2 1/2, Dimensional (2 1/2 D) Web-Based Virtual Walkthrough (VW) of Chancellor Hall (CH) and Undercroft of Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP)

This project will focus on the development of a 2 Yz D Virtual Walkthrough of Chancellor Hall and Undercroft ofUTP. The virtual walkthrough is developed in 2 'h dimensional in order to reduce the size of the virtual walkthrough. Besides that, the virtual walkthrough is available on the Internet so that it can be easily obtainable and accessible by people. The existing visualization of both CH and Undercroft of UTP does not offer sufficient illustration. The insufficiency leads to the issue of getting lost among individuals whom is coming for the first time to UTP. The insufficiency also can lead to dissatisfaction particularly among the potential sponsors of an event when the location provided which is where the event been held does not meet their expectation. Therefore, this project is meant to provide a virtual visualization to mainly the individuals who have never been to the CH and Undercroft of UTP due to distance constraint. Besides that, this project aims to provide an easy understanding and initial direction on how to move from one location to another location as well as the facilities within CHand Undercroft ofUTP by providing a better illustration than the existing visualization

'Breaking the glass': preserving social history in virtual environments

New media technologies play an important role in the evolution of our society. Traditional museums and heritage sites have evolved from the ‘cabinets of curiosity’ that focused mainly on the authority of the voice organising content, to the places that offer interactivity as a means to experience historical and cultural events of the past. They attempt to break down the division between visitors and historical artefacts, employing modern technologies that allow the audience to perceive a range of perspectives of the historical event. In this paper, we discuss virtual reconstruction and interactive storytelling techniques as a research methodology and educational and presentation practices for cultural heritage sites. We present the Narrating the Past project as a case study, in order to illustrate recent changes in the preservation of social history and guided tourist trails that aim to make the visitor’s experience more than just an architectural walk through

Perspective Switching in Virtual Environments

When exploring new environments, people regularly alternate among many sources of spatial information including direct visual input, navigation aids such as maps and mobile devices, and verbal route descriptions. These spatial representations typically depict the environment from one of two perspectives: first-person, embedded route perspective or top-down, bird's eye survey perspective. Visual spatial cognition research has explored the nature of learning within each of these perspectives independently, but little work has been done to explore how on-line visual processing of combined perspectives affects cognition, meaning there is little understanding of the cognitive costs of using different navigation tools to learn large-scale environments. This dissertation addresses such questions through two experiments that guide participants through simple paths in large-scale environments, each consisting of a simple path through a small virtual town presented on a desktop computer display. By timing participants' movement through each environment and how they respond to either externally-controlled or participant-controlled perspective switches, the experiments measure the cognitive load of visually processing dynamic perspectives during navigation. These on-line processing measures are complemented by tests of visual recognition and recall memory, which reveal how switching perspectives affects the accuracy of the resulting spatial mental model. The results indicate that the cognitive load associated with changing perspectives is primarily dependent on the quantity of visual information the change introduces -- the transformation itself is not particularly disorienting after the first exposure to the environment. Furthermore, although forced perspective switches do not appear to significantly affect spatial memory accuracy relative to viewing the environment from a consistent perspective, navigator-controlled switching results in significantly more accurate spatial memory, indicating that navigation aids which allow for perspective control might better support spatial learning than fixed-perspective interfaces. The findings also support previous research showing that route perspective navigation generally yields more accurate spatial memory than survey perspective learning, particularly after extensive experience in the environment. Overall, the findings demonstrate many new aspects of how perspective affects spatial cognition, with implications for spatial learning and the design of navigation aids

Freeform User Interfaces for Graphical Computing

報告番号: 甲15222 ; 学位授与年月日: 2000-03-29 ; 学位の種別: 課程博士 ; 学位の種類: 博士(工学) ; 学位記番号: 博工第4717号 ; 研究科・専攻: 工学系研究科情報工学専

Total recall-ibration: teaching spatial thinking and critical design with virtual reality

Virtual Reality (VR) is an immersive three dimensional computer generated environment. The concept of VR was introduced in 1960s when helmet mounted display (HMD) devices was introduced to fighter pilots). The technology has improved since then to mature wearable VR devices. Outside of military use, VR can be found in the entertainment and gaming industry, and commonly accessible for home users utilizing entry level technology with smart phones and adapters such as Google Cardboard. The technology has crossed from entertainment to education and visualization. Tapped more frequently in design education, utilized for ideation inception through to logistical planning. The power of VR is in its ability to close the communication gap between designer and builder and users of space. Several previous studies have focused on how VR can improve construction scheduling and safety. This tool can also be utilized to bridge from the conceptual and abstract; from teacher to student. Vr allows environment designers to test concepts in ‘virtual space' at 1:1 scale for themselves and for the critique of others - be they faculty, peers, internal, or reviewers. The utility of this tool comes from its ability to move communication from abstract visualization feedback to conversations held within a virtual representation of the space itself. This paper explores the role of VR in how students learn to design spaces and in how they communicate that space with fellow students, construction managers, and their faculty

A Case Study on the Advantages of 3D Walkthroughs over Photo Stitching Techniques

Virtual tours and interactive walkthroughs enable a more in-depth platform for communicating information. Many current techniques employ the use of Photo Stitching to accomplish this. However, over the last decade advancements in computing power and the accessibility of game engines, meant that developing rich 3D content for virtual tours is more possible than ever before. As such, the purpose of this paper is to present a study into the advantages of developing an interactive 3D virtual tour of student facilities, using the Unreal Development 4 Game Engine, for educational establishments. The project aims to demonstrate a comparison between the use of Photo Stitching and 3D Modelled interactive walkthrough for developing rich visual environments. The research reveals that the approach in this paper can improve educational facilities prominence within universities, and contains many advantages over Photo Stitching techniques

Coupling BIM and game engine technologies for construction knowledge enhancement

Interactions and collaboration between parties in construction projects are often characterised by misunderstandings and poor information exchange. Game engine technologies, when employed with building information modelling (BIM), can help address these shortcomings. Quite often, the visualisation capabilities of BIM models are not explored fully partly because of their limited interactive capability. While game engines are powerful in visualisation and interactions in the gaming industry, the literature suggests a lack of understanding of the applicability of the same in construction. This study investigates the potential of the use of game engines in construction practice which culminated in a framework that can guide the implementation of the same in enhancing interactive building walkthroughs

InfoUNLP3D: an interactive experience for freshman students

The use of technology in educational environments is becoming a common standard. Current high-end mobile devices provide the necessary hardware to allow the execution of complex and resource-demanding 3D applications, at least in their simplest forms under low-end devices. Under this context, a multiplatform 3D mobile application is proposed, presenting a complete virtual scenario of the Faculty of Informatics (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina), with the main purpose of being an interactive guide for students. The application provides a navigational model of the building, several playing modes in order to get to know the facilities, and updated information about classrooms and courses.VIII Workshop Innovación en Sistemas de Software (WISS).Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI