Exploring controller-free teleportation techniques for efficient virtual reality navigation

Teleportation is a widely used locomotion method in Virtual Reality (VR) that allows users to navigate within virtual environments from one location to another instantly. Controller-free teleportation presents a promising approach for more natural VR interaction by eliminating the dependency on physical controllers and enhancing accessibility. However, little is known regarding how different controller-free teleportation techniques perform under various environmental conditions. In my thesis, I explore controller-free teleportation techniques that leverage the tracking capabilities of off-the-shelf head-mounted displays (HMDs). I compare three pointing methods (eye-gaze, hand, and head), four confirmation methods (finger pinch, dwell, voice, and eye-blink), and two pointer types (linear and parabolic) across teleportation tasks involving varying elevations and distances. Results demonstrate that head-based linear pointing achieves the best overall performance, while finger pinch and dwell confirmation methods present trade-offs between teleportation speed and accuracy. The findings reveal that distant target teleportation requires more time while resulting in lower accuracy compared to closer targets. To address the challenges of distant target teleportation, I introduce NinjaPort, a multi-hand teleportation technique that extends the standard hand-based teleportation method. By mapping four virtual hands to four fingers on the user’s non-dominant hand, NinjaPort enables rapid selection among multiple teleportation destinations. I demonstrate that NinjaPort improves both teleportation speed and accuracy compared to conventional methods for ground-based distant teleportation, while reducing hand rotation and maintaining equivalent cognitive workload. I conclude with design guidelines for developing controller-free teleportation techniques that support efficient navigation across both horizontal and vertical spatial dimensions in VR environments.