53 research outputs found
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
Project Elements: A computational entity-component-system in a scene-graph pythonic framework, for a neural, geometric computer graphics curriculum
We present the Elements project, a computational science and computer
graphics (CG) framework, that offers for the first time the advantages of an
Entity-Component-System (ECS) along with the rapid prototyping convenience of a
Scenegraph-based pythonic framework. This novelty allows advances in the
teaching of CG: from heterogeneous directed acyclic graphs and depth-first
traversals, to animation, skinning, geometric algebra and shader-based
components rendered via unique systems all the way to their representation as
graph neural networks for 3D scientific visualization. Taking advantage of the
unique ECS in a a Scenegraph underlying system, this project aims to bridge CG
curricula and modern game engines, that are based on the same approach but
often present these notions in a black-box approach. It is designed to actively
utilize software design patterns, under an extensible open-source approach.
Although Elements provides a modern, simple to program pythonic approach with
Jupyter notebooks and unit-tests, its CG pipeline is not black-box, exposing
for teaching for the first time unique challenging scientific, visual and
neural computing concepts.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, 2 listings, submitted to EuroGraphics 2023
education trac
Progressive tearing and cutting of soft-bodies in high-performance virtual reality
We present an algorithm that allows a user within a virtual environment to
perform real-time unconstrained cuts or consecutive tears, i.e., progressive,
continuous fractures on a deformable rigged and soft-body mesh model in
high-performance 10ms. In order to recreate realistic results for different
physically-principled materials such as sponges, hard or soft tissues, we
incorporate a novel soft-body deformation, via a particle system layered on-top
of a linear-blend skinning model. Our framework allows the simulation of
realistic, surgical-grade cuts and continuous tears, especially valuable in the
context of medical VR training. In order to achieve high performance in VR, our
algorithms are based on Euclidean geometric predicates on the rigged mesh,
without requiring any specific model pre-processing. The contribution of this
work lies on the fact that current frameworks supporting similar kinds of model
tearing, either do not operate in high-performance real-time or only apply to
predefined tears. The framework presented allows the user to freely cut or tear
a 3D mesh model in a consecutive way, under 10ms, while preserving its
soft-body behaviour and/or allowing further animation.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, submitted to "International Conference
on Artificial Reality and Telexistence, Eurographics Symposium on Virtual
Environments 2022
A True AR Authoring Tool for Interactive Virtual Museums
In this work, a new and innovative way of spatial computing that appeared
recently in the bibliography called True Augmented Reality (AR), is employed in
cultural heritage preservation. This innovation could be adapted by the Virtual
Museums of the future to enhance the quality of experience. It emphasises, the
fact that a visitor will not be able to tell, at a first glance, if the
artefact that he/she is looking at is real or not and it is expected to draw
the visitors' interest. True AR is not limited to artefacts but extends even to
buildings or life-sized character simulations of statues. It provides the best
visual quality possible so that the users will not be able to tell the real
objects from the augmented ones. Such applications can be beneficial for future
museums, as with True AR, 3D models of various exhibits, monuments, statues,
characters and buildings can be reconstructed and presented to the visitors in
a realistic and innovative way. We also propose our Virtual Reality Sample
application, a True AR playground featuring basic components and tools for
generating interactive Virtual Museum applications, alongside a 3D
reconstructed character (the priest of Asinou church) facilitating the
storyteller of the augmented experience.Comment: This is a preprint of a chapter for a planned book that was initiated
by "Visual Computing in Cultural Heritage" and that is expected to be
published by Springer. The final book chapter will differ from this preprin
Literary Myths in Mixed Reality
It is well-known that the Decadent movement in European literature (fin de siècle) depends on the narrative of the antiquity, as it is revealed from the discoveries of archeology in the second half of the nineteenth century. Amid the ruins of the past authors, painters and poets re-conceptualize time and history through a modernist vision based on an imaginary reconfiguration of the antiquity. In this context, the myth of a city (Pompeii) or of a woman (Salomé) offer examples that would illustrate in a great variety the synergy of a multi-temporal and multi-cultural memory of the myth. In this paper we identify a “content-based” shortcoming of modern Mixed Reality (MR) intangible and tangible digital heritage storytelling applications for digital humanities. It is an important problem as the very nature of these applications has often been identified with either misguided storytelling, or non-compelling, non-engaging narratives, except the initial captivating moments due to the immersive 3D visual simulation. We propose a new concept that forthcoming MR applications can draw from: “Literature-based MR Presence.” Based on modern literature excerpts associated with the real heritage sites, digital narratives can achieve new depths of Presence (phenomenon of behaving and feeling, as if we are in the virtual/augmented world created by computerized displays). They would evoke deeper sensations if their dramaturgical plots were based on literary texts associated with the heritage sites, from users, as similar to those often associated with cognitive presence, e.g., when someone is feeling of being transported in an alternate reality when simply reading a compelling novel or poem. We examine modern MR simulations and serious games for digital heritage and propose this conceptual framework to study them under this new concept, in order to achieve heightened feeling of Presence in the virtual heritage simulations, based on recent novel h/w advances. Two cases of a tangible historical place (Pompeii) and an intangible character (Salome) are identified as cultural heritage items, with associated reconstruction examples via Mixed Reality simulations and corresponding early modern literary works
A virtual 3D mobile guide in the INTERMEDIA project
In this paper, we introduce a European research project, interactive media with personal networked devices (INTERMEDIA) in which we seek to progress beyond home and device-centric convergence toward truly user-centric convergence of multimedia. Our vision is to make the user the multimedia center: the user as the point at which multimedia services and the means for interacting with them converge. This paper proposes the main research goals in providing users with a personalized interface and content independent of physical networked devices, and space and time. As a case study, we describe an indoors, mobile mixed reality guide system: Chloe@University. With a see-through head-mounted display (HMD) connected to a small wearable computing device, Chloe@University provides users with an efficient way to guide someone in a building. A 3D virtual character in front of the user guides him/her to the required destinatio
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