Omnidirectional treadmills (ODTs) have been traditionally proposed as a promising solution for users’ navigation in large-scale virtual environments. These mechanical devices enable users to perform locomotive motion with 360-deg freedom, while keeping their position fixed in the physical world. However, most locomotion approaches based on omnidirectional treadmills have presented either high acquisition or maintenance costs, being the capabilities of the general public, or a limited reliability. In this paper, we present a comparative usability and acceptance study with real users evaluating the two most common approaches for the development of this type of Virtual Reality (VR) walking simulators, whether flat-based or bowl-based omnidirectional treadmills. The results of our study indicate that both design alternatives accomplish a similar performance and can be considered as personal, low-cost walking simulators for navigation in virtual environments. Nevertheless, when compared between themselves, the users preferred the bowl-based omnidirectional VR treadmill when following three different selection criteria: overall preference, recommendation, and usefulness. Last, a correlation analysis showed statically significant correspondences among the parameters concerning to the simulation presence, which in turn, are related to the global scores and responses given by the participants of the Virtual Reality experiment.

传统上已经提出了全向跑步机（ODT），作为在大型虚拟环境中用户导航的有希望的解决方案。这些机械设备使用户能够在360度自由度下执行机车运动，同时保持其在物理世界中的位置固定。然而，大多数基于全向跑步机的运动方法已经呈现出高购置或维护成本，这是公众的能力，或者是有限的可靠性。在本文中，我们提供了一个针对实际用户的比较可用性和接受性研究，评估了开发这种类型的虚拟现实（VR）步行模拟器的两种最常用的方法，无论是基于平板的还是基于碗的全向跑步机。我们的研究结果表明，这两种设计方案都可以实现类似的性能，并且可以视为在虚拟环境中导航的个人低成本步行模拟器。尽管如此，当将它们进行比较时，用户遵循以下三个不同的选择标准时会偏爱基于碗的全向VR跑步机：总体偏好，推荐和实用性。最后，相关性分析显示了与模拟存在有关的参数之间的静态显着对应关系，而这些对应关系又与虚拟实境实验参与者给出的整体评分和响应有关。当遵循以下三个不同的选择标准时，用户偏爱基于碗的全向VR跑步机：总体偏好，推荐和实用性。最后，相关性分析显示了与模拟存在有关的参数之间的静态显着对应关系，而这些对应关系又与虚拟实境实验参与者给出的整体评分和响应有关。当遵循以下三个不同的选择标准时，用户偏爱基于碗的全向VR跑步机：总体偏好，推荐和实用性。最后，相关性分析显示了与模拟存在有关的参数之间的静态显着对应关系，而这些对应关系又与虚拟实境实验参与者给出的整体评分和响应有关。