A unified graphics rendering pipeline for autostereoscopic rendering

Autostereoscopic displays require rendering a scene from multiple viewpoints. The architecture of current-generation graphics processors are still grounded in the historic evolution of monoscopic rendering. In this paper, we present a novel programmable rendering pipeline that renders to multiple viewpoints in a single pass. Our approach leverages on the computational and memory fetch coherence of rendering to multiple viewpoints to achieve significant speedup. We present an emulation of the principles of our pipeline using the current-generation GPUs and present a quantitative estimate of the benefits of our approach. We make a case for the new rendering pipeline by demonstrating its benefits for a range of applications such as autostereoscopic rendering and for shadow map computation for a scene with multiple light sources. © 2007 IEEE

Editing heightfield using history management and 3D widgets

In virtual environments, terrain is generally modeled by heightfield, a 2D structure. To be able to create desired terrain geometry, software editors for this specific task have been developed. The graphics hardware, data structures and rendering techniques are developing fast to open up new possibilities to the user and terrain editor functionalities are following such improvements (such as real-time lighting updates during editing operations and multi-texture blending). Yet, current terrain editors mostly fail to give the user feedback about their actions and also fail to help the users understand and undo the editing operations on the terrain. The aim of this study is to investigate the 3d-widget based visualization of possible editing (sculpturing) actions on terrain and to help user undo previous operations. © 2009 IEEE

Virtual human representation and communication in VLNet

[No abstract available

Investigating the Evolution of Electronic Markets

Abstract. Markets evolve through ‘entrepreneurial ’ intervention which is based on intuition and on timely information. An electronic market has been constructed in the laboratory as a collaborative virtual environment to identify timely entrepreneurial information for e-markets. This information is distilled from individual signals in the markets themselves and from signals observed on the Internet. Distributed, concurrent, time-constrained data mining methods are managed using business process management technology to extract timely, reliable information from this inherently unreliable environment. 1

Multimedia Mining of Collaborative Virtual Workspaces: An Integrative Framework for Extracting and Integrating Collaborative Process Knowledge

Collaborative virtual environments are becoming an intrinsic part of professional practices. In addition to providing collaboration support, they have the potential to collect vast amounts of multimedia data about the actions and content of such collaborative activities. The aim of this research is to utilize this data effectively, extract meaningful insights out of it and feed discovered knowledge back into the environment. The paper presents a framework for integrating multimedia data mining techniques with collaborative virtual environments, starting from early conceptual development. Discovered patterns are deposited in an organisational memory, which makes these available within the virtual environment. Some of the ideas are illustrated by an example from the application to collaborative spaces developed in LiveNet, a virtual workspace design system