3D Animation Of Telecollaborative Anthropomorphic Avatars

Virtual Harlem is a virtual reality reconstruction of Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. It was designed to immerse students of the Harlem Renaissance directly in the historical context of the literature of that period. The goal of this prototype is to develop rich, interactive, and narrative learning experiences to augment classroom activities for students in the humanities. This paper describes a semester-long user study using Virtual Harlem in an English literature course and discusses our experiences of integrating virtual reality technology in the classroom.

Virtual Harlem

Distance Learning Classroom Using Virtual Harlem

This paper discusses the process of reconstructing a unique and remote site such as Chav&iacute;n de Hu&aacute;ntar in Peru, focusing on the choices made in designing the user interface and the difficulty of translating archaeological / anthropological information into a visual and information-rich tool for the teaching of art history. Peru contains hundreds of sites that can be easily ignored due to the lack of visual resources that can help evaluate a site and culture. 

This paper explains why it is difficult to evaluate Chav&iacute;n de Hu&aacute;ntar and how a virtual reconstruction was done in order to provide a useful and user-friendly resource for art historians and their students in order to help appreciate the importance of this site and rescue it from being forgotten. The project is compared to an existing reconstruction done by Stanford University using Zoom by Live Picture and contrasted with the technology used for this reconstruction (VRML, HTML, JavaScript, and Metastream), which delivers a richer visual guide and more immersive experience. The paper discusses plans to create a fully immersive reconstruction of Chav&iacute;n de Hu&aacute;ntar using CAVE&trade; technology, Iris Performer and OpenWorlds and the issues concerning the maintenance of two tools for teaching: one that is more portable and one that is more immersive.

Reconstructing Chav&iacute;n de Hu&aacute;ntar (Peru): Designing an Educational Tool for Art Historians

Tracking the Net is a collective, interactive installation, which combines motion capture and virtual reality. Several users can interact in real time, simultaneously. The installation is projected to host interactive teams, which can experience a shared environment in local and as well in remote locations through networking. One of the major goals is to allow remote interactions between visitors and to focus on collaborative VR, with high performance and to give emphasis to enable teams to participate in distant locations: to share, interact, navigate, work or just have fun and share experiences as if they were in a common, virtual space. 

Visitors can freely interact and navigate within the different virtual environments by touching, pulling, and stretching the &ldquo;Net&rdquo;. The visitors are not required to manipulate any electronic devices such as joystick, mouse etc. They can use their own limbs, their motor capabilities and intuition to navigate through the VR environment, manipulate objects, move between scenes and play with sounds. 

This paper describes the design and implementation of Tracking the Net, covering diverse aspects of the installation such as: description of the platform, technology, interactivity, interface, production process; application, content development; goals, salient features and motivations behind this idea.

Tracking the Net

Kali is an intense, user-driven, multileveled virtual-reality piece that incorporates advanced technology to create a major interactive art installation. It is a comprehensive experience in the new language of interactive design, aesthetic interpretation of digital information and use of visual design in the virtual environment. Through Kali, the author explores a fusion of digital media, culture, the arts, literature, myth, and cinema. 

Kali&rsquo;s content is articulated in two main parts: 
<ol>
<li>The virtual-reality application</li>
<li>The multimedia world composed of videos, sound and interactive animation</li>
</ol> 

The virtual-reality application, visible through the VR Platform ( I-Desk) represents Kali&rsquo;s inner world, the world of causes and their effects, or decision-making. The visitor can generate situations within the virtual world interacting with the VR world and see the corresponding consequences (effects) in real time, whether in the virtual world or in the multimedia world, projected on the two external screens integrated in Kali&rsquo;s installation. However, the images that the visitor sees through Kali&rsquo;s eyes are not the same as the images projected on the external screens.

KALI:The Goddess of the Millenium

Effects of Characteristics of Image Quality in an Immersive Environment

Liquidon is an immersive, realtime, audio-visual composition that consists of a virtual environment and an interactive multi-channel soundscape. Liquidon explores the field of ITC. ITC, an acronym for Instrumental Transcommunication, is a field of research pertaining to the use of technological apparatus to facilitate communication with the dead. Liquidon utilizes a custom camera-based interface to capture video from a randomly tuned analog television set. The video frames are analyzed by the system and used to construct a three-dimensional representation of the image. Parametric data is extracted from the video frames and shared via a local area network with the sound composition. The composition is generated by a set of interconnected synthesis and processing modules developed in Max / MSP. Fragments of ITC recordings made by researchers such as Konstantin Raudive, Friedrich Jurgenson, and Raymond Cass are processed by the system, interwoven with a live radiophonic input, and dynamically distributed across multiple loudspeakers. Parameters such as pitch, amplitude, and phase are periodically tracked and shared via the network with the virtual environment. These parameters are used to influence the rendering and spatial distribution of the geometry. This, the two systems, visual and acoustic, remain locked in an evolving relationship of interdependence. This gives rise to a non-deterministic composition that is structured by feedback.

liquidon159

Liquidon

Locomotion in a Dynamic Immersive Virtual Environment

As part of the iGrid Research Demonstration at INET 2000, we created two Virtual Cultural Heritage environments - &ldquo;Virtual Harlem&rdquo; and &ldquo;Shared Miletus&rdquo;. The purpose of these applications was to explore possibilities in using the combination of high-speed international networks and virtual reality (VR) displays for cultural heritage education. Our ultimate goal is to enable the construction of tele-immersive museums and classes. 

