Design and Virtual Studio Presentation of a Traditional Archery Simulator Christian Geiger, Jens Herder, Sebastian Göbel, Christin Heinze, and Dionysios Marinos Department of Media, Fachhochschule Düsseldorf, University of Applied Sciences Josef-Gockeln Str. 9, 40474 Düsseldorf, Germany +49 (211) 4351-824 http://vsvr.medien.fh-duesseldorf.de/ {geiger, herder, sebastian.goebel, christin.heinze, dionysios.marinos}@fh-duesseldorf.de ABSTRACT In this paper we describe the design of a virtual reality simulator for traditional intuitive archery. Traditional archers aim without a target figure. Good shooting results require an excellent body-eye coordination that allows the user to perform identical movements when drawing the bow. Our simulator provides a virtual archery experience and supports the user to learn and practice the motion sequence of traditional archery in a virtual environment. We use an infrared tracking system to capture the user’s movements in order to correct his movement. To provide a realistic haptic feedback a real bow is used as interaction device. Our system provides a believable user experience and supports the user to learn how to shoot in the traditional way. Following a user-centered iterative design approach we developed a number of prototypes and evaluated them for refinement in sequent iteration cycles. For illustration purposes we created a short video clip in our virtual studio about this project that presents the main ideas in an informative yet entertaining way. Keywords VR archery, 3D interaction, interactive sport simulation, user experience, user-centered design. INTRODUCTION Virtual Reality (VR) nowadays is used for training some sports or at least for entertaining the user with believable, but non-realistic simulation. From the beginning of VR system development, sports played an important role as an application area of VR [15]. The challenge in many sports is the training of motion sequences and their perfection like, for example, shooting, fencing or archery. Thus, the advantage of a VR simulator is the athlete‘s independence from other athletes and from the required space or environmental conditions. However, a system that provides for a realistic or at least believable user experience should fulfill three requirements: a set of natural interaction techniques with multimodal feedback, appropriate behavior simulation and a positive user evaluation of the system. Based on these requirements we built a VR simulator for traditional archery. Traditional (or instinctive) archery is an outdoor sport with increasing popularity (see Fig. 1). In opposite to FITA target archers (the Olympic sports discipline), traditional field archers aim without a conscious sight picture or additional means like peep holes, releases or stabilizers. Good shooting results require an excellent arm/body-eye coordination that allows users to perform identical movements during the shot. To hit targets at unmarked distances the archer relies on his experience to subconsciously measure the distance and move the bow correctly. In opposite to target archers this intuitive action allows to shoot moving targets at unknown distances. For novice archers these movements can only be practiced with the advice of an experienced trainer who continuously controls and corrects the archer‘s movements. Goal of our project is a VR simulator that allows novices to learn the correct basic movements and experience the positive feelings usually associated with this activity. A 3D avatar provides assistance by explaining the necessary steps to position, anchor, and draw a bow. Wrong user actions are detected and corrected instantly. Experienced archers could virtually visit archery courses and practice archery in a simulated outdoor environment. The development followed an iterative user-centered design approach. We built a number of prototypes and evaluated them with different techniques. Preliminary results indicated a believable archery experience of our VR simulator. Fig. 1 Traditional archery in a real outdoor environment. The picture shows Toren Mikat, the German Vice Champion for Longbow in 2009