm or a horn. Special sounds such as are specified to a certain community or place are called soundmarks.

Soundscapes have been analyzed in green spaces in urban areas, the amount of vegetation and how noisy the urban area was affected how well it was perceived by the visitors. Natural sounds were the most favourable and appreciated whereas mechanical and people sounds were the least preferred (Irvine et al., 2009).

According to C. Hägerhäll (personal communication, April 24, 2019) at Alnarp University it is better to have sounds that are similar to the environment that are being simulated than no sound at all. The sound will not be analysed in this report neither will it be explored further due to lack of resources and time, further into the project the sounds that were user in the prototypes will be covered.

2.4 Stress

Stress is a response from our brain that affects the whole body, acute stress is a survival instinct and activates different systems in the human body to get ready. There is a difference in individuals and what they perceive as stressful what is common for everyone is that prolonged stress has a negative effect on you, both physically and psychologically (Mcewen, 2008). An encounter or thought that can induce stress is called a stressor. Stressors from earlier stages in our life play a big part in how we react later in life which also affect our brain structure and increases the risk for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (Kaufman et al., 2000).

Stress also plays a leading factor in absence from work and lead to increased costs for both employers and our society, according to Arbetsmiljöverket (2015) about 50-60% of work-related absence is connected to stress. Some common causes in work work-related stress are short deadlines, bad planning and issues with colleagues or work systems. Region Skåne have been addressing these problems by implementing rehabilitation at the countryside, it is a project where patients with mental health problems can visit a farm where you help and contribute in your own pace. It is set out to have positive effects when be outside around animals and nature doing simple physical tasks (Gudmundsson, 2013).

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2.5 Nature

Forest Bathing was founded 1982 in Japan as an explanation to enjoying the company and mood of the forest (Ochiai et al,. 2015). The effects of forest bathing were however not

explored until later where it showed properties of lowering blood pressure, pulse rate and cortisol levels which are all related to stress (Park, Tsunetsugu, Kasetani, Kagawa & Miyazaki, 2010). The studies also point to an increase in human natural killer cell activity which helps with how our immune system functions, thus increasing the healthiness among both males and females.

2.5.1 restorative environments

The three main forces that pressure people according to Stephen Kaplan (1992) are

technological advances, increasing world population and our knowledge gain. A restorative environment can reduce the effects of these forces, such as mental fatigue and stress. The restorative environment does not have a generic set of details or properties, instead there are a number of components that can add to an environment being restorative.

There are four components that make an environment restorative according to Kaplan (1995). These components are:

Being away. A more conceptual than physical approach where a new environment can potentially be efficient but not essential, to look upon things in a new way or gaze in new directions could be enough. Freeing up the mental activity is the important aspect of being away.

Extent. Refers to the feeling of size in the space you are in, not the actual size. It can also be applied in a more conceptual way of connectivity of the space, is it connected to a bigger picture, historical or past eras.

Fascination. Nature often offers soft fascinations which mean that they can distract and hold the attention but in an undramatic and calm way. The visitor can be engrossed while still effortlessly thinking about other things.

Compatibility. The expectations must fit the setting and the setting must provide information needed to meet these expectations. In a compatible environment one can achieve the expectations smoothly and with no hurdles.

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3.0 Related work

Existing designs related to the field that are being researched about will be covered in the following section. They are all available for use in a virtual reality headset and are showing different design paths in visual, interactive and sound within the application.

3.1 Guided meditation VR™

Guided meditation VR is a relaxation app that takes use of virtual reality and full

customization with several different environments where the user can choose if they want guided meditation narrative, music or no music.

Figure 2. Autumn forest in one of the scenes. Guided Meditation VR [online] https://guidedmeditationvr.com/ (Retrieved 2019-04-19)

The environments are realistic as seen in Figure 2 which portrays a birch forest in autumn setting, there are many details such as grass, rocks, trees and clouds. Everything in the scene however is 3D models which designed to give the user a sense of resemblance to real life environments while still being fully simulated. There are no interactions within the world except for moving around in the different worlds by choosing a location with a pointer and teleporting. The teleportation helps by keeping you engaged and exploring the surroundings and its many details. There is overall a positive feedback from the users, some issues such as poor quality of textures which can ruin the immersion. Similarly, the lack of interactions limits the immersion as there is a timeframe to how long the same environment provides an

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explorative and engaging experience for the user. Compared to many other relaxation apps guided meditation VR is created using 3d models similar to how games are designed instead of 360 videos or images which many other applications use.

