Exploring Campus through Web-Based Immersive Adventures Using Virtual Reality Photography: A Low-Cost Virtual Tour Experience

This study aims to assess the incorporation of virtual reality (VR) photography into the web-based immersive application “virtual interactive campus tour (VICT).” This application offers users an immersive experience, allowing them to virtually explore university campuses and access information about the facilities and services available. The VICT application offers a cost-effective, attractive, and sustainable alternative for universities to display their resources and interact with potential students. Through black box testing, we conducted user acceptance testing (UAT) and functionality testing, confirming the application’s readiness for deployment and its capability to meet institutional and end-user requirements. This study also examined the potential for universities to use VR to meet the expectations of prospective students. The application is compatible with both desktop and mobile devices. The results indicated that the overall average validity score was 0.88, suggesting that the measure is valid. The validation results were thoroughly tested and reliable. This study emphasizes the potential of immersive web-based tours in higher education and aims to bridge the divide between virtual exploration and physical visits. By offering an immersive virtual campus experience, this innovative tool has the potential to revolutionize university marketing strategies, increase student engagement, and transform campus visit approaches

Interaction and presentation techniques for shake menus in tangible augmented reality

Menus play an important role in both information presentation and system control. We explore the design space of shake menus, which are intended for use in tangible augmented reality. Shake menus are radial menus displayed centered on a physical object and activated by shaking that object. One important aspect of their design space is the coordinate system used to present menu op-tions. We conducted a within-subjects user study to compare the speed and efficacy of several alternative methods for presenting shake menus in augmented reality (world-referenced, display-referenced, and object-referenced), along with a baseline tech-nique (a linear menu on a clipboard). Our findings suggest trade-offs amongst speed, efficacy, and flexibility of interaction, and point towards the possible advantages of hybrid approaches that compose together transformations in different coordinate systems. We close by describing qualitative feedback from use and present several illustrative applications of the technique

