Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 290)

This bibliography lists 125 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in October 1986

Mobile robotic teleguide based on video images

“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/MRA.2008.929927Peer reviewe

Remote Visual Observation of Real Places Through Virtual Reality Headsets

Virtual Reality has always represented a fascinating yet powerful opportunity that has attracted studies and technology developments, especially since the latest release on the market of powerful high-resolution and wide field-of-view VR headsets. While the great potential of such VR systems is common and accepted knowledge, issues remain related to how to design systems and setups capable of fully exploiting the latest hardware advances. The aim of the proposed research is to study and understand how to increase the perceived level of realism and sense of presence when remotely observing real places through VR headset displays. Hence, to produce a set of guidelines that give directions to system designers about how to optimize the display-camera setup to enhance performance, focusing on remote visual observation of real places. The outcome of this investigation represents unique knowledge that is believed to be very beneficial for better VR headset designs towards improved remote observation systems. To achieve the proposed goal, this thesis presents a thorough investigation of existing literature and previous researches, which is carried out systematically to identify the most important factors ruling realism, depth perception, comfort, and sense of presence in VR headset observation. Once identified, these factors are further discussed and assessed through a series of experiments and usability studies, based on a predefined set of research questions. More specifically, the role of familiarity with the observed place, the role of the environment characteristics shown to the viewer, and the role of the display used for the remote observation of the virtual environment are further investigated. To gain more insights, two usability studies are proposed with the aim of defining guidelines and best practices. The main outcomes from the two studies demonstrate that test users can experience an enhanced realistic observation when natural features, higher resolution displays, natural illumination, and high image contrast are used in Mobile VR. In terms of comfort, simple scene layouts and relaxing environments are considered ideal to reduce visual fatigue and eye strain. Furthermore, sense of presence increases when observed environments induce strong emotions, and depth perception improves in VR when several monocular cues such as lights and shadows are combined with binocular depth cues. Based on these results, this investigation then presents a focused evaluation on the outcomes and introduces an innovative eye-adapted High Dynamic Range (HDR) approach, which the author believes to be of great improvement in the context of remote observation when combined with eye-tracked VR headsets. Within this purpose, a third user study is proposed to compare static HDR and eye-adapted HDR observation in VR, to assess that the latter can improve realism, depth perception, sense of presence, and in certain cases even comfort. Results from this last study confirmed the author expectations, proving that eye-adapted HDR and eye tracking should be used to achieve best visual performances for remote observation in modern VR systems

Dynamic accommodative response to different visual stimuli (2D vs 3D) while watching television and while playing Nintendo 3DS console

PURPOSE: The aim of the present study was to compare the accommodative response to the same visual content presented in two dimensions (2D) and stereoscopically in three dimensions (3D) while participants were either watching a television (TV) or Nintendo 3DS console. METHODS: Twenty-two university students, with a mean age of 20.3 ± 2.0 years (mean ± S.D.), were recruited to participate in the TV experiment and fifteen, with a mean age of 20.1 ± 1.5 years took part in the Nintendo 3DS console study. The accommodative response was measured using a Grand Seiko WAM 5500 autorefractor. In the TV experiment, three conditions were used initially: the film was viewed in 2D mode (TV2D without glasses), the same sequence was watched in 2D whilst shutter-glasses were worn (TV2D with glasses) and the sequence was viewed in 3D mode (TV3D). Measurements were taken for 5 min in each condition, and these sections were sub-divided into ten 30-s segments to examine changes within the film. In addition, the accommodative response to three points of different disparity of one 3D frame was assessed for 30 s. In the Nintendo experiment, two conditions were employed - 2D viewing and stereoscopic 3D viewing. RESULTS: In the TV experiment no statistically significant differences were found between the accommodative response with TV2D without glasses (-0.38 ± 0.32D, mean ± S.D.) and TV3D (-0.37 ± 0.34D). Also, no differences were found between the various segments of the film, or between the accommodative response to different points of one frame (p > 0.05). A significant difference (p = 0.015) was found, however, between the TV2D with (-0.32 ± 0.32D) and without glasses (-0.38 ± 0.32D). In the Nintendo experiment the accommodative responses obtained in modes 2D (-2.57 ± 0.30D) and 3D (-2.49 ± 0.28D) were significantly different (paired t-test p = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: The need to use shutter-glasses may affect the accommodative response during the viewing of displays, and the accommodative response when playing Nintendo 3DS in 3D mode is lower than when it is viewed in 2D.None of the authors has an interest in the products and devices mentioned in the study. This study has been funded by projects PTDC/SAU-BEB/098392/2008 funded by the Portuguese Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia through the European Social Fund

