Cybersickness Influences the Affectieve Appraisal of a Virtual Environment

We investigated if cybersickness has an effect on the affective appraisal of a virtual environment (VE). For many applications it is essential that users experience the simulated environment in a similar way as the corresponding real one. Navigation through VEs is known to negatively influence the physical well-being of observers by inducing cybersickness. Since people tend to misattribute their feelings to the environment they perceive, cybersicknesss may influence their affective appraisal of a VE. Participants passively watched a simulated walk through a VE, while the visual scene continuously performed a quasi-sinusoidal frontal roll oscillation. Immediately after the exposure, they reported their experienced level of cybersickness and assessed the environment on a semantic differential scale. People experiencing cybersickness rated the environment as less pleasant and more arousing, as compared to people with no symptoms. Thus, users suffering from cybersickness misattributed their unpleasant feelings to the affective qualities of the VE. Applications that rely on VEs to evoke the same emotional and affective user responses as their real equivalent should therefore minimise or account for the incidence of cybersicknes

Google Earth based visualization of Dutch land use scenarios: beyond usability

This contribution describes GESO, a tool to prepare a Google Earth visualization of the Dutch land use scenarios as created by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. This Google Earth (GE) for the Sustainable Outlook tool, named GESO aims to be an effective, easy and low cost way to study Sustainable Outlook data via an interactive 3D visualization that integrates the land use icon and landscape feature approach as presented in the VisualScan study. The concept, implementation and usability of GESO are explained, concluded and discussed. The paper starts to explain the context of GESO and the intention to visualize 3-dimensionally land use changes (Al-Kodmany, 2001; Borsboom- van Beurden, 2006; Lammeren, 2004). Out of this context the concept of GESO is presented (architecture). It combines two Dutch authorized datasets (AHN and Top10Vec) into a semi-3D dataset. The impact of the tiling of these data is discussed as well. Secondly the tool transforms these semi 3D data and the Sustainable Outlook results, as created via LUMOS, and linked with 2D- and 3D-objects, into KML files. The KML files, to be viewed by GE, offer the user different levels of detail and combinations of current and future land use to be presented 2D and 3D (visualization). The usability (Sheppard, 2001, Hudson-Smith, 2005) of GESO is explained via the questionnaire that has been offered to many policy makers on different administration levels. The preliminary outcomes of this questionnaire will be presented as well. The type of application and its results will be discussed with reference to comparable approaches. References: Al Kodmany, K. (2001) Supporting imageability on the World Wide Web: Lynch's five elements of the city in community planning. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design. 2001;, 28, 805-832. Borsboom,-van Beurden, J.A.M. (2006), Linking land use modelling and 3D visualisation. A mission impossible In: J. van Leeuwen and H. Timmermans, Innovations in Design and Decision Support Systems in Architecture and Urban Planning, pp. 85-102. Hudson-Smith, A., S. Evans and M. Batty, 2005, Building the Virtual City: Public Participation through e-Democracy, Knowledge, Technology & policy, (18)1, pp.62-85. Lammeren, R. van, R. Olde Loohuis, A. Momot, and S. Ottens, 2004,, VisualScan: 3D visualisations of 2D scenarios, CGI-report 2004-09, ISSN 1568-1874, Wageningen Sheppard, S.R.J., 2001. Guidance for crystal ball gazers: developing a code of ethics for landscape visualisation. Landscape and Urban Planning 54 (1-4): 183-199

Usability of Discovery Portals

As INSPIRE progresses to be implemented in the EU, many new discovery portals are built to facilitate finding spatial data. Currently the structure of the discovery portals is determined by the way spatial data experts like to work. However, we argue that the main target group for discovery portals are not spatial data experts but professionals with limited spatial knowledge, and a focus outside the spatial domain. An exploratory usability experiment was carried out in which three discovery portals were assessed by five participants representing the main target group “the professional outside the spatial domain”. The aim was to accept or reject our proposition that discovery portals are difficult to use for non-GIS specialists, and to identify the main obstacles in the interface. The Think Aloud Protocol was used to conduct the test. The participants were asked to perform the same search task in three discovery portals. Performance, accuracy and emotional response of the participants were assessed. Given the language constraints and the concise task the differences between the discovery portals were found to be relatively small. We conclude that for all portals indexing and underlying techniques are well implemented. The content of metadata is a point of concern. We recommend that more attention should be given to the requirements and expectations of the end-user and the discoverability of the data sets when creating metadata. But most of all the design and implementation of the client interface should be improved

