Embodied Exploration

An approach to virtual environment interaction in which the user builds understanding of a space by physically walking, turning, reaching, and sweeping rather than by teleporting or using controller-based locomotion. Embodied exploration is particularly important for blind and low-vision users because proprioception - the body's own sense of position and motion - is a primary source of spatial information when vision is unavailable, and techniques like free-walking preserve these cues better than joystick or walk-in-place locomotion. Systems that support embodied exploration let real-world orientation-and-mobility skills, such as white cane sweeping, transfer directly into virtual spaces.