This poster presents a multi-touch navigation interface for a building energy management system with a three-dimensional data model. It extends well established “rubber-band” 2D interaction gestures to work with a 3D world-in-hand paradigm with the help of a navigation widget to select the active manipulation axis. A nested, semi-transparent display of the data
hierarchy requires careful selection of the manipulation pivot. A hit-testing scheme is introduced to select the most likely object within the hierarchy.

In this paper, we are investigating the performance of several IDW implementations on different SIMD architectures (Single Instruction Multiple Data). The SIMD architectures addressed in this paper are considered cost effective and readily available on the desktop as compared to super-computers such as the IBM Roadrunner or the Cray XT5. Two main classes of SIMD architectures can be identified from the range of products available now: (a) the architectures that are integrated in the CPU itself, such as SSE or AltiVec; and (b) the architectures located on a dedicated board such as the GPGPUs from Nvidia or ATI. This paper evaluates one SIMD architecture selected from each group. The evaluation is based on the performance measured on each architecture over various datatypes and different problem sizes.

In this paper we discuss the educational theories that have been infused into the design of Arcadia Music, a website to be launched by 2009, and present the interactive content of music history and analysis.

The project Arcadia Music features an interactive interpretation of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony that allows the user to explore pastoral Arcadia and discover music by 36 composers from the past 700 years of music history. Setting out from the possibility that people in their twenties or thirties begin to exhibit a casual interest in classical music, this project targets young adults who embark on a self-motivated internet browse to gain some basic music education.

The Living Canvas initiative aims to use a performer on stage as a dynamic projection surface. Using machine vision in the near-infrared spectrum enables the system to follow and adapt to the performer, restricting projection to the silhouette. Ultimately, the system aims to create the illusion of a completely dynamic costume. This paper introduces the concept and presents an implementation and analysis of the performance-critical stages of the projection pipeline, proofing the feasibility of the idea as well as analysing the limitations introduced by current digital projection technology.
Bringing together the research from computer graphics and machine vision with the artistic vision and guidance from Theatre Cryptic, the initiative aims to create and explore a new expressive medium by taking projection systems on stage to a highly interactive level and providing a powerful new tool for live video artists.

Product design engineering entails a number of development and evaluation stages which typically test the usability and durability of a potential product. This process involves a significant cost for prototype implementation and evaluation which burdens the development of the final product. Evidently a large number of prototypes and evaluation processes could instead be conducted in a more cost-efficient virtual reality environment. This paper presents an automotive Head-Up Display (HUD) case study which utilises a virtual reality (VR) environment for testing the functionalities of a prototype interface. In particular the system enables the user to experiment safely with regard to the calibration distances. Additionally the user can customise the configuration and calibration of his/her HUD interface in real time. Such functionality would be essential for the final product, particularly in the case that the same vehicle would be used regularly by more than one driver. Further on we discuss the first stage of development and the methodology used for the implementation of the VR calibration system, analyse the problems that stemmed from this attempt and provide our solutions and suggestions for future use and implementation of VR in engineering calibration situations.

The Living Canvas initiative aims to use a performer on stage as a dynamic projection surface. Using machine vision in the near-infrared spectrum enables the system to follow and adapt to the performer, restricting projection to the silhouette. Ultimately, the system aims to create the illusion of a completely dynamic costume. The collaborative work brings together the disciplines of real-time computer graphics and machine vision with the artistic vision of Theatre Cryptic within the performing arts. It aims to create and explore a new expressive medium by adding interactivity to the projection on stage.
This paper briefly introduces the concept and presents the results from test-bedding the technology during a performance workshop involving artistic director, multimedia technician, stage manager and a visual artist. It focuses on the challenges of exploiting a completely new kind of projection technology in an artistically meaningful way, avoiding the pitfall of just introducing a technology gadget without actively supporting the narrative of the performance.

