An Introduction to Non-lineair VR

In what looks to be a loft with exposed brick walls, a weathered industrial wooden plank is being measured. The guy doing the measuring is wearing a casual white V-neck shirt, navy blue jeans and grey sneakers. His typical millennial aloofness is in stark contrast with the unusual plastic items he uses to calibrate the plank.

 Suddenly we cut to a computer simulation from a first-person point of view. We are entering an elevator directly from the street side (which is unusual). There are only four elevator buttons that read ‘fire deck’, ‘plank’, and ‘nightmare’. There is some condescending elevator music going up, then several pop-up messages appear. A #PewDiePie is telling us that: “This is so F&*%ing cool.” Then the elevator door opens and we find ourselves on the top floor looking down in to an abyss with nothing more than a single wooden plank stretched out in front of us. The game is to walk the plank.

"Then the elevator door opens and we find ourselves on the top floor looking down in to an abyss with nothing more than a single wooden plank stretched out in front of us."

This is the video trailer of what is already a cult Virtual Reality classic called Rick’s Plank experience[1].  On Steam, VR’s largest online webstore, it is described as follows: “You are on a plank, 80 stories high. Knees shaky, palms sweaty. You have a choice. Do you walk or do you freeze? Richie’s Plank is the only VR experience that lets you clone any real-world plank into the virtual world for 2x the immersion.”

 On YouTube there is plenty of evidence that ‘2x the immersion’ is no understatement. Enter ‘Plank experiment’ in Youtube’s query box and you’ll find various participants being filmed in living rooms and kitchens, all walking unremarkable planks, wearing a VR-headsets whilst screaming like they are about to die.

The Potential of VR

 This plank experience application is relevant, because it delineates in a very candid way how powerful VR is as a medium. Although each participant is fully aware that he or she is not standing on an eight-inch-wide plank, their cognitive interpretation of the situation is far more urgent. Their physical reaction to the VR experience is no joke. Some even crawl across the plank on their hand and knees. There really is no medium that has this kind of effect on the viewer other than Virtual Reality.

 Then to imagine it is a medium in its infancy. Moore’s law, which indicates that computing power over time is exponential (sort of), provides us with a forecast of Virtual Reality becoming increasingly more like reality. In fact, despite the convention that VR is an illusion or ‘fake’ reality, it could possibly prove to be an equivalent or alternate reality[2]. Our neurons, as can be concluded from the plank experiment, aren’t discriminatory to the fact that a particular representation of reality is governed either by quanta or algorithms.

Since we can imagine VR in the future being able to render experiences that allow us to do virtually anything, it is not a stretch to imagine a prospect when people will spend significant amounts of time in the experience machines as described by Robert Nozick in his book Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974)[3].

The repercussions of such a powerful medium for our future society are hard to predict (as was it impossible to apprehend the impact of the smartphone only a decade ago) but nevertheless will be significant. The kind of applications we will run on our sleek mixed reality glasses are yet to be developed, but most certainly will be both individual as well as social experiences, wherein avatars like and unlike ourselves, will be communicating in virtual environments.

"Since we can imagine VR in the future being able to render experiences that allow us to do virtually anything, it is not a stretch to imagine a prospect when people will spend significant amounts of time in the experience machines"

Safe Spaces

However, although Virtual Reality is a medium without real world constraints, many experiences that are currently being developed are relatively mundane. That is to say that they are all very similar to real life. Obviously, part of this has to do with the fact that most VR content are 360-degree videos (basically panoramic and sometimes stereoscopic recorded images). One can say in this case, that the resemblance to our non-virtual world and real-life conditions are inherent to the method of documentation itself.

 So what about the other content, like for instance computer-generated experiences? Specifically, environments created in game engines like Unity and Unreal, that contain 3D objects and are able to simulate physics. How are most VR developers approaching the design of spatial 3D experiences? What kind of content is being developed?

