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Most VE-frameworks try to support many different input and output devices. They do not concentrate so much on the rendering because this is tradi- tionally done by graphics workstation. In this short paper we present a modern VE framework that has a small kernel and is able to use different renderers. This includes sound renderers, physics renderers and software based graphics renderers. While our VE framework, named basho is still under development we have an alpha version running under Linux and MacOS X.
The Render Cache [1,2] allows the interactive display of very large scenes, rendered with complex global illumination models, by decoupling camera movement from the costly scene sampling process. In this paper, the distributed execution of the individual components of the Render Cache on a PC cluster is shown to be a viable alternative to the shared memory implementation.As the processing power of an entire node can be dedicated to a single component, more advanced algorithms may be examined. Modular functional units also lead to increased flexibility, useful in research as well as industrial applications.We introduce a new strategy for view-driven scene sampling, as well as support for multiple camera viewpoints generated from the same cache. Stereo display and a CAVE multi-camera setup have been implemented.The use of the highly portable and inter-operable CORBA networking API simplifies the integration of most existing pixel-based renderers. So far, three renderers (C++ and Java) have been adapted to function within our framework.
This paper describes the work done at our Lab to improve visual and other quality of Virtual Environments. To be able to achieve better quality we built a new Virtual Environments framework called basho. basho is a renderer independent VE framework. Although renderers are not limited to graphics renderers we first concentrated on improving visual quality. Independence is gained from designing basho to have a small kernel and several plug-ins.
We present basho, a light weight and easily extendable virtual environment (VE) framework. Key benefits of this framework are independence of the scene element representation and the rendering API. The main goal was to make VE applications flexible without the need to change them, not only by being independent from input and output devices. As an example, with basho it is possible to switch from local illumination models to ray tracing by just replacing the renderer. Or to replace the graphical representation of the scene elements without the need to change the application. Furthermore it is possible to mix rendering technologies within a scene. This paper emphasises on the abstraction of the scene element representation.
A generic approach to describing shape and topography of arbitrary objects is presented, using linguistic variables to combine different features in one fuzzy descriptor. Although the origin of the method lies in molecular visualization and drug design, it can be applied in principle to any surface represented by a polygon mesh. Two approaches to shape description are presented that both lead to linguistic variables that can be used for surface segmentation by means of shape: One approach is based on the calculation of canonical curvatures, the other describes the "embeddedness" of a surface area related to the overall geometry of a 3D object.
The objective of the presented approach is to develop a 3D-reconstruction method for micro organisms from sequences of microscopic images by varying the level-of-focus. The approach is limited to translucent silicatebased marine and freshwater organisms (e.g. radiolarians). The proposed 3D-reconstruction method exploits the connectivity of similarly oriented and spatially adjacent edge elements in consecutive image layers. This yields a 3D-mesh representing the global shape of the objects together with details of the inner structure. Possible applications can be found in comparative morphology or hydrobiology, where e.g. deficiencies in growth and structure during incubation in toxic water or gravity effects on metabolism have to be determined.
The Virtual Memory Palace
(2006)
The intention of the Virtual Memory Palace is to help people memorize information by addressing their visual memory. The concept is based on the “Memory Palace” as an ancient Greek memorization technique, where symbols are placed in a certain way within an imaginative building in order to remember the original information whenever the mind goes through the vision of this building again. The goal of this work was to create such a Memory Palace in a virtual environment, so it requires less creative effort of the contemporary learner than was necessary in ancient Greece. The Virtual Memory Palace offers the possibility to freely explore a virtual 3d architectural model and to place icons at various locations within this model. Specific behaviors were assigned to these locations to make them more memorable. To test the benefit of this concept, an experiment with 15 subjects was conducted. The results show a higher remembrance rate of items learned in the Virtual Memory Palace compared to a wordlist. The observations made during the test showed that most of the subjects enjoyed the memorization environment and were astonished how well the Virtual Memory Palace worked for them.
In this paper, we describe an approach to academic teaching in computer science using storytelling as a means for background research to hypermedia and virtual reality topics. It is shown that narrative activity within the context of a Hypermedia Novel related to educational content can enhance motivation for self-conducted learning and in parallel lead to an edutainment system of its own. The narrative practice and background research as well as the resulting product can supplement lecture material with comparable success to traditional academic teaching approaches.