Guided meditation VR is what the name states, its main purpose is to guide you through the experience by having realistic sounds and environments combined with soothing music and a guiding voice for breathing and meditation.

3.2 Relax VR: Rest & Meditation

Relax VR is similarly to Guided Meditation VR an application which aim is to give the user a stress-free environment while at the same time immersing them in a VR experience. Relax VR are based upon years of research and controlled studies which have proven the positive effect that VR can have on a person's mental state. Figure 3 shows the menu of Relax VR where the user has the options of changing scenes, sounds, music and time for the experience. The scenes consist of 360 videos with sound which the user can immersive themselves into.

Figure 3. Forest scene with the menu open. Relax VR: Rest and Meditation [online] https://www.relaxvr.co/ (Retrieved 2019-04-18)

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3.3 Luna

Luna is a story driven VR puzzle that takes you through different sceneries, the scenes are beautifully created and look as something from a fable. With the interactions and puzzles the player awakens the forest step by step which gives an incentive to keep playing. By using the VR controllers, the player can interact with many things in the world presented in front of him, combined with soothing music and nature sounds it gives a relaxing experience and the user have a conscious mind playing.

One of the levels can be seen in figure 4 the player is supposed to touch different areas and do gestures to proceed to the next level, it is a common theme in Luna VR to make use of simple interactions to solve puzzles or tasks to get further into the game.

Figure 4. Scene where the user is supposed to interact with the bird. Luna [online] https://luna.funomena.com/ (Retrieved 2019-04-22)

3.4 Insights from Related Work

Looking at the three different application we see that they are visually very different and have taken design decisions that differ from each other even though they all set out to be relaxing and explorative. Both Luna and Guided Meditation VR are fully simulated scenes that have the feeling of a game more than Relax VR. In Relax VR we are immersed in a real-life video which plays around us. They all share a greenish environment where the user is not often exposed to things that are manmade or that is not coherent with the nature. Luna have abstract interactions and some elements of ruins and small objects.

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When analysing the experience of each application it is recognized that the sound is a crucial part of it. They all have great sound and music which is often adjustable or changeable, without the music it would feel eerie and flat.

Simple interactions give the user an even larger sensation of immersion, it can be interacting with the menu to change the scene to your liking or touching objects in the world. Some interactions are needed to not limit the user to only be an observer.

4.0 Methods

The methods section summarizes and explains the different methods that were used during this project to explore and analyse the research question: How does a simulated nature environment affect users when treated as a restorative environment using VR?

4.1 Workshop and Design Principles

The workshop was based on user-centered design combined with literature studies about restorative and relaxing environments. User-centered design is a method used to ensure the product or service that are being designed meets the expectations and needs of the user. The user is not involved as a designer which is seen in participatory design however the

researcher and/or designer speaks for the user (Sandors 2002). Users were involved during interviews, a workshop and during the prototyping process where they made input at the earlier stages of the application. The goal of this project was to improve the well-being of users and meet the goals they have for a restorative environment. A user-centered design perspective has been applied to the design process and prototyping.

4.2 Prototyping

Due to how nature and the immersiveness of environments are perceived in real life the prototyping in this project only explored high fidelity prototypes. They serve as a

representation closer to a finished product compared to a low fidelity prototype which is a rough, simple representation (Walker, Takayama & Landay, 2002). A prototype can be described as an unfinished representation of a finished product, the purpose of creating prototypes is to stimulate and inform both design decisions and processes. Prototypes can be anything from high fidelity applications to simple sketches (Buchenau & Suri, 2000).

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4.3 3D Scanning

In this project a Matterport Pro2 scanner was used, the Matterport scanner uses infrared sensors to collect 3D data together with 2D images to stitch together fully immersive 3D objects that can be used in third party modelling software.

