Marcelo de Paiva Guimarães

3D Semantic Models for Dental Education

This paper explores the benefits of using immersive and interactive virtual reality environments to teach Dentistry. We present a tool for educators to manipulate and edit virtual models. One of the main contributions is that multimedia information can be semantically associated with parts of the model, through an ontology, enriching the experience; for example, videos can be linked to each tooth demonstrating how to extract them. The use of semantic information gives a greater flexibility to the models, since filters can be applied to create temporary models that show subsets of the original data in a human friendly way. We also explain how the software was written to run in arbitrary multi-projection environments.

Teaching astronomy and celestial mechanics through virtual reality

We discuss in this article issues involved in using state interactive and immersive virtual reality (VR) environments to the teaching of Astronomy, and how it improves student understanding. We also show that VR systems can nowadays be deployed with low‐cost, off‐the‐shelf components, and that they do not require the huge amount of expertise to be setup as they did only a few years ago, allowing all institutions to acquire them.

Immersive and interactive virtual reality applications based on 3D web browsers

This study explores the possibility of effectively using web-standard technologies (i.e., HTML5, JavaScript, WebGL, and WebRTC) to deploy full immersive and interactive virtual reality applications. These applications are based on computer clusters and run in multi-projection environments, such as CAVEs, Panoramas and Power Walls. Until recently, these applications were build using tailored solutions, such low-level libraries to distribute data. We discuss the modern-day web technology which allows these applications meet a multi-platform requirement. This paper also evaluates the communication and synchronization requirements of these applications that are traditionally the main bottleneck. As a proof-of-concept to show the feasibility of our study, we devised and implemented an immersive and interactive virtual reality application employing only web technologies. Our proof-of-concept runs on a miniCAVE environment with three displays and a 6-node cluster.

A software development process model for gesture-based interface

Gesture-based applications have particularities, since users interact in a natural way, much as they interact in the non-digital world. Hence, new requirements are needed on the software design process. This paper shows a software development process model for these applications, including requirement specification, design, implementation, and testing procedures. The steps and activities of the proposed model were tested through a game case study, which is a puzzle game. The puzzle is completed when all pieces of a painting are correctly positioned by the drag and drop action of users hand gesture. It also shows the results obtained of applying a heuristic evaluation on this game.

Teaching-Learning Environment Tool to Promote Individualized Student Assistance

To develop an effective teaching-learning process for a group of students respecting their individual learning pace is a challenging task for teachers. To assist students individually, it is necessary to identify each student’s difficulty and take appropriate teaching action. This paper presents an assisted learning tool based on the web that monitors and reports the student’s learning behavior for the teacher. This tool, called eTutor, also performs preconfigured actions (i.e., displays a video or text) according to the current state of student learning. We tested this tool in two different topics for two groups of students. The evaluation showed that this tool promotes student assistance, helping the teachers to be closer to their students.

A Checklist to Evaluate Augmented Reality Applications

Augmented reality applications merge virtual content with the real world, with real-time interaction and they have inherent characteristic, such as the lighting conditions, use of sensors, and the user position. These applications are very different from conventional applications that use mouse and keyboard, so they require a usability evaluation to verify whether they achieve their goals and satisfy users. We developed a checklist to measure the usability of augmented reality applications in a practical manner. This checklist was developed adapting the ISO 9241-11 and Nielsen Heuristics for an augmented reality context, and criteria created by us. Five experts evaluated two applications to test the checklist. In both cases, the evaluation clearly identified key problems in the application design. They also evaluated the checklist. Analyzing the results, we could determine that the checklist appears to be a possible solution to evaluate usability of augmented reality applications.

Usability test for Augmented Reality applications

The Augmented Reality applications differ from conventional in many ways such as add virtual objects in real scenes and, commonly, use markers for interaction. The unconventional way of interaction of these applications become the evaluation of usability essential. This paper presents the evaluation of usability of augmented reality applications based on heuristics of Nielsen, ISO 9241-11 and heuristics created by the authors. The evaluation was to assess the usability focus in relation to their users, so we used Usability Testing. It also presented the evaluation of three case studies form the marketing area.

Usability metrics for augmented reality applications

Augmented reality applications differ from conventional applications in several aspects, for example, add virtual objects in real scenes, and often, uses markers for interaction. It is evident the need of methods to evaluate the usability of these applications, since the way of interaction is quite different from what the user is accustomed. This article presents metrics to usability evaluation of Augmented Reality applications created from the specifics of the technologies involved and from Nielsen heuristics, adapted to this context. It presents the result of application of these metrics on two augmented reality in the automotive area.

Embedding Augmented Reality Applications into Learning Management Systems

A tool is proposed to reduce the disparity between the state of the art of technologies and the time of maturity required for effective implementation, facilitating the insertion of augmented reality content into learning management systems. This tool uses didactic material based on augmented reality in the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) that is a learning object standard. We tested this tool, generating a learning object based on augmented reality and sharing it to the Moodle platform. We also tested and shared this object to the repository SCORM Cloud.

3D content generation to moodle platform to support anatomy teaching and learning

Anatomy learning is very important for many courses, and it requires understanding three-dimensional (3D) shapes, most forms of anatomy teaching are offered to students through two-dimensional (2D) resources, such as images and videos. Many software solutions were developed with the purpose of assisting anatomy teaching and learning, arranging varied techniques and assets, as interaction and visualization of 3D virtual models. Despite great features, these solutions lack standards utilization and pedagogical methodology. This paper aims to present a 3D content generation technique to Moodle, one of the most popular platforms for teaching and learning management, built upon a specific pedagogical methodology, and validated by educational experts. The standard used in this technique allow sharing and reuse of content not only among Moodle systems, which are used by a large number of educational institutions and professors but also in other Virtual Learning Environments.