Luciene Chagas de Oliveira

VRCEMIG: A virtual reality system for real time control of electric substations

This research demonstration presents an integrated hardware and software platform developed for controlling electric substations, through a virtual environment. Each 3D substation is integrated with the supervision, data acquisition and control center of a real electric energy company. Today, this is pursued on a 2D diagram, lacking intuitiveness. VRCEMIG explores techniques to provide deeper immersion and intuitive interactions in order to support not only training for future employees, but also real time operation. During the demonstration visitors will be able to use different devices such as joystick, gamepad and VR glasses to navigate and operate an electric substation (for training purposes only). This substation belongs to the Brazilian company CEMIG, a research partner.

Mobile Augmented Reality enhances indoor navigation for wheelchair users

Introduction: Individuals with mobility impairments associated with lower limb disabilities often face enormous challenges to participate in routine activities and to move around various environments. For many, the use of wheelchairs is paramount to provide mobility and social inclusion. Nevertheless, they still face a number of challenges to properly function in our society. Among the many difficulties, one in particular stands out: navigating in complex internal environments (indoors). The main objective of this work is to propose an architecture based on Mobile Augmented Reality to support the development of indoor navigation systems dedicated to wheelchair users, that is also capable of recording CAD drawings of the buildings and dealing with accessibility issues for that population. Methods Overall, five main functional requirements are proposed: the ability to allow for indoor navigation by means of Mobile Augmented Reality techniques; the capacity to register and configure building CAD drawings and the position of fiducial markers, points of interest and obstacles to be avoided by the wheelchair user; the capacity to find the best route for wheelchair indoor navigation, taking stairs and other obstacles into account; allow for the visualization of virtual directional arrows in the smartphone displays; and incorporate touch or voice commands to interact with the application. The architecture is proposed as a combination of four layers: User interface; Control; Service; and Infrastructure. A proof-of-concept application was developed and tests were performed with disable volunteers operating manual and electric wheelchairs. Results The application was implemented in Java for the Android operational system. A local database was used to store the test building CAD drawings and the position of fiducial markers and points of interest. The Android Augmented Reality library was used to implement Augmented Reality and the Blender open source library handled the basis for implementing directional navigation arrows. OpenGL ES provided support for various graphics and mathematical transformations for embedded systems, such as smartphones. Experiments were performed in an academic building with various labs, classrooms and male and female bathrooms. Two disable volunteers using wheelchairs showed no difficulties to interact with the application, either by entering touch or voice commands, and to navigate within the testing environment with the help of the navigational arrows implemented by the augmented reality modules. Conclusion The novel features implemented in the proposed architecture, with special emphasis on the use of Mobile Augmented Reality and the ability to identify the best routes free of potential hazards for wheelchair users, were capable of providing significant benefits for wheelchair indoor navigation when compared to current techniques described in the literature.

Meta-model of Information Visualization Based on Treemap

The interpretation and understanding of large quantities of data is a challenge for current information visualization methods. The visualization of information is important as it makes the appropriate acquisition of the information through the visualization possible. The choice of the most appropriate information visualization method before commencing with the resolution of a given visual problem is primordial to obtaining an efficient solution. The objective of this paper is to describe an information visualization classification approach based on Treemap, which is able to identify the best information visualization model for a given problem. This is understood through the construction of an adequate information visualization meta-model. Firstly, the actual state of the visualization field is described, and then the rules and criteria used in this research are shown, with the aim of presenting a meta-model proposal based on Treemap visualization methods. Besides this, the authors present a case study with the information contained in the Periodic Table visualization meta-model along with an analysis of the information search time complexity in each of the two meta-models. Finally, an evaluation of the results is presented through the experiments conducted with users and a comparative analysis of the methods based on Treemap and the Periodic Table.

Indoor navigation with mobile augmented reality and beacon technology for wheelchair users

Physical disability is an obstacle to those who suffer with such, as it deprives the individual from participating in routine activities, without relying on the help of others. Although the difficulties faced are of a wide range, one in particular stands out: navigation in internal environments (indoors). In this context, the main motivation of this research is to investigate the use of Mobile Augmented Reality and Beacon technologies to support indoor navigation for wheelchair individuals. Such an initiative is very important since it emphasizes the use of new tools that can provide effective improvements in terms of social inclusion. To evaluate the proposed solution tests were conducted with regular users. One of the novel features implemented includes the ability to identify best routes free of potential hazards such as obstacles and ramps. Results shows that the proposed solution support safe indoor navigation for wheelchair users.

A Proposal for a Meta-Information Visualization Using Treemap

The information visualization is important as it makes the appropriate acquisition of the information through the visualization possible. The choice of the most appropriate information visualization method before commencing with the resolution of a given visual problem is primordial to obtaining an efficient solution. This article has as its objective to describe an information visualization meta-model classification approach based on treemap, which is able to identify the best information visualization model for a given problem. The actual state of the visualization field is described, and then the rules and criteria used in our research are shown, with the aim of presenting a proposal for meta-information visualization model based on treemap, inspired upon the periodic table meta-model.

SERIOUS GAME PARA REABILITAÇÃO DE CADEIRANTES UTILIZANDO KINECT E REALIDADE VIRTUAL

Recently, there is a great demand for games and leisure in society. However, the user is not satisfied with just how to play, leading researchers and innovators to better natural interaction between man and machine. The evolution of games has been somewhat surprising, not only in graphics and design, but also in their style of play , moving to a stage where the interaction between man and machine becomes more natural and can be played only by gestures , audio or body positions . With the growing popularity of these games came the need and opportunity to include effectively the physically disabled, and bring along with sports games way more practical to apply the rehabilitation of users. This work shows an application using Virtual Reality or Augmented Virtuality for inclusion and rehabilitation of people with disabilities wheelchair through the Microsoft Kinect.

Grab the Life: Serious Game to Support Physical Rehabilitation Using Virtual Reality and Wearable Myo

The use of virtual rehabilitation through games aims to simulate real situations. Thus, it is noticed that the use of this takes away the patient from the pains focus or discomfort and also improves the functionality of the affected limbs and leads him to resume the activities in the areas of occupational performance. In this work, titled Grab the Life, Virtual Reality technology has been used along with the wearable device Myo, applied to serious games context for people with congenital and/or acquired abscence of forearm, in order to motivate them to use prosthesis, aimed mainly for children and adolescents.