COLLADA + MPEG-4 or X3D + MPEG-4

The paper is an overview of 3D graphics assets and applications standards.The authors analyzed the three main open standards dealing with three-dimensional (3-D) graphics content and applications, X3D, COLLADA, and MPEG4, to clarify the role of each with respect to the following criteria: ability to describe only the graphics assets in a synthetic 3-D scene or also its behavior as an application, compression capacities, and appropriateness for authoring, transmission, and publishing. COLLADA could become the interchange format for authoring tools; MPEG4 on top of it (as specified in MPEG-4 Part 25), the publishing format for graphics assets; and X3D, the standard for interactive applications, enriched by MPEG-4 compression in the case of online ones. The authors also mentioned that in order to build a mobile application, a developer has to consider different hardware configurations and performances, different operating systems, different screen sizes, and input controls

A Cloud Based Disaster Management System

The combination of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and 3D virtual environments opens a new paradigm for their use in natural disaster management applications. It is important to have a realistic virtual environment based on datasets received from WSNs to prepare a backup rescue scenario with an acceptable response time. This paper describes a complete cloud-based system that collects data from wireless sensor nodes deployed in real environments and then builds a 3D environment in near real-time to reflect the incident detected by sensors (fire, gas leaking, etc.). The system’s purpose is to be used as a training environment for a rescue team to develop various rescue plans before they are applied in real emergency situations. The proposed cloud architecture combines 3D data streaming and sensor data collection to build an efficient network infrastructure that meets the strict network latency requirements for 3D mobile disaster applications. As compared to other existing systems, the proposed system is truly complete. First, it collects data from sensor nodes and then transfers it using an enhanced Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RLP). A 3D modular visualizer with a dynamic game engine was also developed in the cloud for near-real time 3D rendering. This is an advantage for highly-complex rendering algorithms and less powerful devices. An Extensible Markup Language (XML) atomic action concept was used to inject 3D scene modifications into the game engine without stopping or restarting the engine. Finally, a multi-objective multiple traveling salesman problem (AHP-MTSP) algorithm is proposed to generate an efficient rescue plan by assigning robots and multiple unmanned aerial vehicles to disaster target locations, while minimizing a set of predefined objectives that depend on the situation. The results demonstrate that immediate feedback obtained from the reconstructed 3D environment can help to investigate what–if scenarios, allowing for the preparation of effective rescue plans with an appropriate management effort.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Virtual human modelling and animation for real-time sign language visualisation

>Magister Scientiae - MScThis thesis investigates the modelling and animation of virtual humans for real-time sign language visualisation. Sign languages are fully developed natural languages used by Deaf communities all over the world. These languages are communicated in a visual-gestural modality by the use of manual and non-manual gestures and are completely di erent from spoken languages. Manual gestures include the use of hand shapes, hand movements, hand locations and orientations of the palm in space. Non-manual gestures include the use of facial expressions, eye-gazes, head and upper body movements. Both manual and nonmanual gestures must be performed for sign languages to be correctly understood and interpreted. To e ectively visualise sign languages, a virtual human system must have models of adequate quality and be able to perform both manual and non-manual gesture animations in real-time. Our goal was to develop a methodology and establish an open framework by using various standards and open technologies to model and animate virtual humans of adequate quality to e ectively visualise sign languages. This open framework is to be used in a Machine Translation system that translates from a verbal language such as English to any sign language. Standards and technologies we employed include H-Anim, MakeHuman, Blender, Python and SignWriting. We found it necessary to adapt and extend H-Anim to e ectively visualise sign languages. The adaptations and extensions we made to H-Anim include imposing joint rotational limits, developing exible hands and the addition of facial bones based on the MPEG-4 Facial De nition Parameters facial feature points for facial animation. By using these standards and technologies, we found that we could circumvent a few di cult problems, such as: modelling high quality virtual humans; adapting and extending H-Anim; creating a sign language animation action vocabulary; blending between animations in an action vocabulary; sharing animation action data between our virtual humans; and e ectively visualising South African Sign Language.South Afric

Scene integration for online VR advertising clouds

This paper presents a scene composition approach that allows the combinational use of standard three dimensional objects, called models, in order to create X3D scenes. The module is an integral part of a broader design aiming to construct large scale online advertising infrastructures that rely on virtual reality technologies. The architecture addresses a number of problems regarding remote rendering for low end devices and last but not least, the provision of scene composition and integration. Since viewers do not keep information regarding individual input models or scenes, composition requires the consideration of mechanisms that add state to viewing technologies. In terms of this work we extended a well-known, open source X3D authoring tool

