Ubiq & The Future of Social VR

Virtual reality (VR) has come a long way in recent years, with many companies creating immersive experiences that allow users to step into new worlds and explore different environments. But what if VR could bring people together in a shared virtual space? That's where Ubiq comes in.

Ubiq is a social VR (SVR) tool that facilitates users to connect with each other in a fully immersive virtual space. It is an open-source Unity package that must be downloaded and programmed by the users themselves, which allows for great versatility and adaptability. Whether it's hanging out with friends, attending a conference, or even playing competitive games with friends, Ubiq makes it possible to be together in a shared virtual environment.

This week, I explored Ubiq to explore its ease of use, user goals, joy of use, and meaningfulness with the goal of writing a heuristic evaluation on the tool. Below are my discoveries.

(1) Overall Navigation

As would any other VR tools, it took a while for me to get used to using Ubiq. (This may also be true because I am not used to using Unity platform, which Uniq is based on.) Nevertheless, after exploring for a while, I would say the basic functions of Ubiq are quite simple.

First scene that users access when Ubiq is opened. This is meant to be customized further by each users..

It is, however, noteable that this is merely meant to be a starting point for users to explore and customize. Ubiq is a essentially low level program that requires users to integrate coding on their own in order to create and facilitate their own SVR environment.

While this provides a lot of flexibility and potential on how the tool can be used, it makes me believe that it is not the right fit for the demographic that simply wants to be part of the SVR experience; not building the entire thing.

Users must be able to code their own experiences in Ubiq.

For some users, this may promise incredible prospects and opportunities. However, for many users, this may be a significant deterrent from using SVR.

Example of user code to send commands.

(2) Atmosphere

The Ubiq atmosphere is quite simple and basic, making it user-friendly.

However, with the wide range of customization options it provide, users can create their own virtual environments and change the atmosphere. This means that you can tailor your own scene based on its purpose.

(3) Functions

There are different features provided by Ubiq, such as but not limited to:

• personal avatars

• voice for interactions

• custom objects

• connection management

• rooms system

• scene management

However, perhaps the most interesting and unique feature from Ubiq is that it allows for users to add their own objects into the VR. This enables countless personalization possibilities.

Users can add and control objects within Ubiq.

The various functions provided by Ubiq allows for the tool to be used in various situations such as business and education, allowing users to host meetings, conferences, and training sessions in a virtual environment. This can be especially useful for remote teams who may not have the opportunity to meet in person.

(4) How we could enhance the spatial environment in terms of secure and pleasant experience.

It would be beneficial for Ubiq to take security into consideration as its user base grows. According to the presentation from ISMAR 2022, the baseline Ubiq system assumes peers, connections and machines are trustworthy. If they want to, users can set up their own system to have total control over data flows and easily configure the system to meet national legislation or local policy about data protection (Steed et al. 2022). This can achieved using external methods suggested below.

For a more secure and pleasent experience, it is important for Ubiq to be more transparent with the platform's data processing policies, and provide users with detailed terms and guidelines to protect their personal data from possible malicient attacks. This is especially true considering that relatively little is known about how these systems should be constructed in order to be useable and efficient.

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Overall, Ubiq is an innovative social VR tool that is leading the revolution of SVR systems. Its flexivility and customization options make it a standout option for anyone looking to engage in social VR experiences. If you haven't tried Ubiq yet, I highly recommend giving it a try and seeing what it can do for you.

Citation:

“Ubiq Tutorial at ISMAR 2022.” Ubiq, 9 June 2022, ubiq.online/blog/ubiq-tutorial-at-ismar-2022/. Accessed 28 Mar. 2023.

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UCL-VR. “UCL-VR/Ubiq.” GitHub, Mar. 2023, github.com/UCL-VR/ubiq. Accessed 28 Mar. 2023.

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Steed, Anthony, et al. “Ubiq-Exp: A Toolkit to Build and Run Remote and Distributed Mixed Reality Experiments.” Frontiers in Virtual Reality, vol. 3, 14 Oct. 2022, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frvir.2022.912078/full, https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.912078. Accessed 28 Mar. 2023.