Watch: How Catching a Real Ball in Virtual Reality Can Change You

Disney Research is putting some effort into bringing together virtual reality and real reality.

We present a system enabling users to accurately catch a real ball while immersed in a virtual reality environment. We examine three visualizations: rendering a matching virtual ball, the predicted trajectory of the ball, and a target catching point lying on the predicted trajectory. In our demonstration system, we track the projectile motion of a ball as it is being tossed between users. Using Unscented Kalman Filtering, we generate predictive estimates of the ball’s motion as it approaches the catcher. The predictive assistance visualizations effectively increases the user’s senses but can also alter the user’s strategy in catching.

Watch the immersed catcher as his catching strategy changes – becoming almost robotic – as he goes from the human assume-and-correct approach to a computerized predictive model. The change becomes obvious after the virtual representation of the ball is removed from the digital simulation in his head-mounted display.