Our goal is to teach children the complex sonata structure of a symphonic movement within a playful interactive environment specifically tailored to young learners with little previous knowledge of musical analysis. Our project joins the long tradition of combining visual arts, literature and music, as seen in Greek theatre or Italian opera. With the development of the new media in the 20th century, further forms of this musical experience are being created that allow the new feature of interactivity. The challenging task of instructing younger children in complex musical structures is thus being made possible in a new shape. Investigating research from subject areas including musicology, polyaesthetics, games-based learning, music education and interactive design, we are developing an interactive computer game based on the first movement of Beethoven’s sixth symphony (Pastoral), using the powerful tools provided by digital design, in particular visualisation, gameplay, and, of course, interactivity.

This paper presents an exploratory study that created a Virtual Reality Environment (VRE) to stimulate motivation and creativity in imaginative writing at primary school level. The main aim of the study was to investigate if an interactive, semi-immersive Virtual Reality (VR) world could increase motivation and stimulate pupils’ imagination in the context of a writing task that is part of normal school practice and of the national curriculum. The study was defined in close collaboration with the head teachers and teachers of two Scottish primary schools so that the implementation of the VRE fitted the needs of the curriculum. The impact of the VRE on the educational activity was evaluated through a formal assessment of the stories by an independent marker, quantitative and qualitative analysis of the stories, and observations and interviews with the teachers. This paper provides a description of the graphical environment and the technology used in the trials, presents our method, results, and experiences. It is suggested that to interpret the observations, and make further progress in both research and practice, it may be important to identify and support three subskills of "imaginative writing" separately: creative imagination, recalling and structuring what to say, and language skills.

Contemporary studies have focused on the development of rear collision avoidance or warning systems, in order to assist drivers during demanding driving situations and weather conditions. However, vehicle’s controllability through human decision-making is often impaired due to unambiguous interface designs. Our effort focuses on the development of a system that could complement human senses instead of replacing them, and improve users’ response times under adverse weather and traffic conditions. To this end we developed a prototype Head-Up Display (HUD) interface that could effectively convey the crucial information in a timely manner. The system’s effectiveness was validated using a custom simulation system and evaluated through trials with 40 users. In this paper we will present a succinct overview of the HUD system and we will investigate the correlation of users’ driving performance and their computer knowledge. The potential impact of computer familiarisation and simulation results will be analysed explicitly through the collision occurrence results derived from the comparative study of the HUD against the contemporary instrumentation panel.

The three-dimensional representation of complex mechanical structures has recently received substantial research attention as it assists significantly during the design review process. Being the epitome of engineering products, submarine designs have an additional need for not only structural visualisation but also for mission rehearsal and analysis of on board procedures. This paper presents the visualisation process of a submarine rescue vehicle (SRV) and the re-enactment of a rescue mission in a 3D virtual environment. This case study was primarily used by the contractors for processes evaluation and potentially for training. Finally the paper discusses the potential benefits of presenting the systems and processes in a real time, direct manipulation, virtual environment.

This paper presents a real-time visualisation of an early architectural design for an amusement park. This commercial project, aimed at generating political support and investor interest for the proposed development, was implemented to strict budgets and deadlines and provides the case study to analyse the limitations of current content creation tools and formulate requirements for further research and development.

This paper presents an initial study exploring and evaluating a novel, accessible and user centred interface developed for a VR Medical training environment. In particular, the proposed system facilitates a detailed 3D information exchange, with the aim of improving the user’s internal 3D understanding and visualisation of complex anatomical inter-relationships. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed VR teaching method we developed a female 3D model under the guidance of Consultant Breast surgeons with particular emphasis given on the axilla section. In turn we commenced a comparative study between PBL tutorials augmented with VR and the contemporary teaching techniques involving twelve participants. Overall the paper outlines the development process of the proposed VR Medical Training environment, discusses the results from the comparative study, and offers suggestions for further research and a tentative plan for future work.