Survey of Transportation of Adaptive Multimedia Streaming service in Internet

[DE] World Wide Web is the greatest boon towards the technological advancement of modern era. Using the benefits of Internet globally, anywhere and anytime, users can avail the benefits of accessing live and on demand video services. The streaming media systems such as YouTube, Netflix, and Apple Music are reining the multimedia world with frequent popularity among users. A key concern of quality perceived for video streaming applications over Internet is the Quality of Experience (QoE) that users go through. Due to changing network conditions, bit rate and initial delay and the multimedia file freezes or provide poor video quality to the end users, researchers across industry and academia are explored HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS), which split the video content into multiple segments and offer the clients at varying qualities. The video player at the client side plays a vital role in buffer management and choosing the appropriate bit rate for each such segment of video to be transmitted. A higher bit rate transmitted video pauses in between whereas, a lower bit rate video lacks in quality, requiring a tradeoff between them. The need of the hour was to adaptively varying the bit rate and video quality to match the transmission media conditions. Further, The main aim of this paper is to give an overview on the state of the art HAS techniques across multimedia and networking domains. A detailed survey was conducted to analyze challenges and solutions in adaptive streaming algorithms, QoE, network protocols, buffering and etc. It also focuses on various challenges on QoE influence factors in a fluctuating network condition, which are often ignored in present HAS methodologies. Furthermore, this survey will enable network and multimedia researchers a fair amount of understanding about the latest happenings of adaptive streaming and the necessary improvements that can be incorporated in future developments.Abdullah, MTA.; Lloret, J.; Canovas Solbes, A.; García-García, L. (2017). Survey of Transportation of Adaptive Multimedia Streaming service in Internet. Network Protocols and Algorithms. 9(1-2):85-125. doi:10.5296/npa.v9i1-2.12412S8512591-

Simulation of nonverbal social interaction and small groups dynamics in virtual environments

How can the behaviour of humans who interact with other humans be simulated in virtual environments? This thesis investigates the issue by proposing a number of dedicated models, computer languages, software architectures, and specifications of computational components. It relies on a large knowledge base from the social sciences, which offers concepts, descriptions, and classifications that guided the research process. The simulation of nonverbal social interaction and group dynamics in virtual environments can be divided in two main research problems: (1) an action selection problem, where autonomous agents must be made capable of deciding when, with whom, and how they interact according to individual characteristics of themselves and others; and (2) a behavioural animation problem, where, on the basis of the selected interaction, 3D characters must realistically behave in their virtual environment and communicate nonverbally with others by automatically triggering appropriate actions such as facial expressions, gestures, and postural shifts. In order to introduce the problem of action selection in social environments, a high-level architecture for social agents, based on the sociological concepts of role, norm, and value, is first discussed. A model of action selection for members of small groups, based on proactive and reactive motivational components, is then presented. This model relies on a new tagbased language called Social Identity Markup Language (SIML), allowing the rich specification of agents' social identities and relationships. A complementary model controls the simulation of interpersonal relationship development within small groups. The interactions of these two models create a complex system exhibiting emergent properties for the generation of meaningful sequences of social interactions in the temporal dimension. To address the issues related to the visualization of nonverbal interactions, results are presented of an evaluation experiment aimed at identifying the application requirements through an analysis of how real people interact nonverbally in virtual environments. Based on these results, a number of components for MPEG-4 body animation, AML — a tag-based language for the seamless integration and synchronization of facial animation, body animation, and speech — and a high-level interaction visualization service for the VHD++ platform are described. This service simulates the proxemic and kinesic aspects of nonverbal social interactions, and comprises such functionalities as parametric postures, adapters and observation behaviours, the social avoidance of collisions, intelligent approach behaviours, and the calculation of suitable interaction distances and angles

DISE : a game technology-based digital interactive storytelling framework

This thesis details the design and implementation of an Interactive Storytelling Framework. Using software engineering methodology and framework development methods, we aim to design a full Interactive Storytelling system involving a story manager, a character engine, an action engine, a planner, a 3D game engine and a set of editors for story data, world environment modelling and real-time character animation. The framework is described in detail and specified to meet the requirement of bringing a more dynamic real-time interactive story experience to the medium of computer games. Its core concepts borrow from work done in the fields of narrative theory, software engineering, computer games technology, HCI, 3D character animation and artificial intelligence. The contributions of our research and the novelties lie in the data design of the story which allows a modular approach to building reusable resources such as actions, objects, animated characters and whole story 'levels'; a switchable story planner and re-planning system implementation, allowing many planners, heuristics and schedulers that are compatible with PDDL (the "Planning Domain Definition Language") to be easily integrated with minor changes to the main classes; a 3D game engine and framework for web launched or in browser deployment of the finished product; and a user friendly story and world/environment editor; so story authors do not need advanced knowledge of coding PDDL syntax, games programming or 3D modelling to design and author a basic story. As far as we know our Interactive Storytelling Framework is the only one to include a full 3D cross-platform game engine, procedural and manual modelling tools, a story -editor and customisable planner in one complete integrated solution. The finished interactive storytelling applications are presented as computer games designed to be a real-time 3D first person experience, with the player as a main story character in a world where every context filtered action displayed is executable and the player's choices make a difference to the outcome of the story, whilst still allowing the authors high level constraints to progress the narrative along their desired path(s)

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion