A computational medical XR discipline

Computational medical XR (extended reality) brings together life sciences and neuroscience with mathematics, engineering, and computer science. It unifies computational science (scientific computing) with intelligent extended reality and spatial computing for the medical field. It significantly extends previous Clinical XR, by integrating computational methods from neural simulation to computational geometry, computational vision and computer graphics up to theoretical computer science to solve hard problems in medicine and neuroscience: from low-code/no-code authoring medical XR platforms to deep learning systems for diagnostics, therapeutics, rehabilitation and from surgical planning to real-time operative navigation in XR

Recreating Daily life in Pompeii

[EN] We propose an integrated Mixed Reality methodology for recreating ancient daily life that features realistic simulations of animated virtual human actors (clothes, body, skin, face) who augment real environments and re-enact staged storytelling dramas. We aim to go further from traditional concepts of static cultural artifacts or rigid geometrical and 2D textual augmentations and allow for 3D, interactive, augmented historical character-based event representations in a mobile and wearable setup. This is the main contribution of the described work as well as the proposed extensions to AR Enabling technologies: a VR/AR character simulation kernel framework with real-time, clothed virtual humans that are dynamically superimposed on live camera input, animated and acting based on a predefined, historically correct scenario. We demonstrate such a real-time case study on the actual site of ancient Pompeii.The work presented has been supported by the Swiss Federal Office for Education and Science and the EU IST programme, in frame of the EU IST LIFEPLUS 34545 and EU ICT INTERMEDIA 38417 projects.Magnenat-Thalmann, N.; Papagiannakis, G. (2010). Recreating Daily life in Pompeii. Virtual Archaeology Review. 1(2):19-23. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2010.4679OJS192312P. MILGRAM, F. KISHINO, (1994) "A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays", IEICE Trans. Information Systems, vol. E77-D, no. 12, pp. 1321-1329R. AZUMA, Y. BAILLOT, R. BEHRINGER, S. FEINER, S. JULIER, B. MACINTYRE, (2001) "Recent Advances in Augmented Reality", IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, November/December http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/38.963459D. STRICKER, P. DÄHNE, F. SEIBERT, I. CHRISTOU, L. ALMEIDA, N. IOANNIDIS, (2001) "Design and Development Issues for ARCHEOGUIDE: An Augmented Reality-based Cultural Heritage On-site Guide", EuroImage ICAV 3D Conference in Augmented Virtual Environments and Three-dimensional Imaging, Mykonos, Greece, 30 May-01 JuneW. WOHLGEMUTH, G. TRIEBFÜRST, (2000)"ARVIKA: augmented reality for development, production and service", DARE 2000 on Designing augmented reality environments, Elsinore, Denmark http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/354666.354688H. TAMURA, H. YAMAMOTO, A. KATAYAMA, (2001) "Mixed reality: Future dreams seen at the border between real and virtual worlds", Computer Graphics and Applications, vol.21, no.6, pp.64-70 http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/38.963462M. PONDER, G. PAPAGIANNAKIS, T. MOLET, N. MAGNENAT-THALMANN, D. THALMANN, (2003) "VHD++ Development Framework: Towards Extendible, Component Based VR/AR Simulation Engine Featuring Advanced Virtual Character Technologies", IEEE Computer Society Press, CGI Proceedings, pp. 96-104 http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/cgi.2003.1214453Archaeological Superintendence of Pompeii (2009), http://www.pompeiisites.orgG. PAPAGIANNAKIS, S. SCHERTENLEIB, B. O'KENNEDY , M. POIZAT, N.MAGNENAT-THALMANN, A. STODDART, D.THALMANN, (2005) "Mixing Virtual and Real scenes in the site of ancient Pompeii",Journal of CAVW, p 11-24, Volume 16, Issue 1, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, FebruaryEGGES, A., PAPAGIANNAKIS, G., MAGNENAT-THALMANN, N., (2007) "Presence and Interaction in Mixed Reality", The Visual Computer, Springer-Verlag Volume 23, Number 5, MaySEO H., MAGNENAT-THALMANN N. (2003), An Automatic Modeling of Human Bodies from Sizing Parameters. In ACM SIGGRAPH, Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, pp19-26, pp234. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/641480.641487VOLINO P., MAGNENAT-THALMANN N. (2006), Resolving Surface Collisions through Intersection Contour Minimization. In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Siggraph 2006 proceedings), 25(3), pp 1154-1159. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1179352.1142007http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1141911.1142007PAPAGIANNAKIS, G., SINGH, G., MAGNENAT-THALMANN, N., (2008) "A survey of mobile and wireless technologies for augmented reality systems", Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 19, 1, pp. 3-22, February http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cav.22