Study of the interaction with a virtual 3D environment displayed on a smartphone

Les environnements virtuels à 3D (EV 3D) sont de plus en plus utilisés dans différentes applications telles que la CAO, les jeux ou la téléopération. L'évolution des performances matérielles des Smartphones a conduit à l'introduction des applications 3D sur les appareils mobiles. En outre, les Smartphones offrent de nouvelles capacités bien au-delà de la communication vocale traditionnelle qui sont consentis par l'intégrité d'une grande variété de capteurs et par la connectivité via Internet. En conséquence, plusieurs intéressantes applications 3D peuvent être conçues en permettant aux capacités de l'appareil d'interagir dans un EV 3D. Sachant que les Smartphones ont de petits et aplatis écrans et que EV 3D est large, dense et contenant un grand nombre de cibles de tailles différentes, les appareils mobiles présentent certaines contraintes d'interaction dans l'EV 3D comme : la densité de l'environnement, la profondeur de cibles et l'occlusion. La tâche de sélection fait face à ces trois problèmes pour sélectionner une cible. De plus, la tâche de sélection peut être décomposée en trois sous-tâches : la Navigation, le Pointage et la Validation. En conséquence, les chercheurs dans un environnement virtuel 3D ont développé de nouvelles techniques et métaphores pour l'interaction en 3D afin d'améliorer l'utilisation des applications 3D sur les appareils mobiles, de maintenir la tâche de sélection et de faire face aux problèmes ou facteurs affectant la performance de sélection. En tenant compte de ces considérations, cette thèse expose un état de l'art des techniques de sélection existantes dans un EV 3D et des techniques de sélection sur Smartphone. Il expose les techniques de sélection dans un EV 3D structurées autour des trois sous-tâches de sélection: navigation, pointage et validation. En outre, il décrit les techniques de désambiguïsation permettant de sélectionner une cible parmi un ensemble d'objets présélectionnés. Ultérieurement, il expose certaines techniques d'interaction décrites dans la littérature et conçues pour être implémenter sur un Smartphone. Ces techniques sont divisées en deux groupes : techniques effectuant des tâches de sélection bidimensionnelle sur un Smartphone et techniques exécutant des tâches de sélection tridimensionnelle sur un Smartphone. Enfin, nous exposons les techniques qui utilisaient le Smartphone comme un périphérique de saisie. Ensuite, nous discuterons la problématique de sélection dans un EV 3D affichée sur un Smartphone. Il expose les trois problèmes identifiés de sélection : la densité de l'environnement, la profondeur des cibles et l'occlusion. Ensuite, il établit l'amélioration offerte par chaque technique existante pour la résolution des problèmes de sélection. Il analyse les atouts proposés par les différentes techniques, la manière dont ils éliminent les problèmes, leurs avantages et leurs inconvénients. En outre, il illustre la classification des techniques de sélection pour un EV 3D en fonction des trois problèmes discutés (densité, profondeur et occlusion) affectant les performances de sélection dans un environnement dense à 3D. Hormis pour les jeux vidéo, l'utilisation d'environnement virtuel 3D sur Smartphone n'est pas encore démocratisée. Ceci est dû au manque de techniques d'interaction proposées pour interagir avec un dense EV 3D composé de nombreux objets proches les uns des autres et affichés sur un petit écran aplati et les problèmes de sélection pour afficher l' EV 3D sur un petit écran plutôt sur un grand écran. En conséquence, cette thèse se concentre sur la proposition et la description du fruit de cette étude : la technique d'interaction DichotoZoom. Elle compare et évalue la technique proposée à la technique de circulation suggérée par la littérature. L'analyse comparative montre l'efficacité de la technique DichotoZoom par rapport à sa contrepartie. Ensuite, DichotoZoom a été évalué selon les différentes modalités d'interaction disponibles sur les Smartphones. Cette évaluation montre la performance de la technique de sélection proposée basée sur les quatre modalités d'interaction suivantes : utilisation de boutons physiques ou sous forme de composants graphiques, utilisation d'interactions gestuelles via l'écran tactile ou le déplacement de l'appareil lui-même. Enfin, cette thèse énumère nos contributions dans le domaine des techniques d'interaction 3D utilisées dans un environnement virtuel 3D dense affiché sur de petits écrans et propose des travaux futurs.3D Virtual Environments (3D VE) are more and more used in different applications such as CAD, games, or teleoperation. Due to the improvement of smartphones hardware performance, 3D applications were also introduced to mobile devices. In addition, smartphones provide new computing capabilities far beyond the traditional voice communication. They are permitted by the variety of built-in sensors and the internet connectivity. In consequence, interesting 3D applications can be designed by enabling the device capabilities to interact in a 3D VE. Due to the fact that smartphones have small and flat screens and that a 3D VE is wide and dense with a large number of targets of various sizes, mobile devices present some constraints in interacting on the 3D VE like: the environment density, the depth of targets and the occlusion. The selection task faces these three problems to select a target. In addition, the selection task can be decomposed into three subtasks: Navigation, Pointing and Validation. In consequence, researchers in 3D virtual environment have developed new techniques and metaphors for 3D interaction to improve 3D application usability on mobile devices, to support the selection task and to face the problems or factors affecting selection performance. In light of these considerations, this thesis exposes a state of the art of the existing selection techniques in 3D VE and the selection techniques on smartphones. It exposes the selection techniques in 3D VE structured around the selection subtasks: navigation, pointing and validation. Moreover, it describes disambiguation techniques providing the selection of a target from a set of pre-selected objects. Afterward, it exposes some interaction techniques described in literature and designed for implementation on Smartphone. These techniques are divided into two groups: techniques performing two-dimensional selection tasks on smartphones, and techniques performing three-dimensional selection tasks on smartphones. Finally, we expose techniques that used the smartphone as an input device. Then, we will discuss the problematic of selecting in 3D VE displayed on a Smartphone. It exposes the three identified selection problems: the environment density, the depth of targets and the occlusion. Afterward, it establishes the enhancement offered by each existing technique in solving the selection problems. It analysis the assets proposed by different techniques, the way they eliminates the problems, their advantages and their inconvenient. Furthermore, it illustrates the classification of the selection techniques for 3D VE according to the three discussed problems (density, depth and occlusion) affecting the selection performance in a dense 3D VE. Except for video games, the use of 3D virtual environment (3D VE) on Smartphone has not yet been popularized. This is due to the lack of interaction techniques to interact with a dense 3D VE composed of many objects close to each other and displayed on a small and flat screen and the selection problems to display the 3D VE on a small screen rather on a large screen. Accordingly, this thesis focuses on defining and describing the fruit of this study: DichotoZoom interaction technique. It compares and evaluates the proposed technique to the Circulation technique, suggested by the literature. The comparative analysis shows the effectiveness of DichotoZoom technique compared to its counterpart. Then, DichotoZoom was evaluated in different modalities of interaction available on Smartphones. It reports on the performance of the proposed selection technique based on the following four interaction modalities: using physical buttons, using graphical buttons, using gestural interactions via touchscreen or moving the device itself. Finally, this thesis lists our contributions to the field of 3D interaction techniques used in a dense 3D virtual environment displayed on small screens and proposes some future works

