Forestry Work in the M3 Virtual Environment: “Reality” for Different User Groups

The M3 Simulator Project is a collaborative effort between industry, a government agency and a university aimed at developing a virtual environment for simulating forest machines. This paper reports on a study, conducted before full implementation of the simulator, where qualitative responses to the VE were collected from four user groups: Professional forestry workers, forestry students, design students and regular students. Participants (three in each group) completed two tasks in the simulator after which they commented on their performance while watching a playback of their work as well as rated various aspects of the environment and their performance. The main observation made in analysis of the performances was that while the professional forestry workers were more aware of the limitations in the environment than the others, they were also the least concerned about them. Forestry and design students, however, reported that limitations in force-feedback and 3D graphics significantly hindered their performance. The results are discussed in terms of the different functional demands put on the VE by the different user groups.