Virtueel trainen met RescueSim : Onderzoek naar ervaringen en leereffecten in het project Samen Voorbereid Veilig (SVV)

Van 2007 tot 2012 hebben onderzoekers van het GATE (GAme research for Training and Entertainment)-project van de Universiteit Utrecht verscheidene onderzoeksprojecten uitgevoerd met de trainingssoftware RescueSim, ontwikkeld door VSTEP BV en Risk Management Control. Centraal stond de vraag hoe een realistische ervaring in de virtuele omgeving, die de leerling optimaal betrekt bij het scenario, kan bijdragen aan het leereffect en de effectiviteit van een training. Dit rapport bevat het verslag van de resultaten van dit onderzoek en bespreekt de implicaties ervan in het licht van actuele inzichten over de effectiviteit van virtuele trainingen

Affective appraisal of virtual environments

Interactive navigable 3D visualisations of built and natural environments have become commonplace in design and planning of urban environments and landscapes, and are regarded as potent prototyping and communication tools. In training applications, for instance for fire fighters, virtual environments displayed on desktop monitors or on projection screens are used to represent situations and scenarios that cannot be created in the real world for reasons of safety, cost, and time. A valid simulated environment should induce not only a cognitive, but also an emotional response in the observer equivalent to the response to the real environment. For visualisations, this means that viewers experience the ‘ambience’ of a place as they would in the real environment. In training environments and serious games, the emotional response of the trainee to the virtual scenario should be similar to the response in a real, often stressful, situation. A common assumption is that the highest possible level of photorealism ensures a valid representation. However, the focus in the development of virtual environments is on spatial tasks or other cognitive tasks, not on the affective qualities of an environment. The virtual environments do not contain the required information for that purpose, which can be visual, but also of other sensory modalities (audio, tactile and olfactory). In eight empirical studies (lab experiments and field studies) we examined factors in the content and representation of the virtual environment, and factors related to user characteristics, and their effects on the emotional response of users. We found that when users appraise a virtual environment they do not distinguish between their appraisals of the represented environment, of the representation, and of their pre-existing individual mental representations. The mental representation fills in more information than the user is aware of. The user’s emotional state, induced by other factors than the virtual environment, such as cybersickness, may influence the appraisal of the virtual environment. The absence of personal involvement, factors that diminish the perceived (graphics and audio) quality of the 3D environment, and factors that distract the attention of the user, attenuate the impact of cues and thereby the intensity of the emotional response. The importance of personal involvement and the context of use of a visualisation or a virtual training for their validity are generally underestimated. We discern three categories of features of real environments, relating to spatial layout and functionality, to the meaning and function of elements of the environment, and ambient conditions, that can be used to guide the modeling process. We developed a comprehensive framework containing factors (such as features of the environment, representational modifiers and response moderators) that influence and modify the appraisal process in virtual environments, that can be used for measuring emotional responses in virtual environments. We complete our research with guidelines for the development and use of desktop virtual environments for visualisations and training application

Task-Relevant Sound and User Experience in Computer- Mediated Firefighter Training

The authors added task-relevant sounds to a computer-mediated instructor in-the-loop virtual training for firefighter commanders in an attempt to raise the engagement and arousal of the users. Computer-mediated training for crew commanders should provide a sensory experience that is sufficiently intense to make the training viable and effective. In practice, sound is an important source of information for firefighters. During an evaluation of a soundless computer-mediated and instructor in-the-loop virtual training, both trainees and instructors frequently remarked that the lack of sound made the simulation less convincing and engaging. Research on entertainment games has shown that users may experience higher levels of presence, engagement, and arousal when sound is included in the simulations. The authors therefore hypothesized that the addition of task-relevant (informative) sounds to a virtual training would raise the engagement and arousal of the users, and the overall convincingness of the simulation. In this study, they included verisimilar and task-relevant sounds in an instructor in-the-loop computer-mediated firefighter training and assessed how these sounds affect user experience. In contrast to the common belief of trainees and instructors, the authors find that merely adding task-relevant sounds does not necessarily increase the engagement and arousal of the users. The authors conclude that the physical presence of (and verbal communication with) the instructor probably distracted from the simulation, and an integral sound design involving mediated communication with a remotely present instructor may be required to resolve this problem