Marcello Carrozzino

Lowering the development time of multimodal interactive application: the real-life experience of the XVR project

In this paper we present XVR, an integrated development environment for the rapid development of Virtual Reality applications. Using a modular architecture and a VR-oriented scripting language, XVR contents can be embedded on a variety of container applications. This makes it suitable to write contents ranging from web-oriented presentations to more complex VR installations involving advanced devices, such as real-time trackers, haptic interfaces, sensorized gloves and stereoscopic devices, including HMDs. Some case studies are also presented to illustrate the development processes related to XVR and its features.

The 3D interactive visit to Piazza dei Miracoli, Italy

This paper present an innovative VR application where the users, guided through structured narrative paths, are able to explore the space and the history of Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa. The application was realized in the course of a research project whose objective was to create a complete multimedia system related to the renowned monumental complex. In order to be accessible from a wide audience, the application is hosted in a dedicated website. Several optimization techniques and a novel state-of-the-art 3D web technology were used to take in account issues related to VR real-time constraints and the limited web bandwidth.

Design of information landscapes for cultural heritage content

The presentation of cultural heritage information is typically addressed with the use of web pages eventually integrated with specific visualization of 3d models that complete the textual information. The problem with this type of information is its extent, its complexity and the connection between the various concepts. This paper presents an Information Landscape system for the fruition of this type of information through a virtual environment, available both for desktop and immersive visualizations.

The virtual museum of sculpture

This paper presents the Virtual Museum of Sculpture (VMS) of Pietrasanta, a permanent Virtual Reality installation enabling users to interactively explore a museographical diffused virtual space. The virtual environment hosts several digital 3D models of sculptures realized by important Italian artists of the XX century, connected for historical and cultural reasons with the town of Pietrasanta, a renowned place near the marble quarries of Alpi Apuane. The VMS is currently being enriched of new content, aimed at promoting local art and culture, with the perspective of developing guidelines for an integrated methodology sharing museological and ICT know-hows, targeted to the design of specific virtual applications and to the qualitative evaluation of their social impact as a novel important means of communication and learning.

The museum of pure form: touching real statues in an immersive virtual museum

In the Museum of Pure Form, we explore a novel way of presenting art to visitors of a museum, allowing them to virtually touch artefacts in a virtual museum. In order to realise this the statues are first digitised with a scanner so that they can be placed in a virtual museum. The virtual museum is then displayed on a 3D stereo screen. The visitor uses a purpose-built two-contact-point haptic device, mounted on an exoskeleton, to explore the shape of a piece of art which the visitor would otherwise be forbidden to touch in a conventional museum. We have tested such an installation in a CAVE-like system. The results show that the users are in favour of using a haptic device in this context.

Fork-lift truck simulator for training in industrial environment

Since their first usage simulators have been employed in training staff in civil aeronautics and in military fields to improve driving skills without compromising safety of people and machines. The system proposed in this paper is suited to transfer this activity into the industrial field, in particular an innovative fork-lift simulator is presented. Actually most frequent causes of accident with fork-lifts are wrong manoeuvres accomplished by drivers. This simulator aims to improve skills in driving and handling materials using a fork-lift. The system can reply inertial feedback on the operator and allows the user to control all the tasks of a fork-lift as driving and handling materials. The paper presents an overall view of the system including Stewart platform, supporting structure, physical based model, wash-out filter, system architecture and a video system mounted on board of the moving platform

Evaluating the Impact of Highly Immersive Technologies and Natural Interaction on Player Engagement and Flow Experience in Games

Social interaction in videogames has a big impact on players experience and is often used to increase enjoyment and retention. In the current study a highly immersive setup based on the Oculus Rift and depth cameras and exploiting natural user interaction is compared with a classical Keyboard & Mouse configuration in the context of a videogame experience taking place in a shared Virtual Environment. The research aims at assessing the impact of new technologies and interaction metaphors on users engagement when playing social games. Initial findings from our study suggest that while players perform better using the classic Keyboard & Mouse setup, the new technological setup and the Natural User Interface offer higher level of engagement and facilitate user flow state.

Social Networks and Web-based Serious Games as Novel Educational Tools

Abstract This paper presents the concept and the work in progress of SONNA, a research project aiming to analyze the impact of social networks, web 2.0 and interactive multimedia as tools for learning. The overall architecture, the technical details of the platform and the storyboard of two samples interactive web-based serious games are also presented, highlighting challenges and current issues.

Training in VR: A Preliminary Study on Learning Assembly/Disassembly Sequences

This paper presents our ongoing work for operators training exploiting an immersive Mixed Reality system. Users, immersed in a Virtual Environment, can be trained in assembling or disassembling complex mechanical machineries. Taking input from current industry-level procedures, the training consists in guided step-by-step operations in order to teach the operators how to assemble, disassemble and maintain a certain machine. In our system the interaction is performed in a natural way: the user can see his own real hands, by means of a 3D camera placed on the HMD, and use them to grab and move the machine pieces in order to perform the training task. We believe that seeing your own hands during manipulative tasks present fundamental advantages over mediated techniques. In this paper we describe the system architecture and present our strategy as well as the results of a pilot test aiming at a preliminary evaluation of the system.

Information landscapes for the communication of ancient manuscripts heritage

The MUBIL project involves museums, libraries and ICT academy partners with the aim of developing a consistent methodology enabling the use of Virtual Environments as a metaphor to present manuscripts content through the paradigms of interaction and immersion. This paper presents the results of MUBIL research applied to the case of an ancient travel journal written by the Norwegian scholar Lilienskiold presented under the form of Information Landscape (IL). In ILs information is distributed onto several ideal planes enabling the access to the book content in different ways: digitization of the original pages, transcriptions, 3D animations, explanatory movies, audio narrations, excerpts of text, glossary entries and 3D models, explored with a guided navigation or in a free interaction mode, all concur to the realization of an enriched experience which is expected to become an important aid to the communication of this undiscovered heritage.