Spectral Domain Decomposition Method for Physically-Based Rendering of Royaumont Abbey

International audienceIn the context of a virtual reconstitution of the destroyed Royaumont abbey church, this paper investigates computer sciences issues intrinsic to the physically-based image rendering. First, a virtual model was designed from historical sources and archaeological descriptions. Then some materials physical properties were measured on remains of the church and on pieces from similar ancient churches. We specify the properties of our lighting source which is a representation of the sun, and present the rendering algorithm implemented in our software Virtuelium. In order to accelerate the computation of the interactions between light-rays and objects, this ray-tracing algorithm is parallelized by means of domain decomposition techniques. Numerical experiments show that the computational time saved by a classic parallelization is much less significant than that gained with our approach

Virtual data sphere: inverse stereographic projection for immersive multi-perspective geovisualization

International audienceImmersive geospatial visualization finds increasing application for navigation, exploration, and analysis. Many such require the display of data at different scales, often in views with three-dimensional geometry. Multi-view solutions, such as focus+context, overview+detail, and distorted projections can show different scales at the same time, and help place an area of interest within its surroundings. By inverting the principle of stereographic projection – projecting spatial features from a map onto a virtual sphere which surrounds the viewer – we present a novel technique for immersive geospatial focus+context that aims to mitigate problems with existing solutions. This sphere can intersect the map, dividing it into two parts: the inside of the sphere, which stays unchanged, and the outside, which gets projected to the surface, resulting in an inversion of the lens metaphor by distorting the context instead of the focus. This detail-in-context visualization maximizes the amount of context that can be legibly shown by the smooth compression inherent to the stereographic projection, and by utilizing otherwise unused screen space in the sky. The projection method allows for easy control over the projection and distortion characteristics by varying only two main parameters – the sphere’s radius and its position. The omnidirectional nature of our system makes it particularly well-suited for immersive displays by accommodating typical immersive exploration and fully utilizing the additional visual space available. Applying our system to an urban environment, we were able to solicit positive reactions during feedback sessions with experts from urbanism

MapStack: Exploring Multilayered Geospatial Data In Virtual Reality

International audienceVirtual reality (VR) headsets offer a large and immersive workspace for displaying visualizations with stereo-scopic vision, compared to traditional environments with monitors or printouts. The controllers for these devices further allow direct three-dimensional interaction with the virtual environment. In this paper, we make use of these advantages to implement a novel multiple and coordinated view (MCV) in the form of a vertical stack, showing tilted layers of geospatial data to facilitate an understanding of multi-layered maps. A formal study based on a use-case from urbanism that requires cross-referencing four layers of geospatial urban data augments our arguments for it by comparing it to more conventional systems similarly implemented in VR: a simpler grid of layers, and switching (blitting) layers on one map. Performance and oculometric analyses showed an advantage of the two spatial-multiplexing methods (the grid or the stack) over the temporal mul-tiplexing in blitting. Overall, users tended to prefer the stack, be ambivalent to the grid, and show dislike for the blitting map. Perhaps more interestingly, we were also able to associate preferences in systems with user characteristics and behavior

Exploring multiple and coordinated views for multilayered geospatial data in virtual reality

Virtual reality (VR) headsets offer a large and immersive workspace for displaying visualizations with stereoscopic vision, as compared to traditional environments with monitors or printouts. The controllers for these devices further allow direct three-dimensional interaction with the virtual environment. In this paper, we make use of these advantages to implement a novel multiple and coordinated view (MCV) system in the form of a vertical stack, showing tilted layers of geospatial data. In a formal study based on a use-case from urbanism that requires cross-referencing four layers of geospatial urban data, we compared it against more conventional systems similarly implemented in VR: a simpler grid of layers, and one map that allows for switching between layers. Performance and oculometric analyses showed a slight advantage of the two spatial-multiplexing methods (the grid or the stack) over the temporal multiplexing in blitting. Subgrouping the participants based on their preferences, characteristics, and behavior allowed a more nuanced analysis, allowing us to establish links between e.g., saccadic information, experience with video games, and preferred system. In conclusion, we found that none of the three systems are optimal and a choice of different MCV systems should be provided in order to optimally engage users

Exploring Crowdsourcing for Subjective Quality Assessment of 3D Graphics

International audienceMultimedia subjective quality assessment experiments are the most prominent and reliable way to evaluate the visual quality as perceived by human observers. Along with laboratory (lab) subjective experiments, crowdsourcing (CS) experiments have become very popular in recent years, e.g., during the COVID-19 pandemic these experiments provide an alternative to lab tests. However, conducting subjective quality assessment tests in CS raises many challenges: internet connection quality, lack of control on participants' environment, participants' consistency and reliability, etc. In this work, we evaluate the performance of CS studies for 3D graphics quality assessment. To this end, we conducted a CS experiment based on the double stimulus impairment scale method and using a dataset of 80 meshes with diffuse color information corrupted by various distortions. We compared its results with those previously obtained in a lab study conducted on the same dataset and in a virtual reality environment. Results show that under controlled conditions and with appropriate participant screening strategies, a CS experiment can be as accurate as a lab experiment