Luciano P. Soares

v-Glove: A 3D Virtual Touch Interface

Traditional interaction devices such as mouse and keyboard do not adapt very well to immersive environments, since they were not ergonomically designed for it. The user may be standing or in movement and these devices were projected to work on desks. Moreover, in the current interaction model for immersive environments, which is based on wands and 3D mice, a change of context is necessary every time to execute a non-immersive task. These constant context changes from immersive to 2D desktops introduce a rupture in the user interaction with the application. The objective of this work is to develop a device that maps a touch interface in a virtual reality immersive environment. In order to interact in 3D virtual reality immersive environments a wireless glove (v-Glove) was created, which has two main functionalities: tracking the position of the users index finger and vibrate the fingertip when it reaches an area mapped in the interaction space to simulate a touch feeling. Quantitative and qualitative analysis were performed with users to evaluate the v-Glove, comparing it with a gyroscopic 3D mouse.

Designing a highly immersive interactive environment: the virtual mine

To achieve a full‐scale simulation of a pyrite mine, a highly immersive environment becomes necessary and this research has led to a complex system enabling users to walk through a virtual mine in real time, presenting all the behaviours present in such environment. Some of the problems encountered are the tunnels behaviours, including highly contrasted images due to the presence of the head light, narrow paths, elevators, sound reverberation and tunnels texture shades. The use of immersive virtual reality enables the generation of high‐quality simulations, because it is possible to control several feedback mechanisms such as the degree of luminance of produced imagery and spatial sound. In this research, a projection infrastructure and tracking system were specified and developed, aiming at producing the best results for this kind of simulation. To achieve our purposes, distributed algorithms were developed to run in a cluster solution that drives a four‐sided CAVE‐like environment. The complete production pipeline is presented, ranging from the developed authoring techniques, enabling fast production of new content for the simulation, to the tracking techniques produced for the improvement of the interaction.

DWeb3D: a toolkit for developing X3D applications in a simplified environment

The X3D standard is open, supported by an international consortium, mature and in constant development, but with a low adoption rate. In this work, X3D qualities and problems are discussed and correlated with other solutions. In this process it was detected some necessities in current applications and the complexity of X3D to deal with these issues. As an attempt to demonstrate that the complexity of X3D in some aspects may be reduced, the DWeb3D toolkit was built. DWeb3d is a toolkit to help the development of dynamic X3D applications, showing that it is possible to simplify the development process, possibly increasing the access to developers in this area. The toolkit provides tools to deal with publishing, synchronism, interactivity, multiple users management and disk persistence.

A Journey through Virtual and Augmented Reality - Reviewing the SVR Symposia from 2004 to 2008

This article intends to provide a panorama of the Brazilian Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality (SVR) based on the analysis of its last four editions (2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008). We had reviewed the 124 full papers published in these four editions of the symposium and had analyzed them according to different criteria. These criteria include research topics, technologies used, and research approaches. The goal of this document is to draw an accurate picture of the research in this area in Brazil and try to provide insights about trends, deficiencies, and opportunities that may help guiding future efforts of the Brazilian research community in virtual and augmented reality.

