Interactive Gaming Reduces Experimental Pain With or Without a Head Mounted Display

While virtual reality environments have been shown to reduce pain, the precise mechanism that produces the pain attenuating effect has not been established. It has been suggested that it may be the ability to command attentional resources with the use of head mounted displays (HMDs) or the interactivity of the environment. Two experiments compared participants’ pain ratings to high and low levels of electrical stimulation while engaging in interactive gaming with an HMD. In the first, gaming with the HMD was compared to a positive emotion induction condition; and in the second experiment the HMD was compared to a condition in which the game was projected onto a wall. Interactive gaming significantly reduced numerical ratings of painful stimuli when compared to the baseline and affect condition. However, when the two gaming conditions were directly compared, they equally reduced participants’ pain ratings. These data are consistent with past research showing that interactive gaming can attenuate experimentally induced pain and its effects are comparable whether presented in a head mounted display or projected on a wall

Stereoscopic Ray-Tracing

In this paper, we describe a method to create an approximate ray-traced stereoscopic pair by transforming a fully ray-traced left-eye view into an inferred right-eye view. Performance results from evaluating several random scenes are given which indicate that the second view in a stereoscopic image can be computed with as little as 5% of the effort required to fully ray-trace the first view. We also discuss worst case performance of our algorithm, and demonstrate that our technique will always be at least as efficient as two passes of a standard ray-tracer

A method for interactive manipulation and animation of volumetric data

We outline an efficient method for visualizing and manipulating volumetric data, in particular, cardiac MRIdata sets. The approach is designed to allow interactive manipulation and real-time animation of volumetric data sets. The underlying model provides an efficient graphical representation for interactive rendering while not eliminating data from the volume of interest. We believe this model to be a valuable medical imaging tool that is applicable to other volume rendering problems.Directed by James McClella

Evaluation of the CyberGlove(TM) as a Whole Hand Input Device

We present a careful evaluation of the sensor characteristics of the CyberGlove(TM) model CG1801 whole hand input device. In particular, we conducted an experimental study that investigated level of sensitivity of the sensors, their performance in recognized angles, and factors that affect accuracy of recognition of flexion measurements. Among our results, we show that hand size differences between the subjects of the study did not have a statisical affect on the accuracy of the device. We also analyzed the effect of differect software calibration approaches on accuracy of the sensors

The Analytic Distortion Induced by False-Eye Separation in Head-Tracked Stereoscopic Displays

Stereoscopic display is a fundamental part of virtual reality systems such as the virtual workbench, the CAVE and HMD systems. A common practice in stereoscopic systems is deliberate incorrect modeling of user eye separation. Under estimating eye separation can help the human visual system fuse stereo image pairs into single 3D images, while over estimating eye separation enhances image depth. Unfortunately, false eye separation modeling also distorts the perceived 3D image in undesirable ways. We present a novel analytic expression and quantitative analysis of this distortion for eyes at an arbitrary location and orientation

The Simple Virtual Environment Library: Verson 2.0 Users Guide

The Simple Virtual Environments (SVE) C library provides a framework for the development of virtual environment (VE) applications. The library provides the default components of simple VE applications (such as fly-throughs), allowing these applications to be quickly implemented, and allows applications to selectively alter, enhance, or replace components such as user interactions, animations, rendering, and input device polling. The library also allows the hardware and software configuration (devices used and placement in the workspace, location of remote servers, directories, etc.) to be given at run-time using an initialization file. Therefore, SVE provides support for rapid prototyping as well as complete implementation of simple and complex VE applications

Simulator sickness when performing gaze shifts within a wide field of view optic flow environment: preliminary evidence for using virtual reality in vestibular rehabilitation

BACKGROUND: Wide field of view virtual environments offer some unique features that may be beneficial for use in vestibular rehabilitation. For one, optic flow information extracted from the periphery may be critical for recalibrating the sensory processes used by people with vestibular disorders. However, wide FOV devices also have been found to result in greater simulator sickness. Before a wide FOV device can be used in a clinical setting, its safety must be demonstrated. METHODS: Symptoms of simulator sickness were recorded by 9 healthy adult subjects after they performed gaze shifting tasks to locate targets superimposed on an optic flow background. Subjects performed 8 trials of gaze shifting on each of the six separate visits. RESULTS: The incidence of symptoms of simulator sickness while subjects performed gaze shifts in an optic flow environment was lower than the average reported incidence for flight simulators. The incidence was greater during the first visit compared with subsequent visits. Furthermore, the incidence showed an increasing trend over the 8 trials. CONCLUSION: The performance of head unrestrained gaze shifts in a wide FOV optic flow environment is tolerated well by healthy subjects. This finding provides rationale for testing these environments in people with vestibular disorders, and supports the concept of using wide FOV virtual reality for vestibular rehabilitation

Exploratory Design of Animal Habitats Within an Immersive Virtual Environment

One of the first useful applications of virtual environments (VEs) was the architectural walkthrough, in which users view buildings or other structures in a natural, interactive manner. The obvious next step is to allow the user to create or modify designs while immersed in the virtual world, but such "immersive design" systems have not generally been successful, because of a lack of constraints, the inability to perform precise input, the difficulty of performing tasks while immersed, and the fact that designers generally have not been trained to design in all three dimensions, especially in the beginning stages of a project. We present an immersive design application, aimed at university-level architecture students, which addresses these issues. Users of the system are immersed within an existing zoo habitat, and can make modifications and enhancements to the exhibit, using a set of efficient and complementary interaction techniques for navigation, object manipulation, and system control. A usability study has shown that because the students are not creating a complete design, but rather making constrained modifications to an existing one, interesting and unique designs can be achieved in a short time

Direct Manipulation on the Virtual Workbench: Two Hands Aren't Always Better Than One

This paper reports on the investigation of the differential levels of effectiveness of various interaction techniques on a simple rotation and translation task on the virtual workbench. Manipulation time and number of collisions were measured for subjects using four device sets (unimanual glove, bimanual glove, unimanual stick, and bimanual stick). Participants were also asked to subjectively judge each device's effectiveness. Performance results indicated a main effect for device (better performance for users of the stick(s)), but not for number of hands. Subjective results supported these findings, as users expressed a preference for the stick(s)