Index to NASA Tech Briefs, January - June 1966

Index to NASA technological innovations for January-June 196

A shuttle and space station manipulator system for assembly, docking, maintenance, cargo handling and spacecraft retrieval (preliminary design). Volume 2: Concept development and selection

The overall program background, the various system concepts considered, and the rationale for the selected design are described. The concepts for each subsystem are also described and compared. Details are given for the requirements, boom configuration and dynamics, actuators, man/machine interface and control, visual system, control system, environmental control and life support, data processing, and materials

A Neurophysiologic Study Of Visual Fatigue In Stereoscopic Related Displays

Two tasks were investigated in this study. The first study investigated the effects of alignment display errors on visual fatigue. The experiment revealed the following conclusive results: First, EEG data suggested the possibility of cognitively-induced time compensation changes due to a corresponding effect in real-time brain activity by the eyes trying to compensate for the alignment. The magnification difference error showed more significant effects on all EEG band waves, which were indications of likely visual fatigue as shown by the prevalence of simulator sickness questionnaire (SSQ) increases across all task levels. Vertical shift errors were observed to be prevalent in theta and beta bands of EEG which probably induced alertness (in theta band) as a result of possible stress. Rotation errors were significant in the gamma band, implying the likelihood of cognitive decline because of theta band influence. Second, the hemodynamic responses revealed that significant differences exist between the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal due to alignment errors. There was also a significant difference between the main effect for power band hemisphere and the ATC task sessions. The analyses revealed that there were significant differences between the dorsal frontal lobes in task processing and interaction effects between the processing lobes and tasks processing. The second study investigated the effects of cognitive response variables on visual fatigue. Third, the physiologic indicator of pupil dilation was 0.95mm that occurred at a mean time of 38.1min, after which the pupil dilation begins to decrease. After the average saccade rest time of 33.71min, saccade speeds leaned toward a decrease as a possible result of fatigue on-set. Fourth, the neural network classifier showed visual response data from eye movement were identified as the best predictor of visual fatigue with a classification accuracy of 90.42%. Experimental data confirmed that 11.43% of the participants actually experienced visual fatigue symptoms after the prolonged task

The matrix revisited: A critical assessment of virtual reality technologies for modeling, simulation, and training

A convergence of affordable hardware, current events, and decades of research have advanced virtual reality (VR) from the research lab into the commercial marketplace. Since its inception in the 1960s, and over the next three decades, the technology was portrayed as a rarely used, high-end novelty for special applications. Despite the high cost, applications have expanded into defense, education, manufacturing, and medicine. The promise of VR for entertainment arose in the early 1990\u27s and by 2016 several consumer VR platforms were released. With VR now accessible in the home and the isolationist lifestyle adopted due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, VR is now viewed as a potential tool to enhance remote education. Drawing upon over 17 years of experience across numerous VR applications, this dissertation examines the optimal use of VR technologies in the areas of visualization, simulation, training, education, art, and entertainment. It will be demonstrated that VR is well suited for education and training applications, with modest advantages in simulation. Using this context, the case is made that VR can play a pivotal role in the future of education and training in a globally connected world

Stereo Viewing and Virtual Reality Technologies in Mobile Robot Teleguide

“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/TRO.2009.2028765The use of 3-D stereoscopic visualization may provide a user with higher comprehension of remote environments in teleoperation when compared with 2-D viewing, in particular, a higher perception of environment depth characteristics, spatial localization, remote ambient layout, faster system learning, and decision performance. Works in the paper have demonstrated how stereo vision contributes to the improvement of the perception of some depth cues, often for abstract tasks, while it is hard to find works addressing stereoscopic visualization in mobile robot teleguide applications. This paper intends to contribute to this aspect by investigating the stereoscopic robot teleguide under different conditions, including typical navigation scenarios and the use of synthetic and real images. This paper also investigates how user performance may vary when employing different display technologies. Results from a set of test trials run on seven virtual reality systems, from laptop to large panorama and from head-mounted display to Cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE), emphasized few aspects that represent a base for further investigations as well as a guide when designing specific systems for telepresence.Peer reviewe