Open Access

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).

This paper presents the newly founded Institute of Visual Computing at the Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Sciences in Sankt Augustin, Germany. The research focuses as well as an overview of current projects are going to be part of this presentation.

This paper 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 results about gained performance and precision compared with similar solutions on General Purpose Processor (GPP) architectures. The problem of detecting Binary Large OBjects (BLOBs) in a continuous video stream and computation of their center points has been addressed. Most existing solutions are realized on GPP platforms, where resolution of image material and sequential processing define the performance barrier. FPGA based approaches perform implemented algorithms as fast as hardware circuits and in addition offer parallelization abilities. The evaluation compares precision and performance gain against similar approaches on GPP platforms. The paper discusses different concepts for BLOB detection and shows the implementation of one common method for BLOB detection, including design problems and performance evaluation.

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.

Although extensive safety measures and safe working procedures have been applied to improve and secure metal working machines, they still put their operators at risk. These risks might often result from manipulation errors, in particular if safety measures are ignored. In this contribution, a safety evaluation strategy has been developed that applies VR and mixed reality technologies to investigate the usability of working machines. An automatically controlled machine tool was simulated and connected to a real input panel, usually employed in industrial settings. However, Human-Machine Interfaces are sometimes built in a way that does not prevent the operator from cognitive misinterpretations which in turn might result in mistakes. To take that into account, a control program for a lathe was altered by hiding a typical programming mistake in the lines of code. Subjects were given the task to evaluate the program in single step mode and to report abnormalities while running the simulated lathe, comparable to new control program checks at real machines. An evaluation of the study demonstrated that even experienced metal workers accepted the simulation and reacted as if the given task was real. Behavioural data of considered subjects showed comparable profiles and most subjects rated the VR- based approach as a reasonable means for investigating work safety problems.

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.

Die Fachhochschulen haben sich als Hochschulen für angewandte Wissenschaften seit ihrer Gründung Anfang der 70er Jahre deutlich gewandelt. Das Fächerportfolio vieler Fachhochschulen ist inzwischen mit jenem der Universitäten vergleichbar. In einigen Fächern bilden die Fachhochschulen sogar den überwiegenden Anteil von Absolventen aus. Die anwendungsorientierte Spitzenforschung gehört zum Selbstverständnis vieler Fachhochschulen. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es unverständlich und für die wirtschaftliche Zukunftsfähigkeit schädlich, dass Fachhochschulen immer noch deutliche Wettbewerbsnachteile in der Weiterqualifizierung des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses haben. Dies gilt umso mehr, wenn mit Fachhochschulen vergleichbaren privaten Hochschulen das Promotionsrecht zugestanden wird.

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.

Simulations and serious games require realistic behavior of multiple intelligent agents in real-time. One particular issue is how attention and multi-modal sensory memory can be modeled in a natural but effective way, such that agents controllably react to salient objects or are distracted by other multi-modal cues from their current intention. We propose a conceptual framework that provides a solution with adherence to three main design goals: natural behavior, real-time performance, and controllability. As a proof of concept, we implement three major components and showcase effectiveness in a real-time game engine scenario. Within the exemplified scenario, a visual sensor is combined with static saliency probes and auditory cues. The attention model weighs bottom-up attention against intention-related top-down processing, controllable by a designer using memory and attention inhibitor parameters. We demonstrate our case and discuss future extensions.

Developing applications for Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices utilizes Computer Aided Design (CAD) flows. The transition from a high level Verilog hardware description to the optimized structure of programmed soft logic blocks and routing structure includes stages such as Verilog synthesis, hardware mapping, logical synthesis, packing, placement and routing. The VTR CAD flow is a collaborative project consisting of Odin II (University of New Brunswick), ABC (University of California, Berkeley) and VPR (University of Toronto), which offers an FPGA CAD flow for research and experimentation purposes. This paper describes developments in the visualization and simulation modules of Odin II, the first stage of the CAD flow. The contributions include new netlist visualization possibilities as well as an extended netlist simulator capable of simulating circuits with multiple clocks and providing extended generic structure simulation abilities. This results in the possibility to explore and simulate a larger set of new FPGA architectures and evaluate them using the VTR flow.