Designing Multi-projector VR Systems: from Bits to Bolts

This tutorial will present how to design, construct and manage immersive multiprojection environments, covering from projection technologies to computer hardware and software integration. Topics as tracking, multimodal interactions and audio are going to be explored. At the end, we are going to present important design decisions from real cases. Motivation: Immersive multi-projection environments have become affordable for many research centers. However, these solutions need several integration steps to be fully operational. Some of these steps are difficult to accomplish and require an uncommon combination of different skills. This tutorial presents the most recent techniques developed for multiprojector solutions, from projection to computer cluster software. The hardware in these VR installations combines projectors, screen, speaker, computers and tracking devices. The tutorial will introduce hardware options, explaining their advantages and disadvantages. We will cover software design and open source tools available, and how to administrate the whole solution, from tasks such as installing the computer cluster to configuring the graphical outputs. We also provide an introduction to tracking systems, explaining how electromagnetic and optical trackers work. Additionally we cover integration software and middleware developed for such settings. Finally, we will discuss important design decisions in real cases: The project process, problems encountered, good and bad points in each decision. Target audience: The objective of this tutorial is to give an introduction to the issues to consider when planning the installation of a multi-projection environment for researches and professional in the computer graphics and virtual reality field. This tutorial intends to be basic. No previous knowledge is necessary in audience for the tutorial. Just basic knowledge in computer graphics and virtual reality is enough. The tutorial will cover all points present in details and any student our professional can follow. Interest for the CV, IP, CG and PR community; This tutorial will enable our community better understand immersive projection system, and use in their projects. List of the topics to be presented: Section I: Introduction (10 minutes) In order to have a virtual reality facility several points should be taken in consideration. In the fist section a brief introduction will be presented about all the topics related to a complete multidisplay solution and what are the core ideas behind these systems. We intend to ask and answer why someone wants this kind of solution that can be very expensive depending the way people plan the solution, leading the reader to understand why and which kind of solution he needs. The section will also review some o the history behind these immersive solutions. • Background • History • Outcomes • Organization of the Course • Further Reading and Resources Section II: Display Technologies & Stereo (30 min.) Several technologies are available to implement a multi-display facility. We are going to present some of these technologies and devices, and try to link them. An evaluation of the most common used projection techniques and their future. What kinds of screens are available and the best use for each one. • Displays Systems • Projectors Features (Brightness, Contrast, Resolution, Refresh Rate) • Projectors Technologies (CRT, DLP, LCD, LCos) • Stereo technologies (passive x active among others) • Flexible and rigid screens, hotspots, gain • Lens • Mirrors • Stereo Section III: Display Hardware Infrastructure (30 min.) We are going to present several multi-display environments, calibration issues related to each technology and topology. Details in site preparation, from air-conditioning to floor requirements. Control and automation is also mandatory in industrial VR facilities. This section will present the possible software techniques and how to integrate special hardware for it. • Projection Geometries (Planar, Cubic, Domes) • Multi-projection (Arrays and Mounts) • Field Of View, Inter-reflection • Color and Geometry Calibration • Warping and Edge-Blending • Site preparation, Video Transmission • Control and Automation solutions Section IV: Tracking (30 min.) Tracking a user in an immersive projection environment is the only way to correct any projection distortion and simplify the interaction in the virtual environment. However tracking solutions are not easy to implement and even traditional tracking hardware needs calibration. We are going to overview common techniques, but we are going to focus in optical tracking since it is getting very used in VR installations and we will also present some new ideas for tracking. • Why User Tracking • Tracking systems characteristics • Tracking Technologies (Mechanical, Electromagnetic, Acoustic, Inertial, GPS, Optical) • Infrared Tracking System in Detail Section V: Audio in Immersive Environments (10 min.) Audio increase and immersion in virtual environments. Both sound synthesis and sound propagation are important factors that must be considered in generating realistic auditory display that compliment multi-projection VEs. • Sound Synthesis • Sound Propagation • Surround • Binaural Technique • VBAP and WFS techniques • Audio Development Libraries Section VI: HCI for Virtual Reality (30 min.) Most VR systems include an important interaction component. This section addresses the main issues in designing human-computer interaction for Immersive Environments. We intend to present the advantage of multiple modalities in order to increase usability of the computer systems over the traditional keyboard and mouse interface. • Text input • Graphical input • Multimodal input: • Eye tracking • Speech • Gesture • Bio-sensors • Touch-enabled Interfaces • Modality Integration & fusion Section VII: Image Generation (20 min.) We start with an evolution from the expensive main-frames to cheaper cluster, showing several configurations with the standard commodity hardware. The issues related to clusters like framelocking, gen-lock and data-lock. This section explains step by step how to configure and set-up a cluster for VR systems, and several software solutions to install and run in clusters. Since a cluster can use even specialized and commodity components we are going to present some possibilities and advantages of each one. • Main-frames to Clusters • Clusters Resources and Advantages • Graphic Cards • Network Connections • Immersive Virtual Collaboration • Graphical Parallelism in Clusters (Software and Multiple Cards) • Configurations Options and Systems Administration • Gen-lock, Frame-lock, Data-lock • Auxiliary Devices • Compositing Software and Hardware Section VIII: Software for Immersive Environments (20 min.) Most of the virtual reality software available in the market is not ready for immersive environments, then we are going to present some of the development techniques that can be used in order to have a application that has the basic features for the multi-display issues. A deep discussion will be taken on the software issued in order to use in a immersive system. • Multi-view frustum • Managing Scene Graphs • Optimization techniques • Interaction issues in immersive virtual reality applications • Developing applications for displaying VR worlds Presentation requirements: Projector and Screen Short biography of the instructors: Presenters: Alberto Raposo holds PhD and MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Campinas, Brazil. He is currently a professor at the Computer Science Department at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and coordinates the Virtual Reality group at the Computer Graphics Technology Group (Tecgraf) in the same university. His research interests include 3D interaction techniques, real-time visualization of massive models, augmented reality, and collaborative environments. He has co-authored more than 80 refereed publications. Felipe Carvalho holds PhD and MSc degrees in Computer Science from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is currently a researcher at the Computer Graphics Technology Group (Tecgraf) working in several projects at Petrobras. His research interests include 3D interaction techniques, virtual and augmented reality, and development of nonconventional devices. Organizers: Luciano Pereira Soares holds PhD in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo in Brazil. He was a postdoctoral research at IST, Instituto Superior Técnico in Portugal, INRIA, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique in France and ISCTE, Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa in Portugal. His research interests include real-time 3D computer graphics and cluster computing. He is currently researcher at the Tecgraf, Computer Graphics Technology Group in PUC-Rio working in several projects at Petrobrás, Petróleo Brasileiro. He worked as support engineer at Silicon Graphics, application engineer at Alias|Wavefront and as project manager at the Integrated Systems Laboratory. He is now in charge of building a VR facility at university with a 4sided CAVE, Hi-Resolution Wall, among others system, and acting as the main consultant for a building at Petrobras research center with 4 large rooms with the most modern immersive technology. Joaquim A. Jorge holds PhD and MSc degrees in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy New York, awarded in 1995 and 1992 respectively. He is currently Associate Professor of Computer Graphics and Multimedia at the Department of Information Systems and Computer Engineering at the Instituto Superior Técnico. He has co-authored over 120 internationally refereed papers on Computer Graphics and User Interfaces. Prof. Jorge is a member of the Eurographics Association and is also affiliated with ACM (SM’07) SIGGRAPH and SIGCHI and is National Representative to IFIP TC13. He has served