In this paper we present an overview of the infrastructure used for these applications, and some details of their construction.

The Delfinio at Miletus

Virtual Heritage at iGrid 2000

Shared Miletus is a networked Virtual Cultural Heritage application first demonstrated at the INET 2000 conference. 

In this application we sought to explore new tools and techniques, ones that could be useful to create a networked virtual environment, which takes the place of a traditional museum. 

This paper describes the software used to build the environment, and the virtual tools created specifically to support remote, international visitors to the exhibition.

Miletus in the ReaCTor

Shared Miletus: Towards a Networked Virtual History Museum

Tele-Immersive applications possess an unusually broad range of networking requirements. As high-speed and Quality of Service-enabled networks emerge, it will becoming more difficult for developers of Tele-Immersion applications, and networked applications in general, to take advantage of these enhanced services. This paper proposes an adaptive networking framework to ultimately allow applications to optimize their network utilization in pace with advances in networking services. In working toward this goal, this paper will present a number of networking techniques for improving performance in tele-immersive applications and examines whether the Differentiated Services mechanism for network Quality of Service is suitable for Tele-Immersion.

Adaptive Networking for Tele-Immersion

This paper describes a class of restricted simulations, virtual ambients, designed to support science inquiry learning among elementary school students. These simulations employ large multi-user VR displays to support &ldquo;first-person&rdquo; collaborative exploration, data collection, and the construction of support for hypotheses in simulated environments. In order to reduce the cognitive load on learners, navigation is used instead of the traditional learning simulations&rsquo; direct control of independent model variables. Users may observe phenomena in virtual environments, but cannot affect the course of the underlying simulation. We report on our early experience with second, fourth, and sixth grade students in an elementary school employing a configurable virtual ambient named &lsquo;the Field.&rsquo; 

In the Field, students collaboratively explore a large &ldquo;natural&rdquo; terrain containing up to eight different plant types. The Field itself has limited affordances: navigation, the ability to take &ldquo;snapshots&rdquo;, and the ability to plant an unlimited number of biodegradable marker flags in the ground. The land mass is a square 3000 feet on a side, divided into regions in two independent ways: picket fences divide the space into a 3x3 grid, and the different patches of terrain divide the ground into regions of grass, sand, and gravel. 

The Field has been implemented on an ImmersaDesk&reg; providing a wide visual field-of-view, and supporting collaborative investigations for up to four students comfortably. We are using an ImmersaDesk, driven by a 4-processor SGI deskside Onyx IR, that has been installed in the Media Center at Abraham Lincoln elementary school in Oak Park, Illinois since August 1999. 

The Field has been written using YG, a scriptable language developed at EVL by Dave Pape that sits on top of SGI Performer and the CAVE library. CAVERNsoft is used for networking between multiple VR clients, and between the VR clients, the laptop-based Java client, and WinCE handheld devices. The Java client serves several purposes. Prior to the experience, it is used to set up the location of the plants in the environment. During the experience it allows us to monitor the position of the children in the space. After the experience it allows us to review their actions - the paths they took, the plants they marked, etc. This is a very useful ability, beyond what would be available in a real setting. 

So far 6th graders, 4th grades, and 2nd graders have had learning experiences in the Field. Jarvia Thomas&rsquo; 2nd graders investigated issues of similarity and difference; Victor Baez&rsquo;s 4th graders learned about interpolation and extrapolation; Marilyn Rothstein&rsquo;s 6th graders learned to develop co-occurrence rules, and Joanna Peterson&rsquo;s 6th graders are currently learning to estimate population distributions.

A group of sixth graders exploring &lsquo;the Field&rsquo; on the ImmersaDesk

First-Person Science Inquiry &lsquo;in the Field&rsquo;

Analyzing fast-growing networks involves considerable complexity, with the number of networked applications increasing exponentially. Existing techniques to analyze networks make use of network data collections, measurement and visualization to understand the state of networks. However, performance problems in networks may be caused by specific interactions from applications, which may or may not be running within a local network controlled by one network manager. This calls for two primary capabilities not addressed by traditional approaches. Network state information has to be first viewed and understood in the context of performance of applications. In addition, the information that can thus be obtained has to be shared with other remotely situated network managers, hence taking advantage of group collaboration to accelerate problem solving. Working towards this goal, this thesis proposes an extendable, unified and collaborative approach for analyzing networks. 

