Over the past decade, the value and potential of VR applications in manufacturing have gained significant attention in accordance with the rise of Industry 4.0 and beyond. Its efficacy in layout planning, virtual design reviews, and operator training has been well-established in previous studies. However, many functional requirements and interaction parameters of VR for manufacturing remain ambiguously defined. One area awaiting exploration is spatial recognition and learning, crucial for understanding navigation within the virtual manufacturing system and processing spatial data. This is particularly vital in multi-user VR applications where participants' spatial awareness in the virtual realm significantly influences the efficiency of meetings and design reviews. This paper investigates the interaction parameters of multi-user VR, focusing on interactive positioning maps for virtual factory layout planning and exploring the user interaction design of digital maps as navigation aid. A literature study was conducted in order to establish frequently used technics and interactive maps from the VR gaming industry. Multiple demonstrators of different interactive maps provide a comprehensive A/B test which were implemented into a VR multi-user platform using the Unity game engine. Five different prototypes of interactive maps were tested, evaluated and graded by the 20 participants and 40 validated data streams collected. The most efficient interaction design of interactive maps is thus analyzed and discussed in the study.

翻译：过去十年间，随着工业4.0及后续技术的兴起，VR应用在制造业中的价值和潜力受到广泛关注。其在布局规划、虚拟设计评审、操作培训中的有效性已在先前研究中得到充分验证。然而，VR在制造业中的诸多功能需求与交互参数仍缺乏明确定义。空间识别与学习作为理解虚拟制造系统导航和空间数据处理的关键领域，尚待深入探索——这对多用户VR应用尤为重要，因为参与者虚拟空间中的方位感知直接影响会议与设计评审效率。本文研究多用户VR的交互参数，重点聚焦面向虚拟工厂布局规划的交互式定位地图，并探究数字地图作为导航辅助手段的用户交互设计。通过文献研究，我们梳理了VR游戏产业中常用的技术与交互地图类型。基于Unity游戏引擎，我们在多用户VR平台上实现了多组交互地图演示样机，并开展全面的A/B测试。研究测试并评估了五种交互地图原型，由20位参与者进行评分，收集了40组有效数据流。基于此，本研究分析并论证了最高效的交互地图交互设计方案。