Branislav Sobota

Data Processing for Virtual Reality

Digitization of real objects into 3D models is a rapidly expanding field, with ever increasing range of applications. The most interesting area of its application is in the creation of realistic 3D scenes, i.e. virtual reality. On the other hand, virtual reality systems are typical examples of highly modular systems of data processing. These modules are considered as subsystems dealing with selected types of inputs from the modeled world, or producing this world including all providing effects respectively. This chapter focuses on data processing tasks within a virtual reality system. Processes considered are as follows: 3D modeling and 3D model acquisition; spoken term recognition as part of the acoustic subsystem; and visualization, rendering and stereoscopy as processes of output generation from the visual subsystem.

Software Model Creation with Multidimensional UML

The aim of the paper is to present the advantages of the Use Cases transformation to the object layers and their visualization in 3D space to reduce complexity. Our work moves selected UML diagram from two-dimensional to multidimensional space for better visualization and readability of the structure or behaviour.

A Toolset for Support of Teaching Formal Software Development

Teachers of formal methods courses often experience disinterest or even disgust towards the topic from software engineering students. As one of the significant reasons of this situation we see the fact that students are not in touch with domains where their use is desired and worth the effort. In this paper we deal with a toolset we developed to improve the situation. The toolset brings to students, in a virtual form, one of the most successful domains of formal methods application - railway systems. It consists of a modified version of a railway centralized traffic control simulator called Train Director and a tool that allows signals and switches in a railway scenario, simulated by Train Director, to be controlled by a separate formally developed control program. We briefly describe the toolset and its typical use within a formal methods course and discuss its usability with respect to various formal methods.

Processing 3D scanner data for virtual reality

Digitization of real objects into 3D models is a rapidly expanding field, with ever increasing range of applications. The most interesting area of its application is in the creation of realistic 3D scenes, i.e. virtual reality. It can be used in the entertainment industry, design, architecture and scientific research. This paper provides a brief summary of current 3D scanning technologies, deals with some aspects of data processing required to acquire a usable 3D model and presents various 3D visualization methods with focus on stereoscopy. This processing represents large graphical data processing also in parallel computer systems pertinently.

Performance analysis of processes by automated simulation of Coloured Petri nets

This paper deals with a support tool for an automation of simulation of Coloured Petri nets and selected simulation experiments conducted with the aid of the tool. The tool is called CPN Assistant, it has been developed at the home institution of the authors and cooperates with the CPN Tools software. It allows to run and manage multiple customized simulations in a network environment. The experiments presented aim at an evaluation of several modification of a raytracing management implementation in a cluster environment.

Virtual reality - creation, usage and education

At Department of computers and informatics, FEEI TU of Košice, students can study problematic of virtual reality technologies. Study is divided into two parts. First part focus on theoretical knowledge and second part focus on practical knowledge. This paper presents practical exercises during which students earn practical experiences about these virtual reality technologies: 3D scanning, position tracking, 3D displays and 3D printing.

Path-Finding Algorithm Application for Route-Searching in Different Areas of Computer Graphics

Paths are sequences of vertices and edges between them. Path-finding between two locations in a graph is used in many areas like GPS navigation, CAD systems (auto-routing in design of circuit boards), and applications of artificial intelligence, computer games, virtual reality, military forces or robotics. The main aim of path-finding is to avoid collisions with obstacles and safely pass through the virtual world (or the real one) along the path found by the selected algorithm. Examples of this need are autonomous robots on distant planets without the possibility to be controlled in real time because of latencies in signal sending, or automatic vehicles control presented in (Simon et al., 2006) and (Kuljic et al., 2009). Another examples of path-finding are strategic computer games, mostly with computer opponent. Path-finding is also widely used in finding best routers interconnection for data transmission in many kinds of computer networks.

Special Input Devices Integration to LIRKIS CAVE

Abstract LIRKIS CAVE is a unique immersive virtual reality installation with a compact cylinder-based construction and a high-quality stereoscopic video output rendered on twenty 55” Full HD LCD panels. While the video output of the CAVE provides a high level of immersion to a virtual world, its original implementation of peripherals support had a negative impact because of a limited number of supported devices and certain performance issues. In this paper we describe a new, distributed, peripheral devices support implementation for the LIRKIS CAVE, which solves the performance issues and allows for ease of integration of new input devices into the CAVE. We also present a successful integration of a special input device, the Myo armband,which allows a natural and unobtrusive gesture-based control of virtual environments. The integration includes a newly developed control and monitoring application for the Myo, called MLCCS, which utilization is not limited to CAVE systems or virtual reality applications.

Parallelizing boundary surface computation of Chua's circuit

This paper introduces a method for performing parallel computations of the boundary surface of Chuas circuit. The presented approach could be characterized as a SIMD method which is based on the utilization of all available CPU cores. Performance comparisons between single and parallelized calculations on different computer systems are included in a table at the end of the article. The best results were observed using the highest compiler optimisation options on 64 bit architecture and using Intel i7 CPUs.

Virtual-reality technologies and smart environments in the process of disabled people education

Information technologies impact our daily life in many significant ways. Nevertheless, there is a lack of availability of some technologies to the wide public caused by their location and price. This insufficiency seems to be even bigger for disabled people. LIRKIS laboratory of Technical university of Košice proposes solutions in education of these people and develops technologies of virtual reality which are capable to fulfill their needs. This paper is aimed at user interfaces (as VR technology) and the smart environment from human-centered perspective. The development process could become time consuming because in many cases the electrical network, sensory network and other physical elements need to be rebuilt to begin another test. Virtual reality technologies could solve this kind of issues low cost and fast. In this work a CAVE system was used in the comparison of standard approaches.