The approach first proposes ubiquitous access to run active tests between machines on a network and basic network management queries, using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). A unified framework designed using a centralized server, allows simultaneous analysis through message passing between processed that monitor the results of a network test, and processed that monitor changes in a Management Information Base (MIB) entry of any network device. The framework also allows any new application written, to connect to the same centralized event servicer used, and send event messages concerning specific, possibly undesirable, conditions reached while execution. 

The unified framework is complemented and merged with a collaborative framework to enable network managers to log-on to a group session and share the interfaces that control the network operations. Users can view results of operations initiated by others and also request control of interfaces that they see, to conduct their won tests on test-beds of other users in the session. The thesis demonstrates the result of such a unified and collaborative approach proposed by introducing a new type of network analysis tool called UCAN (Unified Collabratory for Analyzing Networks) implementing the capabilities described. 

UCAN or (uCAN) employs a three-dimensional visualization tool to analyze network performance of applications. A generic, Configurable two-dimensional graphic visualizer is provided to monitor active tests and changes in MIB information using SNMP. uCAN also contributes utilities implemented as a reusable set of C++ classes built over the CAVERNsoft high performance networking toolkit and the FLTK user interface library. The utilities are designed to facilitate building new interfaces that can be shared in a group session as descried above. The goal is to help fit the new tools into the collabratory and give network administrators and users, a more complete view of an entire network.

QoSIMoto visualization with the configuration interface in uCAN

A Unified and Collaborative Approach for Analyzing Networks

Virtual ambients are a class of restricted simulations designed to support science inquiry learning among elementary school students. Virtual ambients employ large multi-user displays to support &ldquo;first-person&rdquo; collaborative exploration, data collection, and the construction of support for hypotheses in simulated environments. In order to reduce the cognitive load on learners, navigation - in space, time, and scale - is used instead of traditional learning simulations&rsquo; direct control of independent model variables. Early experience with elementary school students at three grade levels is reported, employing a configurable virtual ambient named &ldquo;the Field&rdquo;. 

Elementary school science is about asking questions, collecting data that bear on those questions, and building support for answers. For the past year, we have been developing instructional interventions which employ virtual ambients - simulated natural and synthetic environments - as loci for children&rsquo;s scientific exploration. Virtual ambients are three-dimensional &ldquo;first person&rdquo; spaces where users navigate in space, scale, and time, implemen-ted on multi-user projective (stereoscopic) displays for use by groups of 2-4 students. Virtual ambients may include simulated scientific instrumentation, and may provide users with &ldquo;bread crumbs&rdquo; as navigation and data collection aids. 

Virtual ambients may be static or dynamic, but unlike traditional simulations, they offer users no direct control over independent variables. This constraint is designed to reduce the cognitive burden of exploring complex input spaces [1, 2, 3] by limiting young learners to familiar concepts and activities: moving around, seeing things at different scales, and imagining the past and future. It does not preclude the articulation and investigation of causal hypotheses; it simply shifts the burden from artificially manipulating preconditions to finding instances of varying preconditions in space or time. 

Virtual ambients provide young learners access to phenomena which might otherwise be inaccessible, while at the same time allowing educators to scaffold learning by controlling the complexity of the simulated world. We are investigating the hypothesis that working in virtual ambients - planning, navigating, observing, collecting and describing data - facilitates both the learning of both scientific investigation skills and specific math and science content learning.

Two 3rd Graders exploring &lsquo;the Field&rsquo; on an ImmersaDesk

First-Person Science Inquiry in Virtual Ambient Environments

This paper presents our findings after the first year and a half of a multi-year deployment of an ImmersaDesk to a local elementary school, investigating its effectiveness in enhancing science education. These findings deal with how VR can aid in the coordination of multiple representations, and how to integrate the technology into the existing school culture.

A prototype plasma panel running an educational application.

Exploring Multiple Representations In Elementary School Science Education

The goal of our Varrier research is to develop a head-tracked, stereo virtual reality system utilizing plasma or LCD panels. This paper describes a head-tracked barrier auto-stereographic method that is optimized for real-time interactive virtual reality systems. In this method, a virtual barrier screen is created simulating the physical barrier screen, and placed in the virtual world in front of the projection plane. An off-axis perspective projection of this barrier screen, combined with the rest of the virtual world, is projected from at least two viewpoints corresponding to the eye positions of the head-tracked viewer. During the rendering process, the simulated barrier screen effectively casts shadows on the projection plane. Since the different projection points cast shadows at different angles, the different viewpoints are spatially separated on the projection plane. These spatially separated images are projected into the viewer&rsquo;s space at different angles by the physical barrier screen. 

