Ubiq-exp: A toolkit to build and run remote and distributed mixed reality experiments

Abstract

Developing mixed-reality (MR) experiments is a challenge as there is a wide variety of functionality to support. This challenge is exacerbated if the MR experiment is multi-user or if the experiment needs to be run out of the lab. We present Ubiq-Exp - a set of tools that provide a variety of functionality to facilitate distributed and remote MR experiments. We motivate our design and tools from recent practice in the field and a desire to build experiments that are easier to reproduce. Key features are the ability to support supervised and unsupervised experiments, and a variety of tools for the experimenter to facilitate operation and documentation of the experimental sessions. We illustrate the potential of the tools through three small-scale pilot experiments. Our tools and pilot experiments are released under a permissive open-source license to enable developers to appropriate and develop them further for their own needs.

Lessons learnt running distributed and remote mixed reality experiments

“…Thus it had limited interaction and this was primarily through eyegaze. Recently we have updated this for Oculus Quest 1/2 for which the main modification was to include head and hand-tracking (Steed et al, 2022). The user community in 2015/2016 was still rather small, so invitations were sent out over email.…”

“…One study required a tethered HMD, and thus used the participants used an Oculus Rift (two users) and Oculus Quest via Link (two users). One study was an update and re-run (Steed et al, 2022) of the study mentioned in Section 3.1. The number of participants varied from 6 (4 complete data sets) through to 37 (only 15 complete datasets).…”

“…A second opportunity, and one that motivated some of our early efforts in this area, is that sharing experiments can enable people to understand our experiments and reproduce them, because they can experience them. Our Singer in the Bar Experiment was available on a number of platforms for a few years, but those platforms (Gear VR, Cardboard) are now deprecated (Steed et al, 2016) (an updated version is now available, see Steed et al, 2022). A slightly different angle on this was not a distributed experiment, but used commercial content, in that the experiment was based on the experience "We Wait" produced by the BBC which is still available (Steed et al, 2018).…”

“…Alternatively, if there is need for keyboard entry, then this needs testing on different HMDs. One recent activity of the group has been to try to standardise some simple user interface and data entry components as part of our Ubiq-Exp toolkit (Steed et al, 2022).…”

Online platforms for remote immersive Virtual Reality testing: an emerging tool for experimental behavioral research

“…Recently, there have been efforts to use social VR platforms to recruit participants and run remote VR experiments [e.g., 20]. The use of social VR platforms has shown promise, but there are challenges in terms of privacy and data protection laws, as well as limitations in terms of experimental control [21]. Asking participants to install applications on their headsets (e.g., using SideQuest, [22]) is another viable option for remote VR testing.…”