Self adaptive animation based on user perspective

In this paper we present a new character animation technique in which the animation adapts itself based on the change in the user's perspective, so that when the user moves and their point of viewing the animation changes, then the character animation adapts itself in response to that change. The resulting animation, generated in real-time, is a blend of key animations provided a priori by the animator. The blending is done with the help of efficient dual-quaternion transformation blending. The user's point of view is tracked using either computer vision techniques or a simple user-controlled input modality, such as mouse-based input. This tracked point of view is then used to suitably select the blend of animations. We show a way to author and use such animations in both virtual as well as augmented reality scenarios and demonstrate that it significantly heightens the sense of presence for the users when they interact with such self adaptive animations of virtual character

Energy Harvesting from Roadways

AbstractThis paper presents a preview of an ongoing study to develop an energy harvesting system based on piezoelectric elements embedded into the pavements structure. The system development involved designing and testing a number of prototypes in the laboratory under controlled stress conditions. In addition, it involved numerical modeling of the stress distribution in the power generation module and economic analysis of the value of the electric power generated, under a given traffic composition scenario. The results available to date suggest that this technology shows promise in powering LED traffic lights and wireless sensors embedded into pavement structures

Anthropogenic impacts on urban watersheds : insights from LA-ICP-MS analyses of bald cypress tree cores

This study provides insights into the impact of anthropogenic factors on urban watersheds using elemental analysis of bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) tree cores as a proxy for watershed water chemistry. It compares five trees from two watersheds in Austin, Texas, three from the highly urbanized Waller Creek watershed (Waller Ck.) and two from the less urbanized Onion Creek watershed (Onion Ck.). Measurements are carried out by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). LA-ICP-MS was calibrated/verified by solution ICP-MS measurements of two certified reference materials. The time series of elemental concentrations revealed (1) distinctly different patterns between sapwood and heartwood, (2) distinct increases in concentrations coinciding with severe drought, (3) similarities between some elemental concentrations in tree rings and streamwater, and (4) similar patterns in concentration biplots between elements in the tree rings and the streamwater for both watersheds. The latter supports the hypothesis that dendrochemistry can serve as a proxy for streamwater chemistry. The elements associated with traffic and municipal water leakage were established from the literature and their historic trends analyzed in conjunction with changes in traffic volumes and NRW losses. In analyzing these trends, the uncertainty in measuring the concentration of each element was considered. Over the 2001-2021 period, several traffic-associated elements (K and Cr) were found to increase with increasing Onion Ck. traffic, while only Zn was found to decrease with decreasing Waller Ck. traffic. Given the uncertainties on measuring Al and Cu, no clear correlation was established between changes of these elements and traffic. The concentrations of municipal water leakage-associated elements Mg and Cu were found to increase in Waller Ck. only suggesting that that this is a problem in the heavily urbanized watershed. Although this analysis was not able to separate the sources contributing to these elemental concentration changes, it provided insights into the effect of urbanization on urban watersheds. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) analysis is used to compare the two watersheds in terms of the relative proportion of elements over time (period 1983-2019). Six factors are fitted and their relationship to elemental concentrations is defined. The results, although dominated by Mg, K and Fe, which are common in topsoil, show that Cu and Fe, which are associated with traffic and municipal water, are higher in Waller Ck. than Onion Ck.Energy and Earth Resource