7 research outputs found
Using CNNs For Users Segmentation In Video See-Through Augmented Virtuality
In this paper, we present preliminary results on the use of deep learning
techniques to integrate the users self-body and other participants into a
head-mounted video see-through augmented virtuality scenario. It has been
previously shown that seeing users bodies in such simulations may improve the
feeling of both self and social presence in the virtual environment, as well as
user performance. We propose to use a convolutional neural network for real
time semantic segmentation of users bodies in the stereoscopic RGB video
streams acquired from the perspective of the user. We describe design issues as
well as implementation details of the system and demonstrate the feasibility of
using such neural networks for merging users bodies in an augmented virtuality
simulation.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures. Published in the 2nd International Conference on
Artificial Intelligence & Virtual Reality (IEEE AIVR 2019
A window to your smartphone: exploring interaction and communication in immersive VR with augmented virtuality
A major drawback of most Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) used in immersive
Virtual Reality (VR) is the visual and social isolation of users from their real-world
surroundings while wearing these headsets. This partial isolation of users from the
real-world might hinder social interactions with friends and family. To address this
issue, we present a new method to allow people wearing VR HMDs to use their
smartphones without removing their HMDs. To do this, we augment the scene inside
the VR HMD with a view of the user's device so that the user can interact with
the device without removing the headset. The idea involves the use of additional
cameras, such as the Leap Motion device or a high-resolution RGB camera to capture
the user's real-world surrounding and augment the virtual world with the content
displayed on the smartphone screen. This setup allows VR users to have a window to
their smartphone from within the virtual world and aïżœord much of the functionality
provided by their smartphones, with the potential to reduce undesirable visual and
social isolation users may experience when using immersive VR HMDs.
This work has been successfully submitted for presentation as a poster in the
Computer and Robot Vision Conference 2017 in Edmonton, Alberta, and is scheduled
to appear in the conference proceedings at the IEEE Xplore digital library later this
year
Towards System Agnostic Calibration of Optical See-Through Head-Mounted Displays for Augmented Reality
This dissertation examines the developments and progress of spatial calibration procedures for Optical See-Through (OST) Head-Mounted Display (HMD) devices for visual Augmented Reality (AR) applications. Rapid developments in commercial AR systems have created an explosion of OST device options for not only research and industrial purposes, but also the consumer market as well. This expansion in hardware availability is equally matched by a need for intuitive standardized calibration procedures that are not only easily completed by novice users, but which are also readily applicable across the largest range of hardware options. This demand for robust uniform calibration schemes is the driving motive behind the original contributions offered within this work. A review of prior surveys and canonical description for AR and OST display developments is provided before narrowing the contextual scope to the research questions evolving within the calibration domain. Both established and state of the art calibration techniques and their general implementations are explored, along with prior user study assessments and the prevailing evaluation metrics and practices employed within. The original contributions begin with a user study evaluation comparing and contrasting the accuracy and precision of an established manual calibration method against a state of the art semi-automatic technique. This is the first formal evaluation of any non-manual approach and provides insight into the current usability limitations of present techniques and the complexities of next generation methods yet to be solved. The second study investigates the viability of a user-centric approach to OST HMD calibration through novel adaptation of manual calibration to consumer level hardware. Additional contributions describe the development of a complete demonstration application incorporating user-centric methods, a novel strategy for visualizing both calibration results and registration error from the userâs perspective, as well as a robust intuitive presentation style for binocular manual calibration. The final study provides further investigation into the accuracy differences observed between user-centric and environment-centric methodologies. The dissertation concludes with a summarization of the contribution outcomes and their impact on existing AR systems and research endeavors, as well as a short look ahead into future extensions and paths that continued calibration research should explore
Distributed Implementation of eXtended Reality Technologies over 5G Networks
MenciĂłn Internacional en el tĂtulo de doctorThe revolution of Extended Reality (XR) has already started and is rapidly
expanding as technology advances. Announcements such as Metaâs Metaverse have
boosted the general interest in XR technologies, producing novel use cases. With
the advent of the fifth generation of cellular networks (5G), XR technologies are
expected to improve significantly by offloading heavy computational processes from
the XR Head Mounted Display (HMD) to an edge server. XR offloading can rapidly
boost XR technologies by considerably reducing the burden on the XR hardware,
while improving the overall user experience by enabling smoother graphics and more
realistic interactions. Overall, the combination of XR and 5G has the potential to
revolutionize the way we interact with technology and experience the world around
us.