In this contribution a machine vision inspection system is presented which is designed as a length measuring sensor. It is developed to be applied to a range of heat shrink tubes, varying in length, diameter and color. The challenges of this task were the precision and accuracy demands as well as the real-time applicability of the entire approach since it should be realized in regular industrial line production. In production, heat shrink tubes are cut to specific sizes from a continuous tube. A multi-measurement strategy has been developed, which measures each individual tube segment several times with sub pixel accuracy while being in the visual field. The developed approach allows for a contact-free and fully automatic control of 100% of produced heat shrink tubes according to the given requirements with a measuring precision of 0.1mm. Depending on the color, length and diameter of the tubes considered, a true positive rate of 99.99% to 100% has been reached at a true negative rate of > 99.7.
Phase Space Rendering
(2007)
GL-Wrapper for Stereoscopic Rendering of Standard Applications for a PC-based Immersive Environment
(2007)
In the presented project, new approaches for the prevention of hand movements leading to hazards and for non-contact detection of fingers are intended to permit comprehensive and economical protection on circular saws. The basic principles may also be applied to other machines with manual loading and/or unloading. Two new detection principles are explained. The first is the distinction between skin and wood or other material by spectral analysis in the near infrared region. Using LED and photodiodes it is possible to detect fingers and hands reliable. With a kind of light curtain the intrusion into the dangerous zone near the blade can be prevented. The second principle is video image processing to detect persons, arms and fingers. In the first stage of development the detection of upper limb extremities within a defined hazard area by means of a computer based video image analysis is investigated.
A Bicycle Simulator Based on a Motion Platform in a Virtual Reality Environment - FIVIS Project
(2007)
The objective of the FIVIS project is to develop a bicycle simulator which is able to simulate real life bicycle ride situations as a virtual scenario within an immersive environment. A sample test bicycle is mounted on a motion platform to enable a close to reality simulation of turns and balance situations. The visual field of the bike rider is enveloped within a multi-screen visualization environment which provides visual data relative to the motion and activity of the test bicycle. This implies the bike rider has to pedal and steer the bicycle as they would a traditional bicycle, while forward motion is recorded and processed to control the visualization. Furthermore, the platform is fed with real forces and accelerations that have been logged by a mobile data acquisition system during real bicycle test drives. Thus, using a feedback system makes the movements of the platform reflect the virtual environment and the reaction of the driver (e.g. steering angle, step rate).
In this paper we present an ongoing research work dedicated to a Virtual-Reality-based product customization application development. The work is addressing the problem of flexible and quick customization of products from a great number of parts. Our application is an effective instrument that can be simultaneously used by two users for rapid assembly tasks, allowing engineers and designers to work collaboratively. Furthermore, it is directly connected to a manufacturing environment, which is able to produce the product right after customization. In the paper we describe the architecture of the application, our interaction and assembly techniques, and explain how the system can be integrated into a manufacturing environment.
Video Surveillance is in the center of research due to high importance of safety and security issues. Usually, humans have to monitor an area and often they have to do this for 24 hours a day. Thus, it would be desirable to have automatic surveillance systems that support this job automatically. The system described in this paper is such an automatic surveillance system that has been developed to detect several dangerous situations in a subway station. This paper discusses the high-level module of the system. Herein, an expert system is used to detect events.
Todays Virtual Environment frameworks use scene graphs to represent virtual worlds. We believe that this is a proper technical approach, but a VE framework should try to model its application area as accurate as possible. Therefore a scene graph is not the best way to represent a virtual world. In this paper we present an easily extensible model to describe entities in the virtual world. Further on we show how this model drives the design of our VE framework and how it is integrated.
A Low-Cost Based 6 DoF Head Tracker for Usability Application Studies in Virtual Environments
(2008)
The objective of the FIVIS project is to develop a bicycle simulator which is able to simulate real life bicycle ride situations as a virtual scenario within an immersive environment. A sample test bicycle is mounted on a motion platform to enable a close to reality simulation of turns and balance situations. The visual field of the bike rider is enveloped within a multi-screen visualisation environment which provides visual data relative to the motion and activity of the test bicycle. That means the bike rider has to pedal and steer the bicycle as a usual bicycle, while the motion is recorded and processed to control the simulation. Furthermore, the platform is fed with real forces and accelerations that have been logged by a mobile data acquisition system during real bicycle test drives. Thus, using a feedback system makes the movements of the platform match to the virtual environment and the reaction of the driver (e.g. steering angle, step rate).