Virtual Reality experience for home automation system

[EN] This thesis is about developing a VR experience for a technological company in Valencia. The idea of this project is to have an experience and a better understanding of home automation system before buying it. The result is two different VR platforms: mobile application for Samsung Gear VR and computer version for Oculus Rift.[ES] La tesis está basada en el desarrollo de una experiencia de realidad virtual para una empresa de domótica en Valencia. La idea del proyecto es entender el funcionamiento y poder experimentar con el sistema de domótica antes de adquirir el producto. El resultado final son dos plataformas diferentes de RV: una aplicación móvil para Samsung Gear VR y una versión para ordenador con Oculus Rift.Mosunova, M. (2018). Virtual Reality experience for home automation system. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/110056TFG

CARTON Project: Do-It-Yourself Approach to Turn a Smartphone into a Smart Eyewear

International audienceThis paper presents a tool to transform a smartphone into a smart eyewear, named "CARTON", following a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approach. The hardware prototype is made with very simple materials and regular tools we could find anywhere. It also includes a Software Development Kit (SDK) with samples in order to easily adapt or develop new mobile app compatible with this kind of device. By providing everything open-source and open-hardware, we intend to solve the reachability of technologies related to smart eyewear and aim to accelerate research around it. Users experiments were conducted in which participants were asked to create, by themselves, the CARTON's hardware part and perform usability tests with their own creation. Qualitative user feedback and quantitative results prove that CARTON is functional and feasible by anyone, without specific skills

Enhanced Virtuality: Increasing the Usability and Productivity of Virtual Environments

Mit stetig steigender Bildschirmauflösung, genauerem Tracking und fallenden Preisen stehen Virtual Reality (VR) Systeme kurz davor sich erfolgreich am Markt zu etablieren. Verschiedene Werkzeuge helfen Entwicklern bei der Erstellung komplexer Interaktionen mit mehreren Benutzern innerhalb adaptiver virtueller Umgebungen. Allerdings entstehen mit der Verbreitung der VR-Systeme auch zusätzliche Herausforderungen: Diverse Eingabegeräte mit ungewohnten Formen und Tastenlayouts verhindern eine intuitive Interaktion. Darüber hinaus zwingt der eingeschränkte Funktionsumfang bestehender Software die Nutzer dazu, auf herkömmliche PC- oder Touch-basierte Systeme zurückzugreifen. Außerdem birgt die Zusammenarbeit mit anderen Anwendern am gleichen Standort Herausforderungen hinsichtlich der Kalibrierung unterschiedlicher Trackingsysteme und der Kollisionsvermeidung. Beim entfernten Zusammenarbeiten wird die Interaktion durch Latenzzeiten und Verbindungsverluste zusätzlich beeinflusst. Schließlich haben die Benutzer unterschiedliche Anforderungen an die Visualisierung von Inhalten, z.B. Größe, Ausrichtung, Farbe oder Kontrast, innerhalb der virtuellen Welten. Eine strikte Nachbildung von realen Umgebungen in VR verschenkt Potential und wird es nicht ermöglichen, die individuellen Bedürfnisse der Benutzer zu berücksichtigen. Um diese Probleme anzugehen, werden in der vorliegenden Arbeit Lösungen in den Bereichen Eingabe, Zusammenarbeit und Erweiterung von virtuellen Welten und Benutzern vorgestellt, die darauf abzielen, die Benutzerfreundlichkeit und Produktivität von VR zu erhöhen. Zunächst werden PC-basierte Hardware und Software in die virtuelle Welt übertragen, um die Vertrautheit und den Funktionsumfang bestehender Anwendungen in VR zu erhalten. Virtuelle Stellvertreter von physischen Geräten, z.B. Tastatur und Tablet, und ein VR-Modus für Anwendungen ermöglichen es dem Benutzer reale Fähigkeiten in die virtuelle Welt zu übertragen. Des Weiteren wird ein Algorithmus vorgestellt, der die Kalibrierung mehrerer ko-lokaler VR-Geräte mit hoher Genauigkeit und geringen Hardwareanforderungen und geringem Aufwand ermöglicht. Da VR-Headsets die reale Umgebung der Benutzer ausblenden, wird die Relevanz einer Ganzkörper-Avatar-Visualisierung für die Kollisionsvermeidung und das entfernte Zusammenarbeiten nachgewiesen. Darüber hinaus werden personalisierte räumliche oder zeitliche Modifikationen vorgestellt, die es erlauben, die Benutzerfreundlichkeit, Arbeitsleistung und soziale Präsenz von Benutzern zu erhöhen. Diskrepanzen zwischen den virtuellen Welten, die durch persönliche Anpassungen entstehen, werden durch Methoden der Avatar-Umlenkung (engl. redirection) kompensiert. Abschließend werden einige der Methoden und Erkenntnisse in eine beispielhafte Anwendung integriert, um deren praktische Anwendbarkeit zu verdeutlichen. Die vorliegende Arbeit zeigt, dass virtuelle Umgebungen auf realen Fähigkeiten und Erfahrungen aufbauen können, um eine vertraute und einfache Interaktion und Zusammenarbeit von Benutzern zu gewährleisten. Darüber hinaus ermöglichen individuelle Erweiterungen des virtuellen Inhalts und der Avatare Einschränkungen der realen Welt zu überwinden und das Erlebnis von VR-Umgebungen zu steigern

