Institut für Nachrichtentechnik

Dr. rer. nat. Pauline Bimberg

Publikationen

Google Scholar | Researchgate

N. Feld, N. Dubois, P. Bimberg, B. Weyers, and D. Zielasko, “Dashing: Fun but non-ergonomic? exploring transition effects in vr,” in 2025 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), pp. 246–252, 2025. [ bib | DOI ]

P. Bimberg, M. Feldmann, B. Weyers, and D. Zielasko, “The Influence of Environmental Context on the Creation of Cartoon-like Avatars in Virtual Reality,” in 2024 IEEE Conference Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), pp. 298–308, Mar. 2024. [ bib | DOI ]

The user study presented in this paper explores the effects that being immersed in different virtual scenes has on a user’s avatar-design behavior. For this purpose, we have developed a character creation tool that lets users configure their appearance in Virtual Reality. This tool has then been employed in a user study involving 33 participants, who were asked to configure a virtual avatar in a beach and a hospital environment. Our results show that the environment that participants were immersed in influenced their design behavior, with the beach environment leading to a more extensive use of accessories than the hospital scene. Against our expectations, most participants stated to have had little intention to represent either their real or ideal selves, instead opting to explore different characters that they found funny, likable, or interesting. In addition, we found indications for a possible connection between the participants’ feelings of presence and how they incorporate features of themselves into their avatar designs.

P. Bimberg, M. Minuth, D. Zielasko, and B. Weyers, “Analyzing Exergame Recordings with Embedded Bio-Data in Immersive Virtual Reality,” in 2024 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), pp. 138–144, Mar. 2024. [ bib | DOI ]

Virtual Reality exergames are a type of serious game that has been used to support therapy and rehabilitation by encouraging patients to exercise within a controlled environment. One challenge of in-corporating virtual reality into clinical interventions is the need for intuitive ways to evaluate recordings of the patients' performance within such applications. As related work shows the benefits of re-viewing interactions with virtual environments while being im-mersed within these environments, this approach could be beneficial in the context of clinical interventions as well. In our work, we present a prototype for an analysis module built on top of a VR exergame that connects movement recordings with recordings of the player's heartrate and makes them explorable in an immersive virtual environment. An initial evaluation of the prototype with six users shows the potential of exploring exergame recordings in VR as well as possible benefits of the multimodal representation of bio-data in parallel to the recorded movements.

N. Feld, P. Bimberg, B. Weyers, and D. Zielasko, “Navigating realities: Assessing cross-reality transitions through a spatial memory game in vr and ar environments,” in 2024 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), pp. 1194–1195, 2024. [ bib | DOI ]

T. Weissker, M. Meier-Krueger, P. Bimberg, R. W. Lindeman, and T. W. Kuhlen, “Semi-automated guided teleportation through immersive virtual environments,” in Proceedings of the 30th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, VRST '24, (New York, NY, USA), Association for Computing Machinery, 2024. [ bib | DOI | https ]

Immersive knowledge spaces like museums or cultural sites are often explored by traversing pre-defined paths that are curated to unfold a specific educational narrative. To support this type of guided exploration in VR, we present a semi-automated, hands-free path traversal technique based on teleportation that features a slow-paced interaction workflow targeted at fostering knowledge acquisition and maintaining spatial awareness. In an empirical user study with 34 participants, we evaluated two variations of our technique, differing in the presence or absence of intermediate teleportation points between the main points of interest along the route. While visiting additional intermediate points was objectively less efficient, our results indicate significant benefits of this approach regarding the user’s spatial awareness and perception of interface dependability. However, the user’s perception of flow, presence, attractiveness, perspicuity, and stimulation did not differ significantly. The overall positive reception of our approach encourages further research into semi-automated locomotion based on teleportation and provides initial insights into the design space of successful techniques in this domain.

