Locomotion is one of the fundamental interactions in VR. As a relatively easy and simple method to implement VR locomotion, walking-in-place (WIP) techniques have been actively developed, which have shown advantages in terms of spatial constraints and immersion compared to real walking or controller-based interaction. However, existing WIP gestures have been largely adapted or designed from the perspective of developers, not the users, which may result in not only higher cognitive load to learn and memorize, but also worse presence and increased sensory conflict in VR. Therefore, this study aims to elicit and evaluate WIP gestures for different walking directions (forward, sideways, and backward) from users so that a complete user-defined WIP gesture set for VR locomotion can be generated. Two sequential user studies were conducted. In Experiment 1, 20 participants experienced the movement while wearing the VR headset and elicited the gesture for each of 8 walking directions. The grouping analysis revealed that Turn body + Stepping-in-place (SIP) and Step one foot + SIP/Rock/Stay were promising WIP gesture sets for VR locomotion. In the follow-up experiment (Experiment 2), 21 new participants experienced and compared the generated gesture sets and existing ones. The results showed that SIP performed the best for forward walking, while Step one foot + SIP/Rock/Stay were promising for other walking directions, which depended on application scenarios and the tradeoff between efficiency and naturalness. The generated WIP gesture sets from users can be used in VR applications to provide a better user experience and greater movement options in VR locomotion.

运动是VR中的基本交互之一。作为一种实现VR运动的相对简单的方法，就地行走（WIP）技术已得到积极发展，与真正的行走或基于控制器的交互相比，就空间约束和沉浸感而言，它们已显示出优势。但是，现有的WIP手势已从开发人员而非用户的角度进行了很大的调整或设计，这不仅会导致学习和记忆的认知负荷增加，还会导致VR中的存在感和感觉冲突增加。因此，本研究旨在从用户那里引出和评估针对不同步行方向（向前，向后和向后）的WIP手势，以便可以生成用于VR运动的完整的用户定义WIP手势集。进行了两个顺序的用户研究。在实验1中，有20位参与者戴着VR耳机进行了动作体验，并针对8个步行方向中的每一个引出了手势。分组分析显示转身+原地踏步（SIP）和一步脚+ SIP / Rock / Stay是用于VR运动的有前途的WIP手势集。在后续实验（实验2）中，有21位新参与者体验并比较了生成的手势集和现有手势集。结果表明，SIP在前向步行方面表现最佳，而第一步步行+ SIP / Rock / Stay在其他步行方向上则很有前途，这取决于应用场景以及效率与自然性之间的权衡。从用户生成的WIP手势集可用于VR应用程序中，以在VR运动中提供更好的用户体验和更多的移动选项。