Instruments that collect 3D coordinates and data of specific spaces and its surfaces are considered to be 3D scanners (Boehler & Marbs, 2002), there is no set definition for 3D scanners due to the wide range of different technologies used in the different scanners. These products are often designed to work in inside environments with static surroundings, as a method I used the Matterport scanner to explore its uses to capture outside environments such as forests and greenspaces.

4.4 Literature Review

The first part of this project was dedicated to research about the subjects involved, mainly these are stress, nature and virtual reality. The goal was to explore existing research and applications to get a better understanding how to approach my research question. This literature review consists of journals, books and articles found on the web, the first weeks was dedicated to gathering this data and compile it to serve as a foundation for further research and design choices. In the literature review results the main insights that were gathered are summarized.

4.4.1 Literature Review Results

How we perceive nature is subjective to each person, forest bathing and restorative

environments are theories and methods that are starting to emerge into our society. They are exploring how people react when being exposed to nature and restorative environments, the research suggests different approaches for using our surroundings in a healthier way.

Stress is a growing problem in Skåne where a high percentage of young adults today are currently facing health problems due to stress related issues. There is also an economical aspect where taxpayers are losing money to resolve issues that could be avoided with a better mental health. In Skåne the estimated cost of 6.9 billion SEK (Hagström, 2018).

When researching about existing products and designs most of the meditation and

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exercises. The environments were also similar to each other and had properties which resembled nature as we know it. The different environments ranged from forest to beaches and mountains. Some products took a different approach by using more abstract and game like visuals.

5 Design Process

The design process covers how the research was applied when involving the users in the correct stages of prototype and how the workshops and user testing was created and executed. It also explains how and why the prototypes that were created focused on the design of a pine forest with restorative properties.

5.1 Execution of Workshop

After signing an informed consent form, participants were separately shown 8 images of different environments laid out on a table in a 2x4 layout. The environments on the images ranged from towns and parks to remote nature with no human footprint (see Figure 5). The participants graded each picture by writing a number from 1-10 to decide which environment they felt were most relaxing contra least relaxing. The pictures included in the workshop were chosen with the four components of restorative environments as well as divergent environment in mind. Using both local resemblance for the environments and remote that we don’t have in Sweden.

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After the participants were finished with the images, we sat down for a participatory brainstorming session as a group. As the workshop leader I initiated by opening with four different topics to explore their thoughts and how they see stress, work environments and VR.

What exists - What resources are provided at your workplace/university to cope with stress and psychological ill health?

What is wanted - What would you want to have access to regarding destress in a work environment?

Dream scenario - As a dream scenario how would your workplace look to make you feel less stressed?

Virtual reality - How do you feel about virtual reality to de-stress?

5.1.1 Results from Workshop

The results from the workshop (see table 1) varies between the lowest 5.4 to the highest 9.4, these findings showed that the workshop participants favour the coniferous forest above the other included environments.

Table 1. Results from workshop questions seen in appendix 1 about restorative environments. Participant Forest

Cabin Forest Snow Coniferous Forest Mountain & Lakes Square Town Park with People Rape-Field Tropical Beach Jacob Andersson 9 7 10 10 8 9 10 7 Andreas Andersson 8 7 10 9 7 6 8 7 Nicolas Ahumada 6 5 10 8 7 5 5 5 Jens Sjödin 4 4 9 8 6 5 5 4 Anonymous 3 4 9 5 2 3 4 3 Average 6 5.4 9.4 8 6 5.6 6.4 5.2

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Below is a summary from the brainstorming session, notes were taken during the whole session and key points were highlighted and is summarized in the order of each topic. What exists - Resources available consisted of school curator, lectures and meetings about stress, meditation, massage room and break constraint which mean you are not allowed to work while on break.

What is wanted - Be able to get away from the workplace and people and be alone for a short amount of time. Enough time for meditation or workout.

Dream scenario - Be able to do workout at breaks, have time to go out from the workplace to a park or similar, get out of the office.