However, XR offloading is a complex task that requires state-of-the-art tools
and solutions, as well as an advanced wireless network that can meet the demanding
throughput, latency, and reliability requirements of XR. The definition of these
requirements strongly depends on the use case and particular XR offloading implementations.
Therefore, it is crucial to perform a thorough Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) analysis to ensure a successful design of any XR offloading solution.
Additionally, distributed XR implementations can be intrincated systems with
multiple processes running on different devices or virtual instances. All these agents
must be well-handled and synchronized to achieve XR real-time requirements and
ensure the expected user experience, guaranteeing a low processing overhead. XR
offloading requires a carefully designed architecture which complies with the required
KPIs while efficiently synchronizing and handling multiple heterogeneous devices.
Offloading XR has become an essential use case for 5G and beyond 5G technologies.
However, testing distributed XR implementations requires access to advanced
5G deployments that are often unavailable to most XR application developers. Conversely,
the development of 5G technologies requires constant feedback from potential
applications and use cases. Unfortunately, most 5G providers, engineers, or
researchers lack access to cutting-edge XR hardware or applications, which can hinder
the fast implementation and improvement of 5Gâs most advanced features. Both
technology fields require ongoing input and continuous development from each other
to fully realize their potential. As a result, XR and 5G researchers and developers
must have access to the necessary tools and knowledge to ensure the rapid and
satisfactory development of both technology fields.
In this thesis, we focus on these challenges providing knowledge, tools and solutiond towards the implementation of advanced offloading technologies, opening the
door to more immersive, comfortable and accessible XR technologies. Our contributions
to the field of XR offloading include a detailed study and description of the
necessary network throughput and latency KPIs for XR offloading, an architecture
for low latency XR offloading and our full end to end XR offloading implementation
ready for a commercial XR HMD. Besides, we also present a set of tools which can
facilitate the joint development of 5G networks and XR offloading technologies: our
5G RAN real-time emulator and a multi-scenario XR IP traffic dataset.
Firstly, in this thesis, we thoroughly examine and explain the KPIs that are
required to achieve the expected Quality of Experience (QoE) and enhanced immersiveness
in XR offloading solutions. Our analysis focuses on individual XR
algorithms, rather than potential use cases. Additionally, we provide an initial
description of feasible 5G deployments that could fulfill some of the proposed KPIs
for different offloading scenarios.
We also present our low latency muti-modal XR offloading architecture, which
has already been tested on a commercial XR device and advanced 5G deployments,
such as millimeter-wave (mmW) technologies. Besides, we describe our full endto-
end complex XR offloading system which relies on our offloading architecture to
provide low latency communication between a commercial XR device and a server
running a Machine Learning (ML) algorithm. To the best of our knowledge, this is
one of the first successful XR offloading implementations for complex ML algorithms
in a commercial device.
With the goal of providing XR developers and researchers access to complex
5G deployments and accelerating the development of future XR technologies, we
present FikoRE, our 5G RAN real-time emulator. FikoRE has been specifically
designed not only to model the network with sufficient accuracy but also to support
the emulation of a massive number of users and actual IP throughput. As FikoRE
can handle actual IP traffic above 1 Gbps, it can directly be used to test distributed
XR solutions. As we describe in the thesis, its emulation capabilities make FikoRE
a potential candidate to become a reference testbed for distributed XR developers
and researchers.
