Research

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Collaborative teleimmersion involves multiple users connecting to a single virutal environment. The term virtual reality can be a misnomer because projects do not attempt to recreate reality. Instead, the focus is upon creating an environment in which a user may immerse himself and interact cooperatively with other users.

Projects | Research Interests | Publications | Conferences, Workshops, etc.

Although most of my research has been done exclusively on high-end workstations, I have gathered a few notes about Macintosh VR development.

Research Interests

Collaborative 3D User Interaction
The investigation of the three-dimensional user interfaces in an increasingly active area, but the consideration of multiple users extends the scope of investigation.
Immersive Modeling
Creating objects and surfaces on a 2D monitor is easier with programs tailored for that kind of interaction. The selection of tools is not available within immersive environments like the CAVE.
Haptic Interfaces
Virtual environments do a good job of fooling the sense of sight. Some facilities have provided excellent audio capabilities as well. However, the sense of touch is one which requires still more work to be done for use in virutal environments.
Real-time Graphics
There are a lot of amazing effects which can be achieved with computer graphics. However, presenting those effects for use in an interactive real-time environment requires alternative approaches.

Projects

Designing Cranial Implants with Augmented Reality and Haptics
(Thesis in development.)
coinevents Library
This library implements 3D user interaction events for use with Coin3D.
Improved QUANTA Avatars
The avatar classes used by CAVERNsoft and QUANTA are nto very much to my liking. I wanted something that better utilized features of object-oriented design while avoiding messy things like templates.
VTK and Inventor Integration
VTK is tremendously useful with an amazing feature set. It can export to an Inventor file, but I needed to have a tighter integration. I created some classes to import Inventor geometry to the VTK pipeline while and export a VTK actor's representing to the Inventor scene graph.
WallView (now known as ImmersaView)
Inventor-based model and animation viewer for the AGAVE system. Capabilities are based on the current Performer version of coanim. Runs using Coin3d on Linux and IRIX; soon to be available for Windows and MacOS X.
ASCI Collaborative MEMS
In cooperation with Sandia National Laboratory, CAVERNsoft has been utilized to create a collaborative Micro-Electric Machine Simulation. Kinematic and dynamic output from SD/Fast is placed into a CAVERN database and read for teleimmersive visualization.
their name.
Tele-Immersive Data Exploration environment (TIDE)
Results from today's computational simulations can result in significantly large data stores approaching several terabytes. TIDE is a framework attempting to facilitate the development of multi-user collaborative interactive virtual environments for the visualization of large data sets.
CAVERNsoft G2 Development
IRIS Performer uses dynamic coordinate systems for maintaining transformation information. Typically, the transformation matrix must be repeatedly transferred over the network to share it with collaborators. This class uses CAVERNsoft G2 to create a DCS node which will automatically share its transformation information with other teleimmersed users.
Virtual Temporal Bone in Performer
Based upon an existing base framework, the Virtual Temporal Bone in Performer is a multi-user immersive environment with the funcitonality for switching between a selection of organic structures of the human inner ear. Networked users share the same collaborative view, and each user is represented by a colored pointer.
Input Module
An object-oriented library for handling interaction from the CAVE, my InputModule creates an event-triggered process for handling interaction from connected input devices. Button presses trigger event actions in other parts of programs, enabling for a cleaner interaction design.

Publications

Patton, J., Dawe, G., Scharver, C., and Kenyon, R.. The development of a life-sized 3-d system for the rehabilitation of motor function. In Proceedings of 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Sep 5 2004. [link forthcoming]

Scharver, C., Evenhouse, R., Johnson, A., Leigh, J., Designing Cranial Implants in a Haptic Augment Reality Environment, Communications of the ACM, volume 27, Number 8, ACM Press, New York, New York, August 2004, pp. 32-38. [link]

Scharver, C., Evenhouse, R., Johnson, A., Leigh, J., Pre-surgical Cranial Implant Design using the PARIS Prototype, Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality, Chicago, IL, March 22-24, 2004. [PDF][plate]

