오감형 가상현실 콘텐츠 사례연구 = Virtual Reality contents: a full sensorial experience

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

(Background and Purpose)Virtual reality(VR) technology has become widespread and diversified to an extent that it is accessible by ordinary people, unlike in the past when its application found only some applications, amid recent advancement of technology and equipment. Such technological advancement has enabled users to be engaged in undisrupted interaction within virtual space without recognizing any difference between real space and virtual space while five senses are being stimulated. VR technology still remains at incipient stage, and contents that stimulate five senses have yet to be disseminated widely to the public despite the emergence of many contents experienced with visual and auditory senses. The purpose of this study was to present a direction for widespread dissemination of VR contents stimulating five senses of human based on investigation into VR contents related to such five senses. (Method)In virtual reality, immersiveness increased more significantly when sensory organs of users were involved in interaction within virtual space. Three elements, namely conversation-type interaction, presence, and autonomy, were crucial for users to have realistic experience in virtual reality. Those elements could be working when five senses of human were stimulated. Such reaction led users to retrieve information from their past through interaction occurring in virtual reality. Images, recollected in that way, were important in analyzing contents. The study analyzed concerned cases involving the contents associated with five senses among VR contents(HMD-based) developed in Korea or abroad and examined inter-connectivity between VR contents and five senses and furthermore looked into the importance of the five senses. (Results)This study investigated the types of contents related to five senses of human among VR contents developed nationwide and abroad and presented the direction of VR contents experienced with five senses as stated below. The results of analysis on content types showed that VR contents were experienced mostly with visual, auditory, and tactile senses. Particularly, all contents involved stimulation of visual sense. For auditory sense, most contents featured amorphous or shapeless images as found in a survey that focused on contents experienced with auditory sense. In addition, there was a preponderance of monotone colors that helped increase focus on the sound among contents stimulating auditory sense. Meanwhile, contents stimulating tactile sense allowed users to feel depth, space, etc. increasing realistic feeling. (Conclusions)The motion sickness in VR users, the fundamental weakness of HMD, has yet to be resolved despite emergence of 8K high image quality displays, and furthermore, heavy equipment with a weight of 300-500g hinders prolonged use. The boundaries of five senses need to create realistic feeling more than they do in real world to ensure that users feel as if they were in real world. New five-sense type contents are expected to emerge, moving beyond existing paradigm, as ever-growing VR market is further expanding and virtual augmented reality technology converges with VR technology.