The Living Canvas initiative aims to explore the novel artistic possibilities of using the performer’s body and clothes as a projection surface in the context of a stage performance. A new projection system will enable a dynamic or even improvised performance by detecting the posture and silhouette of the performer and projecting imagery precisely to the selected parts of body. This will enable the performer to “wear virtual costumes” that adapt to the body, or even receive a different face. The dynamic nature of the system will give full control to the performer who can freely move around on the stage, with the projection always “following” the performer. The Living Canvas is a collaborative initiative between the Glasgow School of Art and Theatre Cryptic and has acquired funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council to implement the vision.

This paper introduces a novel design approach for an automotive direct manipulation interface. The proposed design, as applied in a full-windshield Head-Up Display system, aims to improve the driver's situational awareness by considering information as it becomes available from various sources such as incoming mobile phone calls, text and email messages. The vehicle's windshield effectively becomes an interactive display area which allows the system to increase the quality as well as throttle the quantity of information distilled to the driver in typical driving situations by utilising the existing mobile phone network. Opting for a simplistic approach of interaction, the interface elements are based on minimalist visual representations of real objects. This paper discusses the challenges involved in the HUD design, introduces the visual components of the interface and presents the outcome of a preliminary evaluation of the system on a group of ten users, as performed using a driving simulator.

Contemporary automotive, navigation and infotainment requirements have evolved the traditional dashboard into a complex device that can often distract the driver. Head-Up Displays (HUDs) have recently attracted the attention in the field of automotive research, promoting the reduction of driver's reaction time and to improve spatial awareness. The aptitude of the proposed HUD interface lies within the driver’s focusing ability to the HUD interface and the actual traffic. This paper analyses the performance behaviour through user-tests using different focal levels for the projection of a full-windshield HUD interface. For this purpose, a VR driving simulator has been developed to test the different depths of field configurations of a HUD while driving in various weather and traffic conditions with and without the HUD. Our simulation results reveal the users’ preferences regarding the focal point of the superimposed interface and present a comparative evaluation of the different focal levels and their impact on drivers’ behaviour and performance.

This paper discusses the interaction paradigms and ergonomics issues for immersive engineering design review environments based on the AutoEval system. It presents how previous findings of individual, isolated aspects in human-computer-interaction can be transferred or adapted successfully to an application oriented environment that combines a variety of tools to interact with 3D data. A special focus is put onto scale issues arising from the physical size and configuration of the immersive workspace: As opposed to indirect editing tools, the direct “hands-on” manipulation paradigm that is used in the AutoEval system requires rescaling of 3D objects that exceed the size of the physical interaction space, such as large architectural models or maritime platform designs. Such scaling operations, however, interfere with certain goals of the design review process, such as examining regulation conformance of exit routes in ship designs. The paper analyses the latest revision of the AutoEval system that combines different interaction paradigms within a Workbench display environment and discusses alternative visualisation strategies for review tasks where 1:1 scale rendering is required.

This paper summarizes the experience drawn from designing and revising a design review application prototype interface using immersive virtual reality technology and putting it into context with previous research in the field of 3D human-computer interaction. AutoEval was originally developed in collaboration with a major car manufacturer to enable intuitive analysis and manipulation of 3D models for users without a CAD or computer science background. This paper introduces the system and discusses the 3D interaction design decisions taken based on the observation and informal feedback of a large number of users.

This paper presents a methodology and a system which utilises a virtual reality (VR) environment to establish the calibration requirements and to test a prototype automotive full-windscreen Head-Up Display (HUD) interface. An easy and fast calibration of the HUD can be a considerable advantage for the final product since rapid customisation is crucial in everyday driving, especially if the same vehicle is often being used by more than one driver. Simulating the HUD in a VR environment is a cost-effective way to identify design limitations before proceeding towards physical mock-ups. The system was designed to enable the evaluation of additional usability aspects, such as testing the effectiveness under varying visibility conditions.