Ray Tracing, accurate physical simulations with collision detection, particle systems and spatial audio rendering are only a few components that become more and more interesting for Virtual Environments due to the steadily increasing computing power. Many components use geometric queries for their calculations. To speed up those queries spatial data structures are used. These data structures are mostly implemented for every problem individually resulting in many individually maintained parts, unnecessary memory consumption and waste of computing power to maintain all the individual data structures. We propose a design for a centralized spatial data structure that can be used everywhere within the system.
We present an interactive system that uses ray tracing as a rendering technique. The system consists of a modular Virtual Reality framework and a cluster-based ray tracing rendering extension running on a number of Cell Broadband Engine-based servers. The VR framework allows for loading rendering plugins at runtime. By using this combination it is possible to simulate interactively effects from geometric optics, like correct reflections and refractions.
3D tracking using multiple Nintendo Wii Remotes: a simple consumer hardware tracking approach
(2009)
An easy to build and cost-effective 3D tracking solution is presented, using Nintendo Wii Remotes acting as cameras. As the hardware differs from usual tracking cameras, the calibration and tracking process has to be adapted accordingly. The tracking approach described could be used for tracking the user's motions in video games based upon physical activity (sports, fighting or dancing games), allowing the player to interact with the game in a more intuitive way than by just pressing buttons.
How Does Self-Perception Influence the Choice of Study? E-Portfolio and Gender Issues in Informatics
(2009)
This report presents the implementation and evaluation of a computer vision task on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). As an experimental approach for an application-specific image-processing problem it provides reliable results to measure gained performance and precision compared with similar solutions on General Purpose Processor (GPP) architectures.
The project addresses the problem of detecting Binary Large OBjects (BLOBs) in a continuous video stream. For this problem a number of different solutions exist. But most of these are realized on GPP platforms, where resolution and processing speed define the performance barrier. With the opportunity of parallelization and performance abilities like in hardware, the application of FPGAs become interesting. This work belongs to the MI6 project from the Computer Vision research group of the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg. It address the detection of the users position and orientation in relation to the virtual environment in an Immersion Square.
The goal is to develop a light emitting device, that points from the user towards the point of interest on the projection screen. The projected light dots are used to represent the user in the virtual environment. By detecting the light dots with video cameras, the idea is to interface the position and orientation of the relative position of the user interface. Fort that the laser dots need to be arranged in a unique pattern, which requires at least five points.[29] For a reliable estimation a robust computation of the BLOB's center-points is necessary.
This project has covered the development of a BLOB detection system on a FPGA platform. It detects binary spatially extended objects in a continuous video stream and computes their center points. The results are displayed to the user and where validated for their ground truth. The evaluation compares precision and performance gain against similar approaches on GPP platforms.
In this paper, we describe an approach to academic teaching in computer science using storytelling as a means to investigate to hypermedia and virtual reality topics. Indications are shown that narrative activity within the context of a Hypermedia Novel related to educational content can enhance motivation for self-conducted learning and in parallel lead to an edutainment system of its own. In contrast to existing approaches the Hypermedia Novel environment allows an iterative approach to the narrative content, thereby integrating story authoring and story reception not only in the beginning but at any time. The narrative practice and background research as well as the resulting product can supplement lecture material with comparable success to traditional academic teaching approaches. On top of this there is the added value of soft skill training and a gain of expert knowledge in areas of personal background research.
Simultaneous detection of cyanide and heavy metals for environmental analysis by means of µISEs
(2010)
In this contribution, we describe the activities and promotion programs installed at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University as an institution and at the Department of Computer Science respectively for increasing the total number of computer science students and in particular the female rate. We report about our experiences in addressing gender aspects in education and try to evaluate the outcome of our programs with respect to our equal rights for women strategy. We propose a closer look at mental self-theories enabled by E-portfolios to address also gender issues in Computer Science. Moreover, reasons are identified and discussed which may be responsible for the reduced interest in particular of female young adults to choose a computer science study program.