Realidad Virtual y aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras: Análisis de las 6 aplicaciones móviles más populares de Google Play Store y App Store para aprender inglés

Research in the area of mobile assisted language learning (MALL) has shown that smartphones offer multiple opportunities for supporting foreign language learning. The development and increasing accessibility of new tools such as virtual reality technology (VR) has opened new perspectives in the area of MALL, paving the way for a new research field called virtual reality assisted language learning (VRALL). In this context, the current study aims to explore the potential of VRALL by analyzing the 6 most popular VR apps from Google Play Store and App Store to learn English, with a special focus on language contents and the learning approaches provided. Results suggest that although VR technology provides new opportunities for language learning, VRALL is still on the fringes and more research needs to be done in order to take advantage of the real potential of VR.La investigación en el área del aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por dispositivos móviles (MALL) muestra que los teléfonos móviles ofrecen una gran variedad de posibilidades para ayudar a aprender una lengua extranjera. El desarrollo y el fácil acceso a nuevas herramientas como la tecnología de realidad virtual (RV) han abierto nuevos horizontes en el área de MALL, preparando el terreno para un nuevo campo de investigación llamado aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por realidad virtual (VRALL). De este modo, este estudio busca explorar el potencial del VRALL mediante el análisis de las 6 apps de RV más populares en Google Play Store y App Store para aprender inglés, centrándonos en los contenidos lingüísticos y en los enfoques de aprendizaje que proporcionan estas apps. Los resultados indican que, aunque la RV aporta nuevas oportunidades para el aprendizaje de lenguas, el VRALL todavía permanece al margen, y se necesita más investigación sobre el tema para poder aprovechar el verdadero potencial de la RV

Interactive virtual environment focused on gamified tourism

Treball final de Grau en Disseny i Desenvolupament de Videojocs. Codi: VJ1241. Curs acadèmic: 2017/2018The present document constitutes the Final Degree Project’s Technical Report of the Video Games Design and Development Degree offered by the Universitat Jaume I. The work to be developed consists in creating an interactive virtual gamified environment focused on tourism, through geolocation and augmented reality tools based on smartphones. It covers aspects about the planning, decision making and conceptual design of the final product and implementation details involved in the development of the complete application during the course of a few months by Francisco Alfaro Moscardó, student of the before mentioned Degree. The aim of the project is providing both residents and visitors some knowledge about the main monuments and places of interest of the Valencia city historical centre (Spain). The application has been developed using Unity 3D game engine combined with a set of current libraries that allow to have a better performance and management of the event interaction and Augmented Reality. The geolocated system is based on the Global Positioning System (GPS) and is fully integrated with two different augmented reality mini games that are part of the whole experience and give players some added challenges before giving them the historical information about the monuments. Furthermore, the application communicates remotely with Google servers to provide services such as the modification of the database where the areas data is stored or the use of the Google user account for unlocking achievements and be part of a worldwide ranking