The flexibility of this computational process allows more complicated barrier screens than the parallel opaque lines typically used in barrier strip auto-stereography. In addition, this method supports the focusing and steering of images for a user&rsquo;s given viewpoint, and allows for very wide angles of view. This method can produce an effective panel-based auto-stereo virtual reality system.

Traditional Method

The Varrier Auto-Stereographic Display

The goal of AGAVE (pronounced agavay) is to augment the Access Grid to allow collaborators to immersively share three dimensional content, such as scientific and engineering data, in conjunction with their 2D Access Grid content. AGAVE accomplishes this with a low-cost passive stereographics projection system and accompanying networked PC. Audiences will view the immersive content using inexpensive 3D movie glasses. If desired an additional 3D tracking system and pointing device can be incorporated to support 3D interaction. AGAVE can be deployed as a separate display screen placed on one side of the Access Grid display screens so that both standard 2D content can be viewed simultaneously with 3D content.

AGAVE : Access Grid Augmented Virtual Environment

In this chapter we will discuss our work to enable effective collaboration between remote participants within immersive virtual reality environments. We will discuss several of the environments we have created, the lessons we have learned, and the issues that are driving our current research. Our focus is on high-quality collaboration among a handful of participants connected by high-speed, high-bandwidth national and international networks in areas such as scientific visualization, education and design. Sharing these virtual environments with your remote collaborators as well as the topic of your collaboration may be better than collaborating with them in person, as you can now collaborate while standing inside your data, sharing the context of your discussions.

User Interacting with Video Avatar on ImmersaDesk2

Tele-Immersive Collaboration in the CAVE&reg; Research Network (chapter)

Effects of Field of View on Balance in an Immersive Environment

Exact Collision Detection for Virtual Manufacturing Simulator

Excerpt from Virtual Manufacturing 

With the advent of high-resolution graphics, high-speed computing, and user interaction devices, virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a major new technology in recent years. An important new concept introduced by many VR systems is immersion, which refers to the feeling of complete immersion in a three-dimensional computer-generated environment by means of user-centered perspective achieved through tracking the user. This is a huge step forward compared to classical modeling and CAD / CAM packages, which inherently impose major limitations on intuitive user interaction. VR technology is currently used in a broad range of applications, the best known being flight simulators, walkthroughs, video games, and medicine (virtual surgery). From a manufacturing standpoint, some of the attractive applications include training, collaborative product and process design, facility monitoring, and management. Moreover, recent advances in broadband networks are also opening up new applications for telecollaborative virtual environments in these areas. 

In this book we have chosen to cover certain areas which we believe to have a potentially significant impact on virtual manufacturing. This is still an evolving list and includes areas such as facility layout and work-cell management, real-time exact collision detection, motion modeling, avatar modeling, and virtual-real environment interaction in training, based on our years of experience in this field. In addition to these areas, the book explores some connections between VR and computer vision (especially camera self-calibration and stereo vision) in the context of depth recovery in virtual manufacturing. Some of the automation techniques resulting from these concepts can potentially reduce a lot of time and boredom for users involved in manually creating CAD-based virtual environments. Lately, with the emergence of complementary areas of VR such as augmented reality (AR), one can address crucial problems of registration between virtual and real worlds. 

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to virtual manufacturing in the context of the book, provides illustrative applications and highlights research issues. In Chapters 2 to 5 we present some basic principles of computer graphics, virtual reality, depth extraction, and shape reconstruction, respectively. Numerous applications in virtual manufacturing are presented in Chapters 6 to 10. These applications have been developed based on work carried out at the Industrial Virtual Reality Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. They include the thesis work of A. Banerjee, R. Tesic, D. Zetu, and V. Giallorenzo. The contributions of the following individuals are also gratefully acknowledged: A. Akgunduz, C. Luciano, D. Thompson, P. Schneider, S. Anantharaman, and K. Gierach. The book is meant as an introduction to the basic concepts of virtual manufacturing from a VR perspective, not only for engineering students, but also for professionals interested in developing applications in this field. Last, but not the least, we would also like to thank T. DeFanti, D. Sandin, M. Brown, J. Leigh, D. Pape. D. Plepys, G. Dawe, A. Verlo, and numerous other members of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago for providing constant encouragement and support over a number of years to make some of the work possible. 

- From Virtual Manufacturing, by Prashant Banerjee, et al. &copy; March 9, 2001 , Wiley used by permission.

Publications - 2001

3D Animation Of Telecollaborative Anthropomorphic Avatars

Distance Learning Classroom Using Virtual Harlem

Reconstructing Chavín de Huántar (Peru): Designing an Educational Tool for Art Historians

Tracking the Net

KALI:The Goddess of the Millenium

Effects of Characteristics of Image Quality in an Immersive Environment

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