 If we look at the Oculus Store, which is a digital platform for VR games and other entertainment, we find many experiences based in odd looking worlds. There are games that take place in fantastical universes, like imaginary galaxies or underwater worlds, some experiences like Superhot VR[4] could even be considered abstract to a certain degree.

However, these ‘new’ and ‘otherworldly’ experiences are only so on surface level. If you look closer to the content available, almost all of it simulates experiences with an orientation along the horizontal axis very similar to how we live and navigate through our own non-virtual reality.

 But why is that exactly? Are we so afraid to relinquish our bonds to reality? Afraid to lose connection to the safety of what we know? Because, similar to the extent in which we are able to choose avatars to become anyone we want, the virtual spaces we design could quite literary be almost anything, and could function in ways that would be impossible in our physical world. In these, non-linear environments, there are no real-world limitations like gravity or logic.

The Limitations of the User

Today, very few of these far fetching spatial design concepts are being explored. The main and most obvious argument of this being so, is that nature rigged us neurologically in this way. Our eyes, our brain and moving bodies, our whole system of perception wants us to engage with space along a horizontal axis[5]. Not even considering the notorious latency issues that Head Mounted Displays often have, interacting with counter intuitive environments can make us feel disorientated in no time. As a result, most VR projects are programmed to the limitations of the user.

And there are other arguments why these non-linear environments are not being prospected. For instance, that VR experiences that relate to our everyday world, are far more accessible to a wider audience. Also considering the fact that the design process of a linear environment is far more straightforward, it is hard to fathom why anyone should go beyond what our physical body is adapted to. 

But what cognitive science tells us, is that our ability to adapt to impossible or counter intuitive environments is far greater than we think. In 1950, two men made a documentary. In Die Umkehrbrille und das aufrechte sehe (loosely translated as: The inverted glasses and seeing upside down), Theodor Erismann professor at the university of Innsbruck, Austria, found a willing subject in his research assistant Ivo Kohler. In the film[6] (of what is now a classic experiment) we see the old professor putting on a pair of hand-crafted goggles on his younger pupil. Inside those goggles, specially arranged mirrors flipped the light that would reach Kohler's eyes, top becoming bottom, and bottom top.

"In Die Umkehrbrille und das aufrechte sehe, Theodor Erismann professor at the university of Innsbruck, Austria, found a willing subject in his research assistant Ivo Kohler."

At first the professor is, quite endearingly, taking the assistant by the arm. The assistant then navigates clumsily around what must be the professors drawing room, he stumbles against a chair and again on some stairs. In one segment the professor is poking the poor assistant with a stick, which the latter is supposed to deflect, but fails over and over again. After ten days however, Kohler performs as if this was business as usual, he can walk and grab objects, in short: his brain has adapted. 

This experiment proves that; although we might be right to only pursue developing VR experiences that will not challenge our comfort, our brains plasticity could very well cope with extreme spatial designs and could be worth exploring.

Short Cuts and Cutting Corners

As Virtual Reality has already become a household name in areas varying from research and training facilities to entertainment and healthcare. VR is applied in these fields to create more effective solutions and/or provide us with more challenging insights in the way we communicate, consume or obtain information. Do so, we are to overcome the ‘gimmick’ factor and perfect a form of expression that is truly native to the medium[7].

 Fundamental in these applications is the interaction with the virtual environment itself, hence the UI/UX and the 3D environment are the same[8], and to understand that as a spatial designer in VR, we are not designing environments, considering psychological causality when humans are immersed in a particular space, we are actually designing behaviour.   

For example, let’s say we are commissioned to develop a library in VR. After some brain storm sessions, we decide to replicate an existing library, or maybe we get a bit creative and remove the building completely so that we can see only the bookcases. Regardless, our goal remains to, like in an ordinary library, guide the user to find the information he or she is looking for in an efficient way.

