Physical Embodiment in VR: Interchangeable Web-Based Modules using Ubi-Interact

Thesis, 2022.

I had the honor to write my thesis at TUM's Research Group Argumented Reality (FAR). During the thesis, I implemented the physical embodiment process described by Sandro Weber et al using the browser game engine Babylon.js and Weber et al's network library Ubi-Interact.

When people interact with VR, their body pose often needs to be translated to a virtual model that can interact with virtual objects. This is a three step process: the user pose needs to be tracked, the velocities need to be computed, and feedback needs to be given from a physics engine. These three steps can run relatively independently - in online multi user use cases it might make sense to run parts locally and other parts on a server.

The three steps of the physical embodiment process, represented by three avatars

My implementation makes it possible to run all these steps in the browser. It also partially works in combination with an already existing Unity implementation. It should be considered a proof of concept more than a finished piece of software, due to the lack of a solid inverse kinematics library for browsers.

Check it out: ubii-vr-physics-embodiment-babylonjs