Simulation Training in Oil Platforms

Training people for working in an oil platform involves teaching operators to locate hundreds of devices in a hazardous environment and to correctly operate them. One small mistake can seriously hurt or kill somebody and compromise the integrity of the plant. On the other hand, access to real platforms is restricted and trainees need to relay on photos and diagrams in order to learn, which does not provide a realistic environment to completely allow them to understand their job. Realistic simulated training using Virtual Reality in areas such as aviation has shown that workers can better understand the physical environment and tasks they have to accomplish, assuring a better understanding of the target system. This paper presents techniques used for a simulation system for an oil platform operation. Several interaction techniques were adapted and implemented to achieve a realistic operation scenario.

Projection Mapping for a Kinect-Projector System

Spatial augmented reality allows users to create a projected virtual environment on irregular surfaces. This demands an extensive knowledge in the Camera-Projector calibration area. This paper presents a framework developed to facilitate the use of data achieved from a calibration of a Kinect-Projector system in visualization applications. Additionally, different calibration techniques were evaluated in order to demonstrate the better approaches.

Multi-projector VR Systems

Immersive multi-projection environments are becoming affordable for many research centers, but these solutions needs several integration steps to be fully operational, and some of these steps are difficult and not in a common domain. This paper presents the most recent techniques involved in multi-projection solutions, from projection to computer cluster software. The hardware in these VR (Virtual Reality) installations is a connection of projectors, screen, speaker, computers and tracking devices. This survey paper will introduce hardware options, explaining their advantages and disadvantages. We will cover software design and open source tools available, and how to administrate the whole solution.