Landmark Direction and Distance Estimation in Large Scale Virtual Environments

1997 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 1213-1217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Allen ◽  
Daniel P. McDonald ◽  
Michael J. Singer
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Distance Estimation ◽  
Visual Display ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Estimation Accuracy ◽  
Display Control

The current paper describes our classification of errors participants made when estimating direction and distances in a large scale (2000 m × 2000 m) Virtual Environment (VE). Two VE configuration groups (Low or High Interactivity) traversed a 400 m route through one of two Virtual Terrain's (Distinctive or Non-Distinctive or Terrain 1 and 2, respectively) in 100 m increments. The High VE group used a treadmill to move through the VE with head tracked visual displays; the Low VE group used a joystick for movement and visual display control. Results indicate that as experience within either terrain increased, participants demonstrated an improved ability to directionally locate landmarks. Experience in the environment did not affect distance estimation accuracy. Terrain 1 participants were more accurate in locating proximal, as opposed to distal, landmarks. They also overestimated distances to near landmarks and underestimated distances to far landmarks. In Terrain 2, the Low VE group gave more accurate distance estimations. We believe this result can be explained in terms of increased task demands placed on the High VE Group.

Correlations Between Physiological Response, Gait, Personality, and Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lane Phillips ◽  
Victoria Interrante ◽  
Michael Kaeding ◽  
Brian Ries ◽  
Lee Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Stress Response ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Distance Estimation ◽  
Estimation Accuracy ◽  
Personality Measures ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Sense Of Presence ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Different Types

In previous work, we have found significant differences in the accuracy with which people make initial spatial judgments in different types of head-mounted, display-based immersive virtual environments (IVEs; Phillips, Interrante, Kaeding, Ries, & Anderson, 2010). In particular, we have found that people tend to less severely underestimate egocentric distances in a virtual environment that is a photorealistic replica of a real place that they have recently visited than when the virtual environment is either a photorealistic replica of an unfamiliar place, or a nonphotorealistically (NPR) portrayed version of a familiar space. We have also noted significant differences in the effect of environment type on distance perception accuracy between individual participants. In this paper, we report the results of two experiments that seek further insight into these phenomena, focusing on factors related to depth of presence in the virtual environment. In our reported first experiment, we immersed users (between-subjects) in one of the three different types of IVEs and asked them to perform a series of well-defined tasks along a delimited path, first in a control version of the environment, and then in a stressful variant in which the floor around the marked path was cut away to reveal a 20-ft drop. We assessed participants' sense of presence during each trial using a diverse set of measures, including: questionnaires, recordings of heart rate and galvanic skin response, and gait metrics derived from tracking data. We computed the differences in each of these measures between the stressful and nonstressful versions of each environment, and then compared the changes due to stress between the different virtual environment conditions. Pooling the data over all participants in each group, we found significant physiological indications of stress after the appearance of the pit in all three environments, but we did not find significant differences in the magnitude of the stress response between the different virtual environment locales. We also did not find any significant difference in the level of subjective presence reported in each environment. However, we did find significant differences in gait: participants in the photorealistic replica room showed a significantly greater reduction in stride speed and stride length between the control and pit version of the room than did participants in either the photorealistically rendered nonreplica environment or the NPR replica environment conditions. Our second experiment, conducted with a new set of participants, sought to more directly investigate potential correlations between distance estimation accuracy and personality, stress response, and reported sense of presence, comparatively across different immersive virtual environment conditions. We used pretest questionnaires to assess a variety of personality measures, and then randomly immersed participants (between-subjects) in either the photorealistic replica or photorealistic non-replica environment and assessed the accuracy of their egocentric distance judgments in that IVE, followed by control trials in a neutral, real-world location. We then had participants go through the same set of tasks as in our first experiment while we collected physiological measures of their stress level and tracked their gait, and we compared the changes in these measures between the neutral and pit-enhanced versions of the environment. Finally, we had people fill out a brief presence questionnaire.Analyzing all of these data, we found that participants made significantly greater distance estimation errors in the unfamiliar room environment than in the replica room environment, but no other differences between the two environments were significant. We found significant positive correlation between several of the personality measures, but we did not find any notable significant correlations between personality and presence, or between either personality or presence and gait changes or distance estimation accuracy. These results suggest to us that the relationship between personality, presence, and performance in IVEs is complicated and not easily captured by existing measures.