We present a novel low-cost method for visual communication and tele-presence in a CAVE-like environment, relying on 2D stereo-based video avatars. The system combines a selection of proven efficient algorithms and approximations in a unique way, resulting in a convincing stereoscopic real-time representation of a remote user acquired in a spatially immersive display. The system was designed to extend existing projection systems with acquisition capabilities requiring minimal hardware modifications and cost. The system uses infrared-based image segmentation to enable concurrent acquisition and projection in an immersive environment without a static background. The system consists of two color cameras and two additional b/w cameras used for segmentation in the near-IR spectrum. There is no need for special optics as the mask and color image are merged using image-warping based on a depth estimation. The resulting stereo image stream is compressed, streamed across a network, and displayed as a frame-sequential stereo texture on a billboard in the remote virtual environment.

This paper presents an exploratory study that investigates the impact of using a Virtual Reality Environment (VRE) on enhancing creativity in imaginative writing at primary school level. The intervention was to present the pupils with an interactive 3D environment, using Virtual Reality (VR) technology, that provided the setting in which their stories could take place. Numerous interactive features were incorporated into the VRE, giving a sense of adventure, but no human or other animated characters were portrayed. The main aim of the study was to investigate if a VRE could increase motivation and stimulate pupils’ imagination in the context of a writing task that is part of normal school practice (not a special research task) and of the National Curriculum. This paper provides a description of the graphical environment and the technology used in the trials, presents the methodology and discusses the outcomes and future work.

This paper presents a novel interaction paradigm to support musical performance using spatial audio. This method reduces the interface bottleneck between artistic intent and spatial sound rendering and allows dynamic positioning of sounds in space.
The system supports collaborative performance, allowing multiple artists to simultaneously control the audio spatialization. The interface prototype is built upon standard virtual reality software and user interface technology. Tracked data gloves are used to manipulate audio objects and stereoscopic projection to display the virtual 3D sound stage.

The effectiveness of the design review process at the early stage of novel and complex ship designs has a strong influence on project success or failure. Managing complexity and covering a large decision space impose heavy demands on the process. This paper presents a new approach to supporting the review process using interactive, immersive 3D environments linked to simulation models. The system, still under development, enables users who are non-expert in CAD to modify design parameters in real-time using a virtual-reality-based interface and receive immediate feedback from simulations and design rule checking systems. Review planning and post-analysis will be supported through an integrated annotation and logging system. We describe the design rationale for the system, some technical challenges, and how these will be addressed.

We describe preliminary tests that identify points to be considered in the design of 3D gestures in space as a means of interacting with video games. Previously, research on 3D gesture has largely been the domain of VR. There has been less investigation into the use of 3D gestures in video games where emotion, immediacy and immersion are more important than breadth of functionality and user task efficiency. These tests use the 3motion™ system, a wireless inertial motion tracking device and gesture SDK. This enables a range of gesture types from tight, precise movements to whole arm gestures, and from direct mapping of movement to recognition of symbolic gestures. Four game scenarios using different gesture characteristics were used to identify gameplay issues that have an impact on the design of 3D gestures.

This paper presents 3motion™, a novel 3D gesture interaction system consisting of a low-cost, lightweight hardware component and a general-purpose software development kit. The system provides gesture-based 3D interaction for situations where traditional tracking systems are too expensive or impractical due to the calibration and reference source requirements.
The hardware component is built around a 3-axis linear accelerometer chip and transmits a continuous data stream to a host device via a wireless Bluetooth link. The software component receives this data and matches it against a library of 3D gestures to trigger actions.
The system has been validated extensively with various example applications, including a “Battle of the Wizards” game, a character manipulation demonstrator, and a golf game implemented on a mobile phone.