Virtual reality - Participants had a lack of knowledge about virtual reality and had concerns about having a headset on and simultaneously trying to de-stress, it might feel

claustrophobic. The quality of the environment has to be good enough so you don't think about it.

After the session one the participants summarized how their current work situation often is as quoted below. It further on shows how workplaces and environments are tackling the issues of stress and workload in an insufficient way.

“People crash after stressful months, you have to just work through it” (A. Andersson, personal communication, April 12, 2019).

5.2 Initial Research for Prototyping

Concluding the information gathered from the literature, workshop, interviews and existing products I found that environments are not compared in simulated or virtual ones, they are often compared to real-life nature or similar environments. To be able to get as close to a real nature, creating a high-fidelity application with properties that would resemble a real forest would be the best way to design, the applications purpose would be to be used in short breaks for 5-10 minutes. I chose the HTC-vive as headset and Unity (Unity 3D, 2005) as the game development platform. There are some limitations to choosing HTC-vive which is an expensive but professional headset, it is bound to be in a specific physical location, VR-station, which limits the usage to one specific place. This application will focus on companies and universities that already have access to such a station. The feedback from the workshop stated that there is little to no time or suitable resources for stress relief on breaks. This

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application will address the issue of not having enough time to leave a stressful workplace by having the user find a restorative environment in a VR environment within seconds of entering the VR station. With the backing of the literature and interviews I found that following the restorative environment components to create a 3D simulated nature would result in the best outcome, the four components are, being away, extent, fascination and compatibility.

5.3 3D Scanning Process and Outcome

This section will cover how the 3D scan process went and why this method was not used in the finished prototype.

With the help of BIMobject a Matterport Pro2 3D scanner (Matterport, 2019) was provided to create real life scans of a forests which then can be imported into unity as a 3D model. By scanning outdoors wind and lighting needed to be taken into consideration, scans that are indoors can be stitched together seamlessly often in a simple fashion but when scans are made outside there are many variables that can interfere with the quality of the outcome.

During a period of three weeks, five different locations were scanned in Skåne. Each location was chosen according to properties that could be applied to Kaplans (1995) model about restorative environments. Some of the properties that were found were fascination by having a rich environment with many different plants and trees. An open area which doesn´t limit anyone to feel claustrophobic or trapped. These models were then uploaded to Matterport’s cloud service and a 3D model of the scanned area could then be downloaded. Figure 6 shows a small part of one scan made in Anklam, Skåne. The left side of the image shows the

panoramic images created by the scan, the right side shows a portion of the 3D data that was analysed and made into a 3D model. The scanner uses a tripod for taking 360-degree images and sensor data. To scan an area it must be moved approximately two meters every scan, this is due to the 3D data of each scan need to be able to connect with 3D data from at least one previous scan for the software to recognize and stitch together data. It was a difficult process due to the circumstances of being outside with wind, lighting and large open areas where infrared sensors can't reach far enough.

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Figure 6. Matterport Scans showing the 3D model (Left) and the panoramic view (Right).

When testing the 3D scans that had been created in a virtual reality station there were

immediately some key realisations that brought me to not proceed with 3D scans as the main modelling tool.

Trees get cut off: Objects that are higher than 5-6 meters will not be captured by 3D data sensors which means that the objects produced will be cut off at that height. For lower environments that have more bushes, short trees and similar this method could work.

3D scanners and sunlight: On sunny and bright days it was impossible to use the infrared scanner, every surface that has direct sunlight on or if the sensors get direct sunlight will result in an empty scan in those areas. Sometimes brighter areas would work but the finished product would then result in an uneven lighting which would look unnatural.

Difficult modelling process: When downloading an area of 39 scans the finished result was 33 chunks with 3D data with information of how the ground and objects are shaped and imaged texture as a surface on that object. This 3D data is more or less static and to make an environment feel alive by allowing wind and movement to it another third-party software and many hours of work would be needed.

To summarize the 3D scanner Matterport Pro2 is a professional tool which can process and simulate an indoors environment with a promised accuracy of up to 99% (Matterport, 2019). When working with it outside it has some limitations that are to crucial to be a viable option. There is potential in further studies when scanning outside in calm areas that are lower but for my project and due to our limited amount of time and resources this option was ruled out. The Matterport scanner and 3D scanners in general will be explored and commented on further in the discussion section.