Visiting Tourist Landmarks in Virtual Reality Systems by Real-Walking

2010 ◽  
pp. 180-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Steinicke ◽  
G. Bruder ◽  
J. Jerald ◽  
H. Frenz
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
User Interfaces ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Interaction Space ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Redirected Walking ◽  
Virtual City

In recent years virtual environments (VEs) have become more and more popular and widespread due to the requirements of numerous application areas in particular in the 3D city visualization domain. Virtual reality (VR) systems, which make use of tracking technologies and stereoscopic projections of three-dimensional synthetic worlds, support better exploration of complex datasets. However, due to the limited interaction space usually provided by the range of the tracking sensors, users can explore only a portion of the virtual environment (VE). Redirected walking allows users to walk through large-scale immersive virtual environments (IVEs) such as virtual city models, while physically remaining in a reasonably small workspace by intentionally injecting scene motion into the IVE. With redirected walking users are guided on physical paths that may differ from the paths they perceive in the virtual world. The authors have conducted experiments in order to quantify how much humans can unknowingly be redirected. In this chapter they present the results of this study and the implications for virtual locomotion user interfaces that allow users to view arbitrary real world locations, before the users actually travel there in a natural environment.

Providing Situation Awareness Assistance to Users of Large-Scale, Dynamic, Complex Virtual Environments

1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin R. Stytz ◽  
Elizabeth Block ◽  
Brian Soltz
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Situation Awareness ◽  
Real World ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Prototype System ◽  
First Person ◽  
Focus Attention ◽  
Unobtrusive Observation

As virtual environments grow in complexity, size, and scope users will be increasingly challenged in assessing the situation in them. This will occur because of the difficulty in determining where to focus attention and in assimilating and assessing the information as it floods in. One technique for providing this type of assistance is to provide the user with a first-person, immersive, synthetic environment observation post, an observatory, that permits unobtrusive observation of the environment without interfering with the activity in the environment. However, for large, complex synthetic environments this type of support is not sufficient because the mere portrayal of raw, unanalyzed data about the objects in the virtual space can overwhelm the user with information. To address this problem, which exists in both real and virtual environments, we are investigating the forms of situation awareness assistance needed by users of large-scale virtual environments and the ways in which a virtual environment can be used to improve situation awareness of real-world environments. A technique that we have developed is to allow a user to place analysis modules throughout the virtual environment. Each module provides summary information concerning the importance of the activity in its portion of the virtual environment to the user. Our prototype system, called the Sentinel, is embedded within a virtual environment observatory and provides situation awareness assistance for users within a large virtual environment.

A Theoretical Model of Wayfinding in Virtual Environments: Proposed Strategies for Navigational Aiding

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 671-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jui Lin Chen ◽  
Kay M. Stanney
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Cognitive Mapping ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Current Model ◽  
Spatial Knowledge ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Virtual Spaces

This paper proposes a theoretical model of wayfinding that can be used to guide the design of navigational aiding in virtual environments. Based on an evaluation of wayfinding studies in natural environments, this model divides the wayfinding process into three main subprocesses: cognitive mapping, wayfinding plan development, and physical movement or navigation through an environment. While this general subdivision has been proposed before, the current model further delineates the wayfinding process, including the distinct influences of spatial information, spatial orientation, and spatial knowledge. The influences of experience, abilities, search strategies, motivation, and environmental layout on the wayfinding process are also considered. With this specification of the wayfinding process, a taxonomy of navigational tools is then proposed that can be used to systematically aid the specified wayfinding subprocesses. If effectively applied to the design of a virtual environment, the use of such tools should lead to reduced disorientation and enhanced wayfinding in large-scale virtual spaces. It is also suggested that, in some cases, this enhanced wayfinding performance may be at the expense of the acquisition of an accurate cognitive map of the virtual environment being traversed.