The 3motion system enables the recognition of gestures based on 3D trajectories in space. It consists of both a software and a hardware component. The Software Development Kit (SDK) enables programmers to implement and control how they want to recognise movements in space such as a punch, a golf swing, a baseball pitch or even a dance move. Although the SDK can work with any positioning device from a 2D mouse to a 6 degree of freedom tracker we have developed our own low-cost hardware to provide wide-range wireless functionality. The main innovation of the 3motion system is the combination of a 3D curve matching algorithm with acceleration signatures from inexpensive inertial sensors.

Projection-based mixed and augmented reality settings often require concurrent optical camera acquisition. Unfortunately, the grabbed images frequently capture the projected imagery in addition to the desired scenery, introducing undesired interference and complicating image analysis. To efficiently improve signal-to-noise ratio, we present a method allowing the acquisition to take place under controlled illumination conditions. By exploiting the micro-mirror modulation pattern used by Digital Light Processing (DLP) projectors, a pixel-level control of light can be achieved. Since the patterns are imperceptible to the human eye and only slightly degrade the projected images, structured light techniques are introduced into humaninhabited mixed and augmented reality environments, where they often were too intrusive previously. This extended abstract gives an overview of the proposed embedding and illustrates feasibility and usefulness of the approach with representative example applications.

In this article, we present the blue-c application programming interface (API) and discuss some of its performance characteristics. The blue-c API is a software toolkit for media-rich, collaborative, immersive virtual reality applications. It provides easy to use interfaces to all blue-c technology, including immersive projection, live 3D video acquisition and streaming, audio, tracking, and gesture recognition. We emphasize on our performance-optimized 3D video handling and rendering pipeline, which is capable of rendering 3D video inlays consisting of up to 30,000 fragments updated at 10 Hz in real time, enabling remote users to meet inside our virtual environment.

We introduce a method to imperceptibly embed arbitrary binary patterns into ordinary color images displayed by unmodified off-the-shelf Digital Light Processing (DLP) projectors. The encoded images are visible only to cameras synchronized with the projectors and exposed for a short interval, while the original images appear only minimally degraded to the human eye. To achieve this goal, we analyze and exploit the micro-mirror modulation pattern used by the projection technology to generate intensity levels for each pixel and color channel. Our real-time embedding process maps the user’s original color image values to the nearest values whose camera-perceived intensities are the ones desired by the binary image to be embedded. The color differences caused by this mapping process are compensated by error-diffusion dithering. The non-intrusive nature of our novel approach allows simultaneous (immersive) display and acquisition under controlled lighting conditions, as defined on a pixel level by the binary patterns. We therefore introduce structured light techniques into human-inhabited mixed and augmented reality environments, where they previously often were too intrusive.

In this paper we present the blue-c application programming interface, a software toolkit for media-rich, collaborative, immersive virtual reality applications. The blue-c API provides easy to use interfaces to all blue-c technology, including immersive projection, live 3D video acquisition and streaming, audio, tracking, and gesture recognition. The integration of multimedia data, including 2D video, 3D video, and animation, into the scene graph is presented. We emphasize on our performance-optimized 3D video handling and rendering pipeline, which is capable of rendering 3D video inlays consisting of up to 30,000 fragments updated at 10 Hz in real-time, enabling remote users to meet inside our virtual environment.

IN:SHOP uses the blue-c 3D video technology to implement distributed shopping in a shared virtual world. IN:SHOP combines traditional shopping and marketing structures with 3D computer graphics, telepresence, spatially immersive displays, and internet shopping paradigms to create a flexible and adaptable commercial environment. The application is an enhancement of the traditional, physical shopping and the shop itself. It redefines the experience and architecture of commercial spaces. We implemented the concept for a haute couture fashion shop and a car seller using two interconnected virtual reality theaters. In this paper, we present the concept of IN:SHOP and the implementation inside the blue-c environment.