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5.4 Unity Process and Prototyping

I began by looking in Unity Asset Store which is store with both free and paid assets. The assets consist of 3D objects, sounds, scripts, models, animations and effects. For my project I researched existing assets of environments and found one that was suitable for my project, Trees Variety by IL Ranch. I choose this asset due to its quality and real-life resemblance of coniferous forests, it also had a simple interaction built in which made it easy to control and bring to life in the scene by adding wind and sunlight. When designing in Unity I focused on three key elements, these were based primarily on the workshop and input from the users.

Expectations from users: The setting must fit the expectations of the users, in this project the expectations were designed by working towards an environment similar to the highest rated image in the workshop, the coniferous forest.

Quality of 3D objects: This project was set out to explore high-fidelity prototypes and

properties of a real coniferous forest, the decision behind choosing these specific assets were based mostly on the high quality of modelling and textures.

Simplicity: During the workshop it was noted that time was a crucial factor in why most people did not go outside or leave the office. There was not enough time to explore or find a restorative environment in the short breaks during workdays. This product should be as simple as possible and not have any unnecessary functions or visuals.

I decided to have an application without a main menu, this was due to testing purposes and that it consisted of only one simulated environment. The users were immediately put in the middle of the forest when starting the application, while playing they had three different interactions to change different visual aspects of the simulation.

Location: By pressing the location key the user could change where in the scene they were located, it consisted of 5 different locations in the same forest. This was used to encourage exploration from the user and make it more interesting for users who would use it on a regular basis. At every location the user can walk around by walking in real life in an area of 3x2 meters which correlates to the same distance in the application.

Wind: Users could turn off the wind fully or make it blow more, this interaction was based on related applications where the user could change specific visuals in the scene to their liking.

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Time of day: The user could change the state of the sun to be either dusk, mid-day or dawn depending on their mood or personal preferences.

The first prototype was an early stage prototype to see if users could feel any resemblance and effect of going into a simple VR forest, as seen in Figure 7 where we can see the overview of the scene (Left) and how the user saw it (Right). The sound in both the early and finished prototype consisted of a recording made in one of the forest locations that were used for scans earlier in the design process. The recording consists of mostly wind and birds chirping but also some insects that were captured by the mic.

Figure 7. First iteration of unity prototype, overview of the scene (left) users view (right).

6 User Testing and Results

User testing or usability testing as it may be referred to is a technique in User-centered design that according to Dumas & Redish (1993) is set out to achieve five goals, these goals are:

To improve the usability of a product Include real users in the testing

Give tasks to the user that should be accomplished

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Have testers analyse the concluded data and apply the needed changes for the product. These goals have been applied to how the user testing was conducted in this study and the iterative process by applying changes to the existing product after the first user test.

6.1 User Testing First Prototype

The first user test was conducted on two persons working at PwC in Lund, PwC is a global audit and tax company with 34 offices in Sweden. The ages of participants were 24 and 29, both were male. The test consisted of a short VR experience after work hours, this was due to having the VR station in a set location in Malmö and both participants were working full time during the time of the user testing. The room for the test was a secluded room from the other people and the participants were alone during the test. Each user travelled from Lund after work to get to the location.

The VR environment that was tested can be seen in Figure 7, the users were told to put on the HTC-vive headset with included headphones and which type of inputs and interactions they could do with the world. The test leader then left the room for them to explore and immerse themselves without being observed. The prototype was designed to be used during breaks which was simulated in the environment by stopping the sound in the application after five minutes. The user was then brought out of the room and the same procedure was done with the second user. After both users were done with the test, they were asked five questions about how they could see a similar application used in a normal workday at their office (see Appendix 1), these questions were designed to explore my assumptions regarding expectations, quality and simplicity.

6.2 Results from First User Test

Both users found the environment to be a bit too much like a game and did not feel that real, the trees were the only thing they felt were high quality and looking like something from real nature. There were no details such as different grass, rocks or bushes which made it feel stale and disconnecting regarding the immersiveness.