Presence within Virtual Environments as a Function of Visual Display Parameters

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Hendrix ◽  
Woodrow Barfield
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Visual Display ◽  
Field Of View ◽  
Head Tracking ◽  
The Third ◽  
Sense Of Presence ◽  
Being There

This paper reports the results of three studies, each of which investigated the sense of presence within virtual environments as a function of visual display parameters. These factors included the presence or absence of head tracking, the presence or absence of stereoscopic cues, and the geometric field of view used to create the visual image projected on the visual display. In each study, subjects navigated a virtual environment and completed a questionnaire designed to ascertain the level of presence experienced by the participant within the virtual world. Specifically, two aspects of presence were evaluated: (1) the sense of “being there” and (2) the fidelity of the interaction between the virtual environment participant and the virtual world. Not surprisingly, the results of the first and second study indicated that the reported level of presence was significantly higher when head tracking and stereoscopic cues were provided. The results from the third study showed that the geometric field of view used to design the visual display highly influenced the reported level of presence, with more presence associated with a 50 and 90° geometric field of view when compared to a narrower 10° geometric field of view. The results also indicated a significant positive correlation between the reported level of presence and the fidelity of the interaction between the virtual environment participant and the virtual world. Finally, it was shown that the survey questions evaluating several aspects of presence produced reliable responses across questions and studies, indicating that the questionnaire is a useful tool when evaluating presence in virtual environments.

Portraying and Understanding Large-Scale Distributed Virtual Environments: Experience and Tentative Conclusions

1995 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin R. Stytz ◽  
Bruce Hobbs ◽  
Andrea Kunz ◽  
Brian Soltz ◽  
Kirk Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Distributed Simulation ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Space Environment ◽  
Interactive Control ◽  
Near Earth Space ◽  
Distributed Virtual Environments

The Distributed Simulation Internet (DSI) provides users access to large-scale, complex, active, unpredictable virtual environments. If users are to effectively use these environments, they will require support for understanding and acting in these environments. Support is necessary because humans have a time and space limited span of attention. The Satellite Modeler, Omniview true 3D, and Synthetic BattleBridge projects were undertaken to develop and investigate the interfaces and autonomous agents required to effectively support users of the Distributed Simulation Internet. The Satellite Modeler emulates the near-Earth space environment and portrays models of satellites moving in their correct orbits around the Earth. The motion of the satellites is broadcast to users of the DSI. The Satellite Modeler is intended to function as a training and operational aid for orbital analysts and to help them understand key spatial relationships for satellites in near-Earth orbit. The Omniview project was undertaken to provide interactive control and manipulation of a true 3D image and to thereby assist the user in understanding the activity within the DSI-hosted virtual environment. That project developed an interface that provides the Omniview user with the ease of use that a window, icon, mouse, and pointer GUI interface provides to users of 2D displays. The Synthetic BattleBridge is a system that, like the Omniview, portrays a DSI-hosted virtual environment but does not act in it. The Synthetic BattleBridge is designed to support users in making accurate and timely decisions by providing several different types of cognitive support for understanding and analyzing the activity in a battlespace. In this paper, we briefly describe each project and present some observations and conclusions we have drawn based on our experience with them.

scholarly journals iCatcher+: Robust and automatic gaze classification of infant webcam videos

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Cao ◽  
Xincheng Tan ◽  
Kimberly Megan Scott ◽  
Shari Liu
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Video Quality ◽  
Estimation Accuracy ◽  
Video Frame ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Energy Consuming ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Time And Energy

