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Implementation of a Collaborative Virtual Environment

Obiettivo

With the environment of collaborative, physics-based, virtual reality CIRA wants to bring the ability to interact with one or more persons in the same virtual environment at the highest levels of behavioral realism today allowed by technology, so as to offer to those who want to use these innovative techniques for ergonomics, training and designing a powerful unique tool of its kind.

The application area which best benefits the ability to manually interact in first person offered by the Virtual Reality interfacing technology is that of the virtual maintenance, for both training (Virtual Maintenance Trainer) and to perform checks of maintainability in the design phase (Design for Maintainability - DfM).

Another important goal is to maximize the virtual experience ergonomics minimizing the interface influence for the participants, who must also be given the maximum freedom of movement in the traced area. From the technological point of view this is obtained with the use of man-machine interfacing devices of the Natural User Interface (NUI) type, which through touchless (optical) mode detect the movement of people and the details of their body parts including, in particular, that of the hands. Contemporarily we aim to free from any connection cables between worn devices (VR viewer, tracking sensors and NUI devices) and computers that drive the immersive simulation, so that people who interact collaboratively will not be hampered by these individually and reciprocally.

Attività nel progetto CIRA

The project is being carried out entirely in the Virtual Reality Laboratory of CIRA and is based on an evolution of virtual reality software ViRstperson that CIRA developed in the laboratory itself.

The main activities carried out for the realization of the innovative virtual environment of collaboration include the development of techniques and related software modules that go to increase the ViRstperson's functionality; it is a logistics and equipment adjustment work of the laboratory, to accommodate the immersive interaction to more people. The activities include:

  1. The adjustment of interaction techniques and assembly of ViRstperson physics engine, based on open-source library ODE (Open Dynamics Engine), to work in conjunction with input from the Natural User Interface devices (Kinect, Leap Motion Controller);

  2. The evolution of ViRstperson to concurrently support multiple users all at the same visualization and interaction environment (cluster extended mode);

  3. The realization of a tracking system of all relevant parts of the body for more human figures (multi-person tracking) based on a multiple Kinect systems (3-4);

  4. Realization of an experimental wearable setup for wireless immersive interaction, currently not available using the commercial technology, consisting of a HMD, a Leap Motion Controller mounted in front of the HMD and from a computer attached to the belt to take care of the decoding of a video stream transmitted from the PC to the helmet, to run Leap Motion software and to send with low latency tracking data of the hands and the head to the PC running the virtual reality simulation.

The simulation environment is based on a physical-behavioral simulation engine system allowing to interact the user, in the role of aircraft maintenance personnel, with the parts of a virtually reproduced aircraft in order to disassemble/reassemble for maintenance purposes of the training (Virtual Reality first person Virtual Maintenance Trainer) or to conduct verification of maintainability during the design phase.

The resulting virtual environment is collaborative (CVE) and will allow the participation of more than one person in the virtual immersive experience, so that participants will find themselves in a position to experience a simulated execution of a collaborative task. The collaborative environment allows people to obtain the experience or by being in the same physical environment (co-located), such as the area of immersive Virtual Reality Laboratory of CIRA, or to experience the use of the same application with people located at a distance from each other in properly equipped networked laboratories.

The collaboration between users is of the physics-based type. In practice the collaborative simulation in immersive virtual reality allows users to interact concurrently with the same simulated environment through a rigid body dynamic's calculation engine. Such an engine, compared to an equivalent application operated by a single user, manages the problems introduced by latencies between the input and the perceived visual effect due to environmental complexity (each virtual mannequin contributes to the complexity of the dynamic world with more than 50 articulated rigid bodies), and also manages the problems related to the complex flow of graphical data in the architecture of the visualization cluster and possible geographical distribution of participants.

Programma

​CIRA internal project funded by PRO.R.A.

  • data inizio: Sunday, February 1, 2015
  • durata: 36.00
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
137
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
CVE
Software Development and Virtual Reality
This project includes the development of a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) to make possible immersive virtual reality applications among multiple people in the same virtual environment for virtual maintenance jobs and the development of collaborative tasks.
Application Design, Application Development, Component Integration, Solution Deployment, Systems Engineering, Development of syntethic environment & virtual reality tools, Simulator environments & virtual reality, Real Time Simulators, Selection & Training
Virtual Reality Lab

 

 