Park, K., Cho, Y., Krishnaprasad, N., Scharver, C., Lewis, M., Leigh, J., Johnson, A., CAVERNsoft G2: A Toolkit for High Performance Tele-Immersive Collaboration, Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology 2000, Seoul, Korea, Oct 22-25, 2000, pp. 8-15. [PDF]

Sawant, N., Scharver, C., Leigh, J., Johnson, A., Reinhart, G., Creel, E., Batchu, S., Bailey, S., Grossman, R., The Tele-Immersive Data Explorer: A Distributed Architecture for Collaborative Interactive Visualization of Large Data-sets, 4th International Immersive Projection Technology Workshop, Ames, IA, June 19-20, 2000. [PDF]

Park, K., Kapoor, A., Scharver, C., Leigh, J., Exploiting Multiple Perspectives in Tele-Immersion, Proceedings of the Fourth Immersive Projection Technology Workshop, Ames, IA, June 19-20, 2000. [PDF]

Conferences and Workshops

Machines Assisting Recovery from Stroke Advisory Board Meeting, Chicago, IL Sep 14, 2004
Demonstrated rehabiloitation applications on RIC's PARIS.
IEEE VR 2004, Chicago, IL Mar 29-31, 2004
Presented paper, "Pre-Surgical Cranial Implant Design Using the PARIS™ Prototype," (color plate) and demonstrated the work at EVL's Demo Night.
Radiological Society of North America 2003, Chicago, IL Dec 1-5, 2003
Demonstrated PARIS using the cranial implant application along iwth enhancements for viewing computed tomography (CT) images within the environment.
Programming the PARIS, Chicago, IL, Sep 11, 2003
Presentation at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago detailed the methods used for integrating haptics with the PARIS.
Medicine Meets VR 2003, Newport Beach, CA, Jan 22-24, 2003
Demonstrated haptic cranial implant modeling work on PARIS.
Supercomputing 2002, Baltimore, MD, Nov 2002
Demonstrated haptic cranial implant modeling work work on PARIS.
American Geophysists Union 2001, San Francisco, CA, Dec 10-14, 2001
Demonstrated WallView in the Iris booth.
Supercomputing 2000, Dallas, TX, Nov 2000
Presented demonstrations of EVL research projects in NCSA and ASCI booths. TIDE earthquake visualizations were run between Dallas, Chicago, and Tel Aviv, Israel. MEMS visualizations were demonstrated at the Department of Energy booth
INET 2000, Yokohama, Japan, Aug 2000
As a part of IGrid at the Internet 2000 conference, worked with collaborators in Japan, Amsterdam, and Chicago to demonstrate a variety of virtual environment applications. TIDE was demonstrated between a IDesk in Japan and the CAVEs in Chicago.
EGVE 2000, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Jun 1-2, 2000
EuroGraphics Workshop on Virtual Environments. Directed a collaborative session of TIDE between the SARA CAVE in Amsterdam and the EVL CAVE in Chicago. Digital audioconferencing was enabled to take advantage of the special STARTAP connection between the two sites.
CAVELib™ Networking, SGI Reality Center, Orlando, FL, Mar 14-16, 2000
Presented a day-long workshop tutorial on the use of CAVERNsoft for implementing tele-immersive applications.
IPT 2000, Ames, IA, Jun 19-20, 2000
Immersive Projection Technologies. Presented a paper on TIDE, The Tele-Immersive Data Explorer: A Distributed Architecture for the Collaborative Interactive Visualization of Large Data-Sets (PDF format).
LDV 1999, Salt Lake City, UT
NSF/DOE Workshop on Large Data Visualization and Management
Supercomputing 1999, Portland, OR, Nov 14-19, 1999
Collaborative demonstrations of TIDE in ASCI, Access Grid, and Argonne booths.
Supercomputing 1998, Orlando, FL
Prepared the demonstration for Supercomputing '98 of LIMBO tools, specifically the FutureCamp98 Project at Indiana University and the Awareness Collaborative Tools at Virginia Tech

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