60,964 research outputs found

    Fire Emergency Evacuation from a School Building Using an Evolutionary Virtual Reality Platform

    Get PDF
    In the last few years, modern technologies such as numerical simulations, virtual and augmented reality, and agent-based models represented effective tools to study phenomena, which may not be experimentally reproduced due to costs, inherent hazards, or other constraints (e.g., fire or earthquake emergencies and evacuation from buildings). This paper shows how to integrate a virtual reality platform with numerical simulation tools to reproduce an evolutionary fire emergency scenario. It is computed in real time based on the building information model and a fluid dynamic software. A specific software was also used to simulate in real time the crowd dynamic in the virtual environment during the emergency evacuation process. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology, the emergency fire evacuation process for an existing school building is presented. The results show that the proposed virtual reality-based system can be employed for reproducing fire emergency scenarios. It can be used to help decision-makers to determine emergency plans and to help firefighters as a training tool to simulate emergency evacuation actions

    Development of a dynamic virtual reality model of the inner ear sensory system as a learning and demonstrating tool

    Get PDF
    In order to keep track of the position and motion of our body in space, nature has given us a fascinating and very ingenious organ, the inner ear. Each inner ear includes five biological sensors - three angular and two linear accelerometers - which provide the body with the ability to sense angular and linear motion of the head with respect to inertial space. The aim of this paper is to present a dynamic virtual reality model of these sensors. This model, implemented in Matlab/Simulink, simulates the rotary chair testing which is one of the tests carried out during a diagnosis of the vestibular system. High-quality 3D-animations linked to the Simulink model are created using the export of CAD models into Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) files. This virtual environment shows not only the test but also the state of each sensor (excited or inhibited) in real time. Virtual reality is used as a tool of integrated learning of the dynamic behavior of the inner ear using ergonomic paradigm of user interactivity (zoom, rotation, mouse interaction,…). It can be used as a learning and demonstrating tool either in the medicine field - to understand the behavior of the sensors during any kind of motion - or in the aeronautical field to relate the inner ear functioning to some sensory illusions

    Overview of crowd simulation in computer graphics

    Get PDF
    High-powered technology use computer graphics in education, entertainment, games, simulation, and virtual heritage applications has led it to become an important area of research. In simulation, according to Tecchia et al. (2002), it is important to create an interactive, complex, and realistic virtual world so that the user can have an immersive experience during navigation through the world. As the size and complexity of the environments in the virtual world increased, it becomes more necessary to populate them with peoples, and this is the reason why rendering the crowd in real-time is very crucial. Generally, crowd simulation consists of three important areas. They are realism of behavioral (Thompson and Marchant 1995), high-quality visualization (Dobbyn et al. 2005) and convergence of both areas. Realism of behavioral is mainly used for simple 2D visualizations because most of the attentions are concentrated on simulating the behaviors of the group. High quality visualization is regularly used for movie productions and computer games. It gives intention on producing more convincing visual rather than realism of behaviors. The convergences of both areas are mainly used for application like training systems. In order to make the training system more effective, the element of valid replication of the behaviors and high-quality visualization is added

    A Survey of Ocean Simulation and Rendering Techniques in Computer Graphics

    Get PDF
    This paper presents a survey of ocean simulation and rendering methods in computer graphics. To model and animate the ocean's surface, these methods mainly rely on two main approaches: on the one hand, those which approximate ocean dynamics with parametric, spectral or hybrid models and use empirical laws from oceanographic research. We will see that this type of methods essentially allows the simulation of ocean scenes in the deep water domain, without breaking waves. On the other hand, physically-based methods use Navier-Stokes Equations (NSE) to represent breaking waves and more generally ocean surface near the shore. We also describe ocean rendering methods in computer graphics, with a special interest in the simulation of phenomena such as foam and spray, and light's interaction with the ocean surface

    A Framework for Designing 3d Virtual Environments

    Get PDF
    The process of design and development of virtual environments can be supported by tools and frameworks, to save time in technical aspects and focusing on the content. In this paper we present an academic framework which provides several levels of abstraction to ease this work. It includes state-of-the-art components we devised or integrated adopting open-source solutions in order to face specific problems. Its architecture is modular and customizable, the code is open-source.\u

    The LAB@FUTURE Project - Moving Towards the Future of E-Learning

    Get PDF
    This paper presents Lab@Future, an advanced e-learning platform that uses novel Information and Communication Technologies to support and expand laboratory teaching practices. For this purpose, Lab@Future uses real and computer-generated objects that are interfaced using mechatronic systems, augmented reality, mobile technologies and 3D multi user environments. The main aim is to develop and demonstrate technological support for practical experiments in the following focused subjects namely: Fluid Dynamics - Science subject in Germany, Geometry - Mathematics subject in Austria, History and Environmental Awareness – Arts and Humanities subjects in Greece and Slovenia. In order to pedagogically enhance the design and functional aspects of this e-learning technology, we are investigating the dialogical operationalisation of learning theories so as to leverage our understanding of teaching and learning practices in the targeted context of deployment
    • …
    corecore