Social virtual reality (VR) applications and user experiences

Virtual reality (VR) is the experience in a simulated interactive virtual space. It provides synthetic sensory feedback to users' actions that can physically and mentally immerse the users. Social VR is one type of VR system that allows multiple users to join a collaborative virtual environment and communicate with each other, usually by means of visual and audio cues. The virtual space can be a computer-generated 3D scene or a 360° scene captured by an omnidirectional camera. Each user is represented as a computer-generated avatar or using a virtual representation based on live capture. Social VR has shown to be a promising solution to enrich remote communication experiences in the face of increasing pressures to reduce travel and work remotely. In this chapter, we will showcase the design, implementation, and real-world deployment of a series of social VR applications, which are developed for immersive interactive communication and collaboration for multiple domains (e.g., healthcare, cultural heritage). Moreover, we discuss the experimental protocols for evaluating user experiences in this new medium.