Central vision loss (CVL) from macular diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and Stargardt disease is commonly simulated in extended reality (XR) using a single mechanism, typically a dark patch or blur overlay. Yet clinical reports suggest that people with CVL reject this depiction and instead report a broad range of perceptual effects, including spatial distortion, perceptual invisibility, dynamic noise, dimming, filling-in, and temporal disturbances. We present XR-VIEU (e $\underline{X}$ tended $\underline{R}$eality for $\underline{V}$isual $\underline{I}$mpairment $\underline{E}$xploration & $\underline{U}$nderstanding), a modular, real-time, gaze-contingent framework for simulating CVL in XR through seven clinically grounded, independent, composable shader modules implemented in Unity HDRP, with formal mathematical specifications and over 120 configurable parameters per eye. To probe whether our simulation can capture lived CVL experiences, we conducted a profile reconstruction design study with two individuals with late-stage Stargardt disease. Despite sharing the same diagnosis, the two participants required significantly different module configurations: one profile was dominated by content displacement and dimming, while the other relied primarily on dense fractal noise. These cases provide initial evidence that modular, composable simulation is needed to represent the heterogeneity of CVL experience. The full seven-module pipeline adds only 0.20 ms of rendering overhead (2.9%) while maintaining approximately 90 Hz on the Varjo XR-4 at native resolution. XR-VIEU provides a foundation for more faithful and personalized CVL simulation in research, clinical education, and accessibility-oriented design.
Urban environmental sensing networks generate dense spatial data describing atmospheric conditions across city neighborhoods, yet this information remains largely inaccessible to residents within the environments it describes. We present a WebXR-based handheld augmented reality (AR) system that enables walk-up public access to city-scale environmental visualization through the mobile browser without application installation. The system integrates minute-level data from approximately 280 active weather stations across a 138-square-mile metropolitan area and visualizes atmospheric conditions as geospatially anchored particle fields within a browser-delivered urban model. Users access the experience by scanning QR codes, launching the AR interface in under ten seconds. A 48-hour deployment audit characterizes end-to-end pipeline latency, spatial binding accuracy, and rendering performance across heterogeneous mobile devices. A controlled in-situ within-subjects user study (N = 16) comparing the AR interface against a browser-based map presenting identical sensor data shows that participants perceived the situated AR interface as significantly more spatially connected to their physical surroundings (p = 0.002, d = 0.96) and reported higher perceived spatial comprehension of neighborhood-scale environmental conditions (p = 0.005, d = 0.81). This perceived advantage is consistent with reduced spatial translation effort: map users reported significantly greater cognitive work to relate the display to their physical surroundings (p = 0.031, d = 0.89). Preliminary behavioral probes with an independent sample are directionally consistent with the self-report findings, motivating an ongoing Phase 2 study (target N = 30). These results position standards-based WebXR as a viable civic interface layer for distributed urban sensing infrastructures.
In immersive virtual reality (VR), the design of users' self-representations can affect how they perceive and interact with virtual objects. Inspired by prior work on simple and dynamic affordances in VR, we examined a unique phenomena of how the anthropomorphic fidelity of the virtual hand representation, as compared to controller based end-effector representation, affects nearfield or personal space complex dynamical interception task (CDIT) performance in VR. In a novel experiment scenario, participants had to successfully intercept and retrieve a moving target object, while avoiding moving non-target obstacles in the near-field or personal space. The speed and size of the target object randomly varied between trials. Furthermore, the frequency of the opening and closing of an obstacle doorway that participants had to avoid also varied between trials. Thus, the task involved a CDIT affordance for participants to interact with in the near-field, or close-quarters, in VR. Additionally, when the users' end-effector was represented as a virtual hand, we examined the effects of anthropomorphic fidelity of the virtual hand as either high-fidelity realistic or low-fidelity iconic representation on users' perception-action coordination in CDIT performance as a between-subjects factor. Results indicate that the anthropomorphic fidelity of the virtual hand representation and the interaction method of controller versus the virtual hand affects the near-field dynamical target interception and retrieval performance in VR.
Large-scale immersive virtual reality (VR) systems often rely on physical loudspeakers for spatial audio. However, practical constraints such as venue geometry, hardware placement, and multi-user safety requirements frequently hinder the precise co-location of physical sound sources and virtual visual targets. This leads to inherent audiovisual (AV) directional discrepancies. Although AV spatial alignment is extensively studied, the perceptual limits of such discrepancies in real acoustic environments remain poorly understood. In this work, we investigate how physical sound source distance affects the detection threshold (DT) for AV directional offsets. We conducted a within-subject psychophysical experiment using the method of constant stimuli. Horizontal azimuth deviations were systematically manipulated across multiple source distances in a physical acoustic environment. Participants heard the audio directly from physical loudspeakers while simultaneously visually viewing a virtual avatar. Our results indicate that DTs increase significantly with source distance. This trend is accompanied by broader perceptual tolerance and flatter psychometric functions, reflecting a distance-dependent decline in directional localization sensitivity. These findings offer empirical insights into the perceptual limits of spatial audio. Furthermore, they provide actionable guidelines for loudspeaker deployment and AV calibration in large-scale VR systems.
Classical Chinese poetry is difficult for contemporary audiences, including native speakers, because its language is concise and metaphorical. Static illustrations and professionally authored 2D animations can aid comprehension of individual poems, but they are costly to produce and offer limited interaction. We present MetaPoem, a system that generates immersive 3D animations from classical Chinese poems, to help the audience understand and appreciate this cultural heritage. MetaPoem uses a natural language pipeline to segment the text and disambiguate imagery terms. It then retrieves models from a dataset of 4,047 3D models for the imagery objects that occur most frequently in a corpus of 77,435 Tang and Song poems. As poems usually omit explicit layout, a detector learns spatial priors from natural images. The priors supply spatial constraints that place the retrieved models and association probabilities that introduce related objects the poem does not name. A camera path driven by regions of interest presents the imagery in narrative order, and viewers can explore the scene with a virtual reality head-mounted display. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations examine the effectiveness and usability of MetaPoem.
