Unity-VRlines: Towards a Modular eXtended Reality Unity Flight Simulator

Giuseppe Di Maria*, Lorenzo Stacchio*, Gustavo Marfia

University of Bologna, Virtual and Augmented Reality Laboratory

2nd IFIP International Conference on Entertainment Computing
*Indicates Equal Contribution
Paper Code

The Flight Simulation involves the user continuously interacting with available commands to control the plane. As mentioned earlier, all user interactions with the immersive environment rely on the SteamVR SDK. The SteamVR provides an out-of-the-box interaction system. In particular, the Player asset offers a basic configuration to create a VR experience. It includes various elements, such as a controller for the hands, a camera for the player's point of view, and a component to manage the player's tracking. SteamVR also furnishes logical components to define teleporting points around the virtual world and interaction between the player and objects exploiting hand controllers. In our experience, all the user's interactions are codified using inputs from the hand controllers.

Abstract

Computer-aided flight simulation systems (CAFSS) make it possible to simulate flying an airplane using software and hardware. These simulations range from simple programs to intricate, full-motion simulators that often integrate physical feedback and visual clues to create realistic and affordable entertainment and pilot training. Nowadays, eXtended Reality (XR) paradigms have been integrated in CAFSS, to increase the immersiveness and realism of the experience, demonstrating positive cognitive learning effects in training procedures. However, no extensive results for simulator effectiveness are available to this date, considering the reach of such systems is limited by the costly hardware and unavailability of open-source software. For this reason, we here introduce Unity-VRlines, an open-source modular virtual reality flight simulator baseline, based on the Unity game engine and the SteamVR SDK, that can be deployed in any compatible VR device. The system components and software architecture enable developers to add new flight control instructions, alter aircraft parts, and change the surrounding environment.

Video Presentation

BibTeX

@inproceedings{dimaria2023unity,
        title={Unity-VRlines: Towards a Modular eXtended Reality Unity Flight Simulator},
        author={Di Maria, Giuseppe, Stacchio, Lorenzo & Marfia, Gustavo},
        booktitle={International Conference on Entertainment Computing},
        pages={},
        year={2023},
        organization={Springer}
      }