The perceived distance of self motion induced in a stationary observer by optic flow is overestimated (Redlick et al., Vis Res. 2001 41: 213). Here we assessed how different components of translational optic flow contribute to perceived distance traveled. Subjects sat on a stationary bicycle in front of a virtual reality display that extended beyond 90deg on each side. They monocularly viewed a target presented in a virtual hallway wallpapered with stripes that changed colour to prevent tracking individual stripes. Subjects then looked centrally or 30, 60 or 90° eccentrically while their view was restricted to an ellipse with faded edges (25 x 42deg) centered on their fixation. Subjects judged when they had reached the target’s remembered position. Perceptual gain (perceived/actual distance traveled) was highest when subjects were looking in a direction that depended on the simulated speed of motion. Results were modeled as the sum of separate mechanisms sensitive to radial and laminar optic flow. In our display distances were perceived as compressed. However, there was no correlation between perceptual compression and perceived speed of motion. These results suggest that visually induced self motion in virtual displays can be subject to large but predictable error.
This contribution presents an easy to implement 3D tracking approach that works with a single standard webcam. We describe the algorithm and show that it is well suited for being used as an intuitive interaction method in 3D video games. The algorithm can detect and distinguish multiple objects in real-time and obtain their orientation and position relative to the camera. The trackable objects are equipped with planar patterns of five visual markers. By tracking (stereo) glasses worn by the user and adjusting the in-game camera's viewing frustum accordingly, the well-known immersive "screen as a window" effect can be achieved, even without the use of any special tracking equipment.
In Mixed Reality (MR) Environments, the user's view is augmented with virtual, artificial objects. To visualize virtual objects, the position and orientation of the user's view or the camera is needed. Tracking of the user's viewpoint is an essential area in MR applications, especially for interaction and navigation. In present systems, the initialization is often complex. For this reason, we introduce a new method for fast initialization of markerless object tracking. This method is based on Speed Up Robust Features and paradoxically on a traditional marker-based library. Most markerless tracking algorithms can be divided into two parts: an offline and an online stage. The focus of this paper is optimization of the offline stage, which is often time-consuming.
An electronic display often has to present information from several sources. This contribution reports about an approach, in which programmable logic (FPGA) synchronises and combines several graphics inputs. The application area is computer graphics, especially rendering of large 3D models, which is a computing intensive task. Therefore, complex scenes are generated on parallel systems and merged to give the requested output image. So far, the transportation of intermediate results is often done by a local area network. However, as this can be a limiting factor, the new approach removes this bottleneck and combines the graphic signals with an FPGA.
This paper describes FGPA-based image combining for parallel graphics systems. The goal of our current work is to reduce network traffic and latency for increasing performance in parallel visualization systems. Initial data distribution is based on a common ethernet network whereas image combining and returning differs to traditional parallel rendering methods. Calculated sub-images are grabbed directly from the DVI-Ports for fast image compositing by a FPGA-based combiner.
This report presents the implementation and evaluation of a computer vision problem on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). This work is based upon [5] where the feasibility of application specific image processing algorithms on a FPGA platform have been evaluated by experimental approaches. The results and conclusions of that previous work builds the starting point for the work, described in this report. The project results show considerable improvement of previous implementations in processing performance and precision. Different algorithms for detecting Binary Large OBjects (BLOBs) more precisely have been implemented. In addition, the set of input devices for acquiring image data has been extended by a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) camera. The main goal of the designed system is to detect BLOBs in continuous video image material and compute their center points.
This work belongs to the MI6 project from the Computer Vision research group of the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg1 . The intent is the invention of a passive tracking device for an immersive environment to improve user interaction and system usability. Therefore the detection of the users position and orientation in relation to the projection surface is required. For a reliable estimation a robust and fast computation of the BLOB's center-points is necessary. This project has covered the development of a BLOB detection system on an Altera DE2 Development and Education Board with a Cyclone II FPGA. It detects binary spatially extended objects in image material and computes their center points. Two different sources have been applied to provide image material for the processing. First, an analog composite video input, which can be attached to any compatible video device. Second, a five megapixel CCD camera, which is attached to the DE2 board. The results are transmitted on the serial interface of the DE2 board to a PC for validation of their ground truth and further processing. The evaluation compares precision and performance gain dependent on the applied computation methods and the input device, which is providing the image material.