P. Bimberg, D. Zielasko, and B. Weyers, “The Impact of Task-Responsibility on User Experience and Behaviour under Asymmetric Knowledge Conditions,” in Proceedings of the 30th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, VRST '24, (New York, NY, USA), Association for Computing Machinery, 2024. [ bib | DOI | https ]

Virtual Reality presents a promising tool for knowledge transfer, allowing users to learn in different environments and with the help of three-dimensional visualizations. At the same time, having to learn new ways of interacting with their environment can present a significant hurdle for novice users. When users enter a virtual space to receive knowledge from a more experienced person, the question arises as to whether they benefit from learning VR-specific interaction techniques instead of letting the expert take over some or all interactions. Based on related work about expert-novice interaction in virtual spaces, this paper presents a user study comparing three different distributions of interaction responsibilities between participants and an expert user. The Role-Based interaction mode gives the expert the full interaction responsibility. The Shared interaction mode gives both users the same interaction capabilities, allowing them to share the responsibility of interacting with the virtual space. Finally, the Parallel interaction mode gives participants full interaction responsibility, while the expert can provide guidance through oral communication and visual demonstration. Our results indicate that assuming interaction responsibility led to higher task loads but also increased the participant’s engagement and feeling of presence. For most participants, sharing interaction responsibilities with the expert represented the best trade-off between engagement and challenge. While we did not measure a significant increase in learning success, participant comments indicated that they also paid more attention to details when assuming more interaction responsibility.

P. Bimberg, D. Zielasko, B. Weyers, B. Froehlich, and T. Weissker, “Come Look at This: Supporting Fluent Transitions between Tightly and Loosely Coupled Collaboration in Social Virtual Reality,” IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, pp. 1–17, 2024. [ bib | DOI ]

N. Feld, P. Bimberg, B. Weyers, and D. Zielasko, “Simple and Efficient? Evaluation of Transitions for Task-Driven Cross-Reality Experiences,” IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, pp. 1–18, 2024. [ bib | DOI ]

T. Weissker, P. Bimberg, A. S. Gokhale, T. Kuhlen, and B. Froehlich, “Gaining the high ground: Teleportation to mid-air targets in immersive virtual environments,” IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 2467–2477, 2023. [ bib | DOI ]

N. Feld, P. Bimberg, B. Weyers, and D. Zielasko, “Keep it simple? evaluation of transitions in virtual reality,” in Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA '23, (New York, NY, USA), Association for Computing Machinery, 2023. [ bib | DOI | https ]

The impact of different transitions between two virtual reality (VR) environments is still an open research question, and related work often serves only an isolated view on different techniques, i.e., with low ecological validity. The purpose of this study was to start closing this gap and evaluate the impact of six transitions while the user is solving a task that keeps them engaged. Therefore, we first propose a suitable and reproducible task design. Then we evaluate the six transitions in a user study. The results show that in contrast to prior work, the users preferred a short and efficient transition against a transition that was designed to achieve higher interactivity and continuity but was perceived as more cumbersome to use.

T. Weissker, P. Bimberg, A. Kodanda, and B. Froehlich, “Holding hands for short-term group navigation in social virtual reality,” in 2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), pp. 728–729, 2022. [ bib | DOI ]

P. Bimberg, T. Weissker, A. Kulik, and B. Froehlich, “Virtual rotations for maneuvering in immersive virtual environments,” in Proceedings of the 27th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, VRST '21, (New York, NY, USA), Association for Computing Machinery, 2021. [ bib | DOI ]

T. Weissker, P. Bimberg, and B. Froehlich, “An Overview of Group Navigation in Multi-User Virtual Reality,” in 2021 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), (Lisbon, Portugal), pp. 363–369, IEEE, 2021. [ bib | DOI ]

P. Bimberg, T. Weissker, and A. Kulik, “On the usage of the simulator sickness questionnaire for virtual reality research,” in 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), pp. 464–467, 2020. [ bib | DOI ]

T. Weissker, P. Bimberg, and B. Froehlich, “Getting There Together: Group Navigation in Distributed Virtual Environments,” IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 1860–1870, 2020. [ bib | DOI ]