int-lab.de by Prof. Dr. Martin Weigel

VilmReel: Scrollable Multi-Environment VR with Cross-VE Notifications

A diagram illustrating the VilmReel interface, which arranges four Virtual Environments (VEs) side by side in a horizontal band. From left to right, the VEs depict: a nature scene with a lake and mountains; a virtual meeting room with avatars seated around a table (highlighted by an orange oval labeled 'Field of View'); a dark home theater with two figures watching a large screen; and a colorful fantasy scene with cartoon characters. A schematic drawing of a human figure with a VR headset is overlaid at the center, with a dotted line pointing downward to a label reading 'FoV-Center (Marks active VE)'. The meeting room VE is labeled 'Active Virtual 3D Environment' in red at the bottom left. The remaining three VEs are labeled 'Inactive Virtual 3D Environments'. At the bottom right, a thumbstick icon with left and right arrows is labeled 'Scrolls the band', indicating the scrolling interaction mechanic.

Current VR interfaces impose a single-environment constraint, creating significant barriers for tasks requiring concurrent awareness and manipulation across multiple virtual 3D environments (VEs). We present VilmReel, a VR interface that enables interaction across multiple VEs through a scrollable band interface. The interface resembles a film reel, but with each frame showing a stereoscopic VE instead of an image. Users can scroll the band horizontally, maintaining spatial awareness of all environments. Moreover, we propose multi-modal event notifications: spatial audio informs the user of the location and type of an event in an arbitrary VE (e.g., a person speaking or an in-game sound effect). If the event is not in the active VE, a sound effect is added to indicate that the event happened in another VE and directional vibrations guide the user to the corresponding VE. Finally, we detail on lessons-learned designing the system, including various sound effects and visualizations.

Publication

Martin Weigel and Stephen Brewster VilmReel: Scrollable Multi-Environment VR with Cross-VE Notifications In Mensch und Computer 2026. Project Page Work in Progress
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