"Considering that we have no physical or logical constraints in VR, would it be effective to consider a design that imposes upon the user navigating in a horizontal way from point A to point B, plodding past shelves upon shelves of books like one would in real life circumstances?"

Considering that we have no physical or logical constraints in VR, would it be effective to consider a design that imposes upon the user navigating in a horizontal way from point A to point B, plodding past shelves upon shelves of books like one would in real life circumstances? Quite possibly, we could design a situation where the books are organised in a such a way that allows the user to hop instantly to some specific topics, or being able to see all the books at once and all books being at a same relative distance.

Although the user is now placed in an environment that is possibly counter intuitive and needs some time to adapt his or her surroundings. Like in Die Umkehrbrille und das aufrechte sehe, the user adapts and a new form of behaviour has been internalised.

From this short case study, we can surmise that navigating through space like we do in real life is not always very economical or dynamic and could obviously be approved upon within a virtual solution. To go beyond the axioms of Euclidean geometry, which is the foundation of conventional spatial design and building a virtual environment in a non-linear way. Applying a non-Euclidean approach for instance, could provide us with new ways of navigating, impossible in a normal topography, allow the user to bridge a gap in time and space, using short cuts and cutting corners.

Non-Euclidean Designs, Neural interfaces and procedural designs

These non-Euclidean principles, basically representing geometric and physical impossibilities are not new, they have been around for centuries[9]. They have inspired renowned mathematicians like August M?bius (1790-1868) and Roger Penrose (1931) as well as artists such as M.C. Escher (1898-1972) and Salvador Dali (1904-1989).

"Non-Euclidean principles have inspired renowned mathematicians like August M?bius, Roger Penrose as well as artists such as M.C. Escher and Salvador Dali (1904-1989)."

To be honest, we can’t actually create Non-Euclidean objects in a digital environment by its very nature (since a 3D mesh of an object is a visual representation of a mathematical theoretical object in a Cartesian coordinate system). However, we can most certainly simulate the experience with some crafty programming and the result is basically the same.  

A non-Euclidean approach represents one of multiple tools we could use to create virtual environments that would not only explore VR’s potential further, but could combined with other applications such as neural interfaces (using our minds to interact with 3d environment and objects) and procedural design (using machine learning to generate geometry), engage with users in an innovative way allowing quite possibly to a new standard of effectivity and efficiency in UI/UX.

Furthermore, applying features non-Euclidian spatial designs in virtual environments allow us to walk infinitely in a finite physical environment[10]. Although we are only beginning to explore the power of Virtual Reality in relation to behavior[11], this could be a solution to mental health issues in a world where space has increasingly become an unobtainable commodity for many.

Our world is rapidly evolving and presenting us with global challenges that need to be dealt with urgently. If a technology like Virtual Reality, could provide us with solutions (and this might be wishful thinking), it might prove necessary to not just think outside the box, but rethink the box completely.

Rudolf Romero Borgart (1984) is a writer and speculative designer and founder of consultancy and software development platform 01X.

REFERENCES

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M92kfnpg-k

[2] Chalmers, David.J, The Virtual And The Real, New York, 2016, p.35

[3] Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State and Utopia, Cambridge, Mass, 1974, p.42

[4] https://superhotgame.com/

[5] Tuan, Yi-Fu, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Minnesota, 2001, p.393

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKUVpBJalNQ

[7] Fraga, Daniel, Virtual Reality And Post Architecture, 2016

[8] Romero, Rudolf, Why Architects Will Be The UI Designers of The Future, 2018

[9] Greenberg, Marvin J, Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometries, New York, 1974, p.177

[10]Hawthorne, N., Pisani, V., Hurd, O.,Kurnawian, S.,  Navigation by Walking in Hyperbolic Space Using Virtual Reality, Barcelona, 2019, p.611

[11] Brookes, J., Warburton, M., Alghadier, M. et al. Studying human behavior with virtual reality: The Unity Experiment Framework. 2020, p. 455–463