Reversible logic synthesis is an emerging research topic with different application areas like low-power CMOS design, quantum- and optical computing. The key motivation behind reversible logic synthesis is the optimization of the heat dissipation problem current architectures show, by reducing it to theoretically zero [2].
This contribution describes an optical laser-based user interaction system designed for virtual reality (VR) environments. The project's objective is to realize a 6-DoF user input device for interaction with VR applications running in CAVE-type visualization environments with flat projections walls. In case of a back-projection VR system, in contrast to optical tracking systems, no camera has to be placed within the visualization environment. Instead, cameras observe patterns of laser beam projections from behind the screens. These patterns are emitted by a hand-held input device. The system is robust with respect to partial occlusion of the laser pattern. An inertial measurement unit is integrated into the device in order to improve robustness and precision.
We present the extensible post processing framework GrIP, usable for experimenting with screen space-based graphics algorithms in arbitrary applications. The user can easily implement new ideas as well as add known operators as components to existing ones. Through a well-defined interface, operators are realized as plugins that are loaded at run-time. Operators can be combined by defining a post processing graph (PPG) using a specific XML-format where nodes are the operators and edges define their dependencies. User-modifiable parameters can be manipulated through an automatically generated GUI. In this paper we describe our approach, show some example effects and give performance numbers for some of them.
We present a graph-based framework for post processing filters, called GrIP, providing the possibility of arranging and connecting compatible filters in a directed, acyclic graph for realtime image manipulation. This means that the construction of whole filter graphs is possible through an external interface, avoiding the necessity of a recompilation cycle after changes in post processing. Filter graphs are implemented as XML files containing a collection of filter nodes with their parameters as well as linkage (dependency) information. Implemented methods include (but are not restricted to) depth of field, depth darkening and an implementation of screen space shadows, all applicable in real-time, with manipulable parameterizations.
Having multiple talkers on a bus system rises the bandwidth on this bus. To monitor the communication on a bus, tools that constantly read the bus are needed. This report shows an implementation of a monitoring system for the CAN bus utilizing the Altera DE2 development board. The Biomedical Institute of the University of New Brunswick is currently developing together with different partners a prosthetic limb device, the UNB hand. Communication in this device is done via two CAN buses, which operate at a bit-rate of 1 Mbit/s. The developed monitoring system has been completely designed in Verilog HDL. It monitors the CAN bus in real-time and allows monitoring of different modules as well as of the overall load. The calculated data is displayed on the built-in LCD and also transmitted via UART to a PC. A sample receiver programmed in C is also given. The evaluation of this system has been done by using the Microchip CAN Bus Analyzer Tool connected to the GPIO port of the development board that simulates CAN communication.
Nowadays Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) are used in many fields of research, e.g. to create prototypes of hardware or in applications where hardware functionality has to be changed more frequently. Boolean circuits, which can be implemented by FPGAs are the compiled result of hardware description languages such as Verilog or VHDL. Odin II is a tool, which supports developers in the research of FPGA based applications and FPGA architecture exploration by providing a framework for compilation and verification. In combination with the tools ABC, T-VPACK and VPR, Odin II is part of a CAD flow, which compiles Verilog source code that targets specific hardware resources. This paper describes the development of a graphical user interface as part of Odin II. The goal is to visualize the results of these tools in order to explore the changing structure during the compilation and optimization processes, which can be helpful to research new FPGA architectures and improve the workflow.
This paper describes adaptive time frequency analysis of EEG signals, both in theory as well as in practice. A momentary frequency estimation algorithm is discussed and applied to EEG time series of test persons performing a concentration experiment. The motivation for deriving and implementing a time frequency estimator is the assumption that an emotional change implies a transient in the measured EEG time series, which again are superimposed by biological white noise as well as artifacts. It will be shown how accurately and robustly the estimator detects the transient even under such complicated conditions.
