Towards a Virtual Reality Visualization of Hand-Object Interactions to Support Remote Physical Therapy

Abstract: Improving object manipulation skills through hand-object interaction exercises is crucial for rehabilitation. Despite limited healthcare resources, physical therapists propose remote exercise routines followed up by remote monitoring. However, remote motor skills assessment remains challenging due to the lack of effective motion visualizations. Therefore, exploring innovative ways of visualization is crucial, and virtual reality (VR) has shown the potential to address this limitation. However, it is unclear how VR visualization can represent understandable hand-object interactions. To address this gap, in this paper, we present VRMoVi, a VR visualization system that incorporates multiple levels of 3D visualization layers to depict movements. In a 2-stage study, we showed VRMoVi's potential in representing hand-object interactions, with its visualization outperforming traditional representations, and detailed features improved the hand-object interactions understanding. This study takes the initial step in developing VR visualization of hand-object interaction to support remote physical therapy.