In VR environments, free movement in real space enhances immersion but increases the risk of collisions with real-world obstacles. Prior solutions investigated using substitute obstacles with context-related digital objects in VR but often treat all obstacles uniformly without considering their varying levels of risk. This oversight might result in reduced awareness for high-risk obstacles and a missed opportunity to utilize low-risk objects to enhance haptic feedback and interactivity in VR. In this study, we propose Chameleon, a system that classifies real-world obstacles by their varying risk levels and substitutes them with context-related virtual objects in VR. The substitutions are designed to align with the obstacles’ real-world risk levels to ensure both safety and immersion. A preliminary heuristic evaluation assessed the usability of using visual textures to implicitly represent obstacle risk levels.

Cite this work: Yichen Yu, Qiao Jin. Chameleon: Unobtrusive Substitution of Real-World Obstacles in VR with Risk-Level-Aware Adaptation. CHI LBW’25, to appear.