Studies of human infants provide a window into the origins of the mind, and collecting and annotating behavioral data from them remains slow and laborious. Although online platforms enable families to participate in studies via webcam, it remains time- and energy- consuming to manually annotate gaze directions on the collected videos. Existing gaze coding algorithms on videos either suffer from low video quality or still require considerable manual effort. In this project, we built on a promising system for automatic gaze annotation in human infants, iCatcher (Erel et al., 2020), and added two key additional features: a more robust infant face detector, and a gaze estimator that takes into account not only the features of the selected face, but where and how far it is from the screen. In our framework, iCatcher+, all possible faces in a video frame are first extracted by a face extractor, and then the infant face is selected by a infant selector; finally, the gaze direction is classified by a gaze estimator based on both the selected face and features of its bounding box. We evaluated iCatcher+ on a large-scale infant video dataset collected via webcam. The experimental results show improvements in gaze estimation accuracy, compared to the baseline framework. We see iCatcher+ as a key tool for enabling rapid large-scale studies of infant behavior.

scholarly journals Impact of Modern Virtualization Methods on Timing Precision and Performance of High-Speed Applications

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronika Kirova ◽  
Kirill Karpov ◽  
Eduard Siemens ◽  
Irina Zander ◽  
Oksana Vasylenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
High Speed ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Estimation Accuracy ◽  
Network Applications ◽  
High Speed Network ◽  
Timing Precision ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Impact

The presented work is a result of extended research and analysis on timing methods precision, their efficiency in different virtual environments and the impact of timing precision on the performance of high-speed networks applications. We investigated how timer hardware is shared among heavily CPU- and I/O-bound tasks on a virtualized OS as well as on bare OS. By replacing the invoked timing methods within a well-known application for estimation of available path bandwidth, we provide the analysis of their impact on estimation accuracy. We show that timer overhead and precision are crucial for high-performance network applications, and low-precision timing methods usage, e.g., the delays and overheads issued by virtualization result in the degradation of the virtual environment. Furthermore, in this paper, we provide confirmation that, by using the methods we intentionally developed for both precise timing operations and AvB estimation, it is possible to overcome the inefficiency of standard time-related operations and overhead that comes with the virtualization. The impacts of negative virtualization factors were investigated in five different environments to define the most optimal virtual environment for high-speed network applications.

NPSNET:A Network Software Architecture for LargeScale Virtual Environments

1994 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 265-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Macedonia ◽  
Michael J. Zyda ◽  
David R. Pratt ◽  
Paul T. Barham ◽  
Steven Zeswitz
Keyword(s):  
Software Architecture ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Network Protocol ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Software Architectures ◽  
Interactive Simulation ◽  
Distributed Interactive Simulation ◽  
Network Software

This paper explores the issues involved in designing and developing network software architectures for large-scale virtual environments. We present our ideas in the context of NPSNET-IV, the first 3-D virtual environment that incorporates both the IEEE 1278 distributed interactive simulation (DIS) application protocol and the IP multicast network protocol for multiplayer simulation over the Internet.

Feasibility Study on Building Distributed Virtual Environment Using Mobile Agent Technology

2012 ◽  
Vol 461 ◽  
pp. 142-147
Author(s):  
Zhi Feng Cheng ◽  
Jia Jun Chen ◽  
Chang Feng Xing
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agent Technology ◽  
Distributed Virtual Environments ◽  
Distributed Virtual Environment ◽  
Network Load ◽  
Network Communications ◽  
Unbalanced Network

Peer-to-peer (P2P) architectures have been proposed as an efficient and truly scalable solution for distributed virtual environments (DVEs). However, heavy and unbalanced network load has restricted the development of large scale DVEs. To solve this problem, this paper attempts to apply the mobile agent technology in DVEs. First, the virtual environment space was divided into a number of adjacent sub-spaces. Then, using the agent mobility, entities models moved themselves to the adjacent sub-space, and completed interactions with other entities in the sub-space. As a result, a significant part network load is transformed into local calculation load. The theoretical analysis results show that it is feasible and effective to ease the network communications bottleneck in the expansion of the DVEs.

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