Implementation of a Collaborative Virtual Environment<img alt="" src="http://webtest.cira.it/PublishingImages/Lab%20di%20Realt%c3%a0%20Virtuale.png" style="BORDER:0px solid;" />https://webauthoring.cira.it/en/research/Pages/CVE.aspxImplementation of a Collaborative Virtual Environment<p>With the environment of collaborative, physics-based, virtual reality CIRA wants to bring the ability to interact with one or more persons in the same virtual environment at the highest levels of behavioral realism today allowed by technology, so as to offer to those who want to use these innovative techniques for ergonomics, training and designing a powerful unique tool of its kind.</p><p>The application area which best benefits the ability to manually interact in first person offered by the Virtual Reality interfacing technology is that of the virtual maintenance, for both training (Virtual Maintenance Trainer) and to perform checks of maintainability in the design phase (Design for Maintainability - DfM).</p><p>Another important goal is to maximize the virtual experience ergonomics minimizing the interface influence for the participants, who must also be given the maximum freedom of movement in the traced area. From the technological point of view this is obtained with the use of man-machine interfacing devices of the Natural User Interface (NUI) type, which through touchless (optical) mode detect the movement of people and the details of their body parts including, in particular, that of the hands. Contemporarily we aim to free from any connection cables between worn devices (VR viewer, tracking sensors and NUI devices) and computers that drive the immersive simulation, so that people who interact collaboratively will not be hampered by these individually and reciprocally.</p><p>​CIRA internal project funded by PRO.R.A.</p><p>The project is being carried out entirely in the Virtual Reality Laboratory of CIRA and is based on an evolution of virtual reality software ViRstperson that CIRA developed in the laboratory itself.</p><p>The main activities carried out for the realization of the innovative virtual environment of collaboration include the development of techniques and related software modules that go to increase the ViRstperson's functionality; it is a logistics and equipment adjustment work of the laboratory, to accommodate the immersive interaction to more people. The activities include:</p><ol style="text-align:justify;"><li><p>The adjustment of interaction techniques and assembly of ViRstperson physics engine, based on open-source library ODE (Open Dynamics Engine), to work in conjunction with input from the Natural User Interface devices (Kinect, Leap Motion Controller);</p></li><li><p>The evolution of ViRstperson to concurrently support multiple users all at the same visualization and interaction environment (cluster extended mode);</p></li><li><p>The realization of a tracking system of all relevant parts of the body for more human figures (multi-person tracking) based on a multiple Kinect systems (3-4);</p></li><li><p>Realization of an experimental wearable setup for wireless immersive interaction, currently not available using the commercial technology, consisting of a HMD, a Leap Motion Controller mounted in front of the HMD and from a computer attached to the belt to take care of the decoding of a video stream transmitted from the PC to the helmet, to run Leap Motion software and to send with low latency tracking data of the hands and the head to the PC running the virtual reality simulation.</p></li></ol><p>The simulation environment is based on a physical-behavioral simulation engine system allowing to interact the user, in the role of aircraft maintenance personnel, with the parts of a virtually reproduced aircraft in order to disassemble/reassemble for maintenance purposes of the training (Virtual Reality first person Virtual Maintenance Trainer) or to conduct verification of maintainability during the design phase.</p><p>The resulting virtual environment is collaborative (CVE) and will allow the participation of more than one person in the virtual immersive experience, so that participants will find themselves in a position to experience a simulated execution of a collaborative task. The collaborative environment allows people to obtain the experience or by being in the same physical environment (co-located), such as the area of immersive Virtual Reality Laboratory of CIRA, or to experience the use of the same application with people located at a distance from each other in properly equipped networked laboratories.</p><p>The collaboration between users is of the physics-based type. In practice the collaborative simulation in immersive virtual reality allows users to interact concurrently with the same simulated environment through a rigid body dynamic's calculation engine. Such an engine, compared to an equivalent application operated by a single user, manages the problems introduced by latencies between the input and the perceived visual effect due to environmental complexity (each virtual mannequin contributes to the complexity of the dynamic world with more than 50 articulated rigid bodies), and also manages the problems related to the complex flow of graphical data in the architecture of the visualization cluster and possible geographical distribution of participants.</p>2015-01-31T23:00:00Z36.0000000000000

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 Activities

 

 

Physics-based collaboration in a shared virtual environment<img alt="" src="http://webtest.cira.it/PublishingImages/articoloCVE.jpg" style="" />https://webauthoring.cira.it/en/research/Pages/Collaborazione-physics-based-in-un-ambiente-virtuale-comune.aspxPhysics-based collaboration in a shared virtual environmentThe activity aims to allow the participation in an immersive virtual physics-based experience to more than one person, so that the participants are found in the same virtual environment and can simulate the execution of a work jointly and collaboratively.2017-02-09T23:00:00Z
Techniques of interaction and physics-based assembly with the new man-machine Natural User Interface type devices<img alt="" src="http://webtest.cira.it/PublishingImages/lrvt3_b.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" />https://webauthoring.cira.it/en/research/Pages/Tecniche-di-interazione-e-assemblaggio-physics-based-con-i-nuovi-dispositivi-di-interfaccia-uomo-macchina-di-tipo-Natural-U.aspxTechniques of interaction and physics-based assembly with the new man-machine Natural User Interface type devicesThe goal of this activity is to design, implement and incorporate in the software system of the Virtual Reality Laboratory of CIRA advanced techniques and the latest devices to improve current direct manual interaction capabilities of a person with objects in the virtual world so that such an interaction proves to be more and more simple, natural a2017-02-09T23:00:00Z