The controls were found to be explorative and fun to use, to be able to change the location was crucial since an area only offers so much at this stage of the prototype. Also, to change the sun and thus the lighting of the scene in real time had positive effects making them feel in control of their actions and the scene. The controllers that were used were the standard HTC-vive controllers.

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Even though the overall quality and details of the scene was low according to the users there was a high sense of immersion. When having the headset and headphones on the world around them disappeared and they could focus on being present in the virtual world. There were some issues with blurriness and objects that moved when the user moved their head which resulted in confusion, these were bugs due to how the environment was built in Unity and was added to a list of fixes for the final prototype.

6.3 Prototyping Iteration

Gathering the insights from the first user testing and the previous research done the main aspects that were focused on were to create a coherent, detailed forest that have a high quality. It should have as much resemblance to coniferous forests as possible and by using assets that were available in Unity. The list of fixes consisted of bugfixes such as blurriness, user feeling too tall and objects moving when user moved their head. Further designing the environment details such as grass, rocks and bushes were added to the scene and a more coherent forest was created.

The finished prototype is seen in Figure 8 and portrays the first view for the users. The visuals such as clouds, volumetric lighting and visual filters were added by using various scripts and functions that are built into Unity and will not be covered in this project.

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6.4 User Testing Second Prototype

This time with a high-fidelity prototype that was rich on detail and restorative properties the user testing needed to be more extensive and thorough. The restorative effects of the

application were measured by using the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) which was adapted from a study about the restorative qualities of nature settings done by Hartig, Korpela, Evans and Gärling (1996). The final statements that were used in this study was a revised version where they proposed a set of changes to the questions to further extend and develop the use of PRS (Pasini, Berto, Brondino, Hall & Ortner, 2014). PRS measures five factors, fear, anger, positive affect, attentiveness and sadness, each factor is given individual scores from the user (See Appendix 2).

The user testing was conducted in the same way as the first test but with a group of five participants at the ages between 20-30, they were told to imagine themselves being on a break at work or in their studies and each one got five minutes alone in the room to use the VR-station (see figure 9). After each participant was finished, they were told to answer the statements and questions about the environment they had just experienced.

Figure 9. Participant using the prototype with HTC-vive station at the BIMobject office.

Four of the participants were employed and one was studying at the time of the test, each of them had been either at their office or university before the test which was conducted after hours at five pm. Each user travelled from Lund after work to get to the location.

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6.4.1 Results from the Second User Testing

Looking at the results of the user testing (see Table 2) we can see that the mean score of each subgroup is above average and shows tendencies of having restorative qualities. The

participants showed a much higher enjoyment and stated that the experience was interesting and explorative. When answering how they felt about going into VR for a short amount of time and then taking the headset and headphones off, three out of 5 stated that they felt immersed in the simulation and the test was a bit too short for an immersive experience

Table 2. Individual and average group results of each subscale from PRS questions seen in appendix 2.

Participant Fascination Being away Coherent Extent Jacob Andersson 6.33 7.33 6.67 6 Andreas Andersson 8.33 9.67 6 9 Nicolas Ahumada 6.33 6 7 7 Jens Sjödin 6.67 5.67 6.33 10 Anonymous 7 6.33 8 8 Average 6.93 7 6.8 8

Considering the short amount of time and limited resources I did not conduct a third user-test, further work is advised to explore the effects and environment in an extensive way. This will be covered more in depth in the discussion and future work section.

7 Discussion

The discussion section will analyse, conclude and discuss the study that was made and reflect on the methods and theories that was used. The final part will shine light on future work where I will focus on questions that have risen from this study as well as the next steps that could be taken to research further.

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7.1 Discussion

There are some key insights that were recognized in this study when researching the

question of how a simulated environment might affect users when treated as a restorative environment.