Along with the success of the digitally revived stereoscopic cinema, other events beyond 3D movies become attractive for movie theater operators, i.e. interactive 3D games. In this paper, we present a case that explores possible challenges and solutions for interactive 3D games to be played by a movie theater audience. We analyze the setting and showcase current issues related to lighting and interaction. Our second focus is to provide gameplay mechanics that make special use of stereoscopy, especially depth-based game design. Based on these results, we present YouDash3D, a game prototype that explores public stereoscopic gameplay in a reduced kiosk setup. It features live 3D HD video stream of a professional stereo camera rig rendered in a real-time game scene. We use the effect to place the stereoscopic effigies of players into the digital game. The game showcases how stereoscopic vision can provide for a novel depth-based game mechanic. Projected trigger zones and distributed clusters of the audience video allow for easy adaptation to larger audiences and 3D movie theater gaming.
We present our approach to extend a Virtual Reality software framework towards the use for Augmented Reality applications. Although VR and AR applications have very similar requirements in terms of abstract components (like 6DOF input, stereoscopic output, simulation engines), the requirements in terms of hardware and software vary considerably. In this article we would like to share the experience gained from adapting our VR software framework for AR applications. We will address design issues for this task. The result is a VR/AR basic software that allows us to implement interactive applications without fixing their type (VR or AR) beforehand. Switching from VR to AR is a matter of changing the configuration file of the application. We also give an example of the use of the extended framework: Augmenting the magnetic field of bar magnets in physics classes. We describe the setup of the system and the real-time calculation of the magnetic field, using a GPU.
This paper compares the memory allocation of two Java virtual machines, namely Oracle Java HotSpot VM 32-bit (OJVM) and Jamaica JamaicaVM (JJVM). The basic difference of the architectures in both machines is that the JamaicaVM uses fixed-size blocks for allocating objects on the heap. The basic difference of the architectures is that the JJVM uses fixed size block allocation on the heap. This means that objects have to be split into several connected blocks if they are bigger than the specified block-size. On the other hand, for small objects a full block must be allocated. The paper contains both theoretical and experimental analysis on the memory-overhead. The theoretical analysis is based on specifications of the two virtual machines. The experimental analysis is done with a modified JVMTI Agent together with the SPECjvm2008 Benchmark.
Traffic simulations for virtual environments are concerned with the behavior of individual traffic participants. The complexity of behavior in these simulations is often rather simple to abide by the constraints of processing resources. In sophisticated traffic simulations, the behavior of individual traffic participants is also modeled, but the focus lies on the overall behavior of the entire system, e.g. to identify possible bottle necks of traffic flow [8].
Using virtual environment systems for road safety education requires a realistic simulation of road traffic. Current traffic simulations are either too restricted in their complexity of agent behavior or focus on aspects not important in virtual environments. More importantly, none of them are concerned with modeling misbehavior of traffic participants which is part of every-day traffic and should therefore not be neglected in this context. We present a concept for a traffic simulation that addresses the need for more realistic agent behavior with regard to road safety education. The two major components of this concept are a simulation of persistent agents which minimizes computational overhead and a model of cognitive processes of human drivers combined with psychological personality profiles to allow for individual behavior and misbehavior.
Traffic simulations are typically concerned with modeling human behavior as closely as possible to create realistic results. In conventional traffic simulations used for road planning or traffic jam prediction only the overall behavior of an entire system is of interest. In virtual environments, like digital games, simulated traffic participants are merely a backdrop to the player’s experience and only need to be “sufficiently realistic”. Additionally, restricted computational resources, typical for virtual environment applications, usually limit the complexity of simulated behavior in this field. More importantly, two integral aspects of real-world traffic are not considered in current traffic simulations from both fields: misbehavior and risk taking of traffic participants. However, for certain applications like the FIVIS bicycle simulator, these aspects are essential.
Traditionally traffic simulations are used to predict traffic jams, plan new roads or highways, and estimate road safety. They are also used in computer games and virtual environments. There are two general concepts of modeling traffic: macroscopic and microscopic modeling. Macroscopic traffic models take vehicle collectives into account and do not consider individual vehicles. Parameters like average velocity and density are used to model the flow of traffic. In contrast, microscopic traffic models consider each vehicle individually. Therefore, vehicle specific parameters are of importance, e.g. current velocity, desired velocity, velocity difference to the lead vehicle, individual time gap.