Finally, we used our XR offloading tools to generate an XR IP traffic dataset
which can accelerate the development of 5G technologies by providing a straightforward
manner for testing novel 5G solutions using realistic XR data. This dataset is
generated for two relevant XR offloading scenarios: split rendering, in which the rendering
step is moved to an edge server, and heavy ML algorithm offloading. Besides,
we derive the corresponding IP traffic models from the captured data, which can be
used to generate realistic XR IP traffic. We also present the validation experiments
performed on the derived models and their results.This work has received funding from the European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie SkĆodowska-Curie ETN TeamUp5G, grant agreement No. 813391.Programa de Doctorado en Multimedia y Comunicaciones por la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid y la Universidad Rey Juan CarlosPresidente: Narciso GarcĂa Santos.- Secretario: Fernando DĂaz de MarĂa.- Vocal: Aryan Kaushi
Stereoscopic Vision in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Search and Rescue
Search and rescue operations are challenging due to the hazards imposed on the rescue teams. Team ARM IT has developed a virtual reality interface that controls a mounted camera payload on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) through a head mounted display. This allows rescuers to manipulate a UAV to assist search and rescue missions safely and effectively through telepresence and enhanced situational awareness. The team tested these hypotheses by prototyping, testing, and refining individual components of the system through the use of flight simulation software and on-site volunteer testing. By providing a realistic sense of the UAV environment enhanced with relevant information, Team ARM ITâs project reduces the danger to the rescuers and provide cognitively natural situational awareness
3D Multi-user interactive visualization with a shared large-scale display
When the multiple users interact with a virtual environment on a largescale
display there are several issues that need to be addressed to facilitate the
interaction. In the thesis, three main topics for collaborative visualization are
discussed; display setup, interactive visualization, and visual fatigue. The
problems that the author is trying to address in this thesis are how multiple
users can interact with a shared large-scale display depending on the display
setups and how they can interact with the shared visualization in a way that
doesnât lead to visual fatigue.
The first user study (Chapter 3) explores the display setups for multi-user
interaction with a shared large-display. The author describes the design of the
three main display setups (a shared view, a split screen, and a split screen with
navigation information) and a demonstration using these setups. The user
study found that the split screen and the split screen with navigation
information can improve usersâ confidence and reduce frustration level and
are more preferred than a shared view. However, a shared view can still
provide effective interaction and collaboration and the display setups cannot
have a large impact on usability and workload.
From the first study, the author employed a shared view for multi-user
interactive visualization with a shared large-scale display due to the
advantages of the shared view. To improve interactive visualization with a
shared view for multiple users, the author designed and conducted the second
user study (Chapter 4). A conventional interaction technique, the mean
tracking method, was not effective for more than three users. In order to
overcome the limitation of the current multi-user interactive visualization
techniques, two interactive visualization techniques (the Object Shift
Technique and Activity-based Weighted Mean Tracking method) were developed and were evaluated in the second user study. The Object Shift Technique translates the virtual objects in the opposite direction of movement
of the Point of View (PoV) and the Activity-based Weighted Mean Tracking
method assigns the higher weight to active users in comparison with
stationary users to determine the location of the PoV. The results of the user
study showed that these techniques can support collaboration, improve
interactivity, and provide similar visual discomfort compared to the
conventional method.
The third study (Chapter 5) describes how to reduce visual fatigue for 3D
stereoscopic visualization with a single point of view (PoV). When multiple
users interact with 3D stereoscopic VR using multi-user interactive
visualization techniques and they are close to the virtual objects, they can
perceive 3D visual fatigue from the large disparity. To reduce the 3D visual
fatigue, an Adaptive Interpupillary Distance (Adaptive IPD) adjustment
technique was developed. To evaluate the Adaptive IPD method, the author
compared to traditional 3D stereoscopic and the monoscopic visualization
techniques. Through the user experiments, the author was able to confirm that
the proposed method can reduce visual discomfort, yet maintain compelling
depth perception as the result provided the most preferable 3D stereoscopic
visualization experience.
For these studies, the author developed a software framework and designed
a set of experiments (Chapter 6). The framework architecture that contains
the three main ideas are described. A demonstration application for multidimensional
decision making was developed using the framework.
The primary contributions of this thesis include a literature review of multiuser
interaction with a shared large-scale display, deeper insights into three
display setups for multi-user interaction, development of the Object Shift
Techniques, the Activity-based Weighted Mean Tracking method, and the
Adaptive Interpupillary Distance Adjustment technique, the evaluation of the
three novel interaction techniques, development of a framework for
supporting a multi-user interaction with a shared large-scale display and its
application to multi-dimensional decision making VR system