Menetelmä 3D-mallin animointijärjestelmän automaattiseen luomiseen älylaitteella lisätyssä todellisuudessa

3D modeling has become more popular among novice users in the recent years. The ubiquity of mobile devices has led to the need to view and edit 3D content even beyond the traditional desktop workstations. This thesis develops an approach for editing mesh-based 3D models in mobile augmented reality. The developed approach takes a static 3D model and automatically generates a rig with control handles so that the user can pose the model interactively. The rig is generated by approximating the model with a structure called sphere mesh. To attach the generated spheres to the model, a technique called bone heat skinning is used. A direct manipulation scheme is presented to allow the user to pose the processed model with intuitive touch controls. Both translation and rotation operations are developed to give the user expressive power over the pose of the model without overly complicating the controls. Several example scenes are built and analyzed. The scenes show that the developed approach can be used to build novel scenes in augmented reality. The implementation of the approach is measured to be close to real time with the processing times around one second for the used models. The rig generation is shown to yield semantically coherent control handles especially at lower resolutions. While the chosen bone heat skinning algorithm has theoretical shortcomings, they were not apparent in the built examples.3D-mallinnus on kasvattanut suosiotaan ei-ammattimaisten käyttäjien keskuudessa viime vuosina. Mobiililaitteiden yleistyminen on johtanut tarpeeseen katsella ja muokata 3D-malleja myös perinteisten työasemien ulkopuolella. Tämä diplomityö kehittää menetelmän verkkorakenteisten 3D-mallien muokkaamiseen lisätyssä todellisuudessa mobiililaitteilla. Kehitetty menetelmä luo staattiselle 3D-mallille animaatiojärjestelmän ohjauskahvoineen automaattisesti. Näin käyttäjä voi interaktiivisesti muuttaa 3D-mallin asentoa. Animaatiojärjestelmä luodaan muodostamalla mallille likiarvoistus pallomallirakenteella. Luodut pallot kiinnitetään malliin nk. luulämpöpinnoitusmenetelmällä. Mallin asennon muokkaamiseksi esitellään suorakäyttöjärjestelmä, jossa käyttäjä voi käsitellä mallia helppokäyttöisin kosketusnäyttöelein. Työssä kehitetään sekä siirto- että pyöritysoperaatiot, jotta käyttäjä voi muokata mallia monipuolisesti ja vaivattomasti. Menetelmän toimivuuden osoittamiseksi työssä luodaan ja analysoidaan esimerkkejä, jotka eivät olisi mahdollisia ilman menetelmän hyödyntämistä. Menetelmän tekninen toteutus on mittausten perusteella lähes tosiaikainen ja käytettyjen mallien käsittelyajat ovat lähellä yhtä sekuntia. Luodut animaatiojärjestelmät ovat semanttisesti merkittäviä erityisesti alhaisemmilla tarkkuuksilla. Vaikka luulämpöpinnoitukseen liittyy teoreettisia ongelmia, ne eivät näkyneet luoduissa esimerkeissä

Engaging immersive video consumers: Challenges regarding 360-degree gamified video applications

360-degree videos is a new medium that has gained the attention of the research community imposing challenges for creating more interactive and engaging immersive experiences. The purpose of this study is to introduce a set of technical and design challenges for interactive, gamified 360-degree mixed reality applications that immerse and engage users. The development of gamified applications refers to the merely incorporation of game elements in the interaction design process to attract and engage the user through playful interaction with the virtual world. The study presents experiments with the incorporation of series of game elements such as time pressure challenges, badges and user levels, storytelling narrative and immediate visual feedback to the interaction design logic of a mixed reality mobile gaming application that runs in an environment composed of 360-degree video and 3D computer generated objects. In the present study, the architecture and overall process for creating such an application is being presented along with a list of design implications and constraints. The paper concludes with future directions and conclusions on improving the level of immersion and engagement of 360-degree video consumers