The simulated environment that was tested as the final prototype scored high in the four properties that were tested according to Kaplan (1995) and supports the claims of being a restorative environment. It suggests that properties that were applied to real-life nature can also be applied to simulated nature to some extent. As seen in the related work and previous research done there are applications and products which argue that they have relaxing, meditative and restorative effects. This study further explores the field of VR and

Results that showed the coniferous forests as the most favourable might be affected by how our environment is in Sweden and locally in Skåne. There are many different trees but a large majority of them are spruce and pine, it should be taken into consideration that the choices for different types of natures and details are subjective to the participants. Their image of a restorative environment might be the opposite of the next, this study does not state that any specific environment is better than another. However, an environment can have aspects and properties that are generally related to restorative effects and relaxing thoughts.

While none of the participants in this study were affected by the previously stated negative effects of VR, such as disorientation and nausea, some felt that going into VR and feeling immersed needed to be a longer experience. Compared to the applications in related work this study had set out to explore a shorter time for users which may have affected the users to not fully experience the simulated environment. The number of participants should be taken into consideration as a limitation. Due to difficult process of finding and using a VR-station and only being able to user-test after work hours it was a limited number of participants that were able to join.

The location of the user-testing was not ideal and may have affected the results and outcome of the study. Each user had to travel after work to a location in Malmö and for the test imagine themselves being on a break at work. During the user test the users had a new setting in which they were physically in as well as a virtual environment with another new experience. I believe the outcome might have been different if the user-testing was

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While the 3D scanner was not used in the final prototype there were some insights generated from its use. While the Matterport Pro2 scanner was not able to produce a result that was suitable to this study there are other scanners which are designed for outdoor uses, with the use of scanners an almost exact replica of real-life settings can be captured and used in immersive applications. When we are able to in a simple way create a 3D space of our surroundings new design opportunities can be explored, instead of having to model and create your own assets a designer can use scanners for a almost exact replica

7.2 Conclusion

This project explored the uses of virtual reality as a restorative environment and used user-centered design to create an experience suitable and coherent with the user’s expectations. The focus was on the user but grounded in previous research and studies.

The most important insight gathered from this study was how a stressful environment can be reduced using immersion and restorative properties in VR. For my users who came from a stressful day at work the feedback and outcome was concluded to have a positive effect on them.

Technology have often been considered a large factor in a stressful life, with cell phones and computers we are always connected to the world and the internet. With this study an

immersive technological application was explored and tested, when immersed a user could disconnect themselves from their surroundings and the stressful factors of their life resulting in short but powerful immersion.

7.3 Future Work

VR is a fast-growing market and becoming more available and with better quality, the properties of different VR applications are ranging from gaming and art to meditation and treating phobias. My work explores a short time VR experience to see if it would affect users in any way, which is uncommon for the field. Results showed that for users felt it had the correct properties for a restorative environment. One of the main questions that arise from this study is how a different type of environment would score, if it is based on the same properties but not locally bound by trying to resemble how the users perceive nature around them. Would a rainforest have the same affect on the users of this study?

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Using a generic sound that is not tested or grounded in anything more than being recorded in the setting of a forest also needs to be further investigated, this study did not focus on the sound but it might have affected user in either a positive, neutral or negative way.

The results need to be further investigated and tested on a larger scale with varying environments and properties.

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Appendix

Appendix I: First User Test Questions

How did you feel about the environment and atmosphere of it? How do you feel going in and out of VR in such a short time? Could you see yourself using this during breaks at work?

How did you feel about controlling wind, time of day and your location? Do you have anything else to add or comment?

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Appendix II: Second User Test Questions PRS

0-10-point scale, 0 = not at all, 6 = rather much and 10 = completely.

Fascination

Places like that are fascinating

In places like this my attention is drawn to many interesting things In places like this it is hard to be bored

Being Away

Places like that are a refuge from nuisances

To get away from things that usually demand my attention I like to go to places like this To stop thinking about the things that I must get done I like to go to places like this

Coherence

There is a clear order in the physical arrangement of places like this In places like this it is easy to see how things are organised

In places like this everything seems to have its proper place

Scope

That place is large enough to allow exploration in many directions (FA 10)

Concluding questions

How did it feel going in and out of the simulated environment?

Is this experience something that you can see yourself doing on a regular basis? Elaborate why or why not.

Virtual reality and restorative environments