We present blue-c, a new generation immersive projection and 3D video acquisition environment for virtual design and collaboration. It combines simultaneous acquisition of multiple live video streams with advanced 3D projection technology in a CAVE™-like environment, creating the impression of total immersion. The blue-c portal currently consists of three rectangular projection screens that are built from glass panels containing liquid crystal layers. These screens can be switched from a whitish opaque state (for projection) to a transparent state (for acquisition), which allows the video cameras to “look through” the walls. Our projection technology is based on active stereo using two LCD projectors per screen. The projectors are synchronously shuttered along with the screens, the stereo glasses, active illumination devices, and the acquisition hardware. From multiple video streams, we compute a 3D video representation of the user in real time. The resulting video inlays are integrated into a networked virtual environment. Our design is highly scalable, enabling blue-c to connect to portals with less sophisticated hardware.

In this paper we present a distributed scene graph architecture for use in the blue-c, a novel collaborative immersive virtual environment. We extend the widely used OpenGL Performer toolkit to provide a distributed scene graph maintaining full synchronization down to vertex and texel level. We propose a synchronization scheme including customizable, relaxed locking mechanisms. We demonstrate the functionality of our toolkit with two prototype applications in our high-performance virtual reality and visual simulation environment.

In this poster we present a distributed scene graph architecture for use in the blue-c, a novel collaborative immersive virtual environment. We extend the widely used OpenGL Performer toolkit to provide a distributed scene graph maintaining full synchronization down to vertex and texel level. In the video, we demonstrate the functionality of our toolkit with two prototype applications in our high-performance virtual reality and visual simulation environment.

We present a spatialized audio rendering system for the use in immersive virtual environments. The system is optimized for rendering a sufficient number of dynamically moving sound sources in multi-speaker environments using off-the-shelf audio hardware. Based on simplified physics-based models, we achieve a good trade-off between audio quality, spatial precision, and performance. Convincing acoustic room simulation is accomplished by integrating standard hardware reverberation devices as used in the professional audio and broadcast community. We elaborate on important design principles for audio rendering as well as on practical implementation issues. Moreover, we describe the integration of the audio rendering pipeline into a scene graph-based virtual reality toolkit.

We present JAPE, a flexible prototyping system to support the design of a new advanced collaborative virtual environment. We describe the utilization of different hard- and software components to quickly build a flexible, yet powerful test bed for application and algorithm development. These components include a 3-D rendering toolkit, live video acquisition, speech transmission, and the control of tracking and interaction devices. To facilitate the simultaneous design of applications and algorithms that take advantage of unique features of new collaborative virtual environments, we provide the developer with a flexible prototyping toolkit which emulates the functionality of the final system. The applicability of JAPE is demonstrated with several prototype applications and algorithms.

The goal of the Swiss-Tx project is to develop, build and install the first Swiss tera-flop supercomputer called Swiss-T2, which is mainly based on commodity parts. Only the communication hardware and communication software is custom-made, because available off-the-shelf products, such as Ethernet with the socket interface, do not offer the necessary bandwidth, latency, and functionality. In this paper, we present a new efficient communication architecture for commodity super-computing called Fast Communication Interface (FCI), and we introduce T-NET, the custom-made high-performance communication hardware for the Swiss-Tx supercomputers. The highlights are low-latency, high-bandwidth, and portability. Portability means that the communication hardware and software is mainly platform independent and that a large number of modern workstations and standard operating systems can be used as they are. A full implementation of the standardized MPI (Message Passing Interface), written entirely on top of FCI, is also available.

This thesis presents the blue-c Application Programming Interface. The blue-c API provides support for collaborative work in virtual environments. As the major novelty of the system, the blue-c integrates telepresence using a three-dimensional video representation of the remote user into an immersive projection environment, allowing to meet the other users in the virtual space. The blue-c API provides an easy-to-use interface to the software developer, hiding most of the complexity of the underlying system, but also providing access to low-level structures and control flow for the expert user. The blue-c API supports a wide range of display devices, from desktop systems to multi-projector CAVE environments, driven by either monolithic graphics machines as well as clustered rendering architectures. A special focus was put on supporting various media, including geometry, video, and audio.