Coupling of interactive manufacturing operations simulation and immersive virtual reality

This paper presents a novel general-purpose simulation analysis application that combines concurrent operations simulation with the advanced data interrogation and user interaction capabilities of immersive virtual reality systems. The application allows for interactive modification of the simulation parameters, while providing the users with the available simulation information by effectively placing the operator in the midst of the environment being simulated. The major contribution of this research is the total integration of the immersive virtual reality environment with the simulation, allowing users in the environment to interactively change the inputs to the simulation as it is running. Implementation and functionality details of the developed application are presented. The experience of using the application to analyze a manufacturing operation in a collaborative scenario is also discussed.     

桌面虚拟现实技术在电子商务商品展示中的应用

虚拟现实技术是一种计算机仿真技术,可以提供更为直观的用户界面与交互接口。本文鉴于虚拟现实技术在WEB表现中的独特优势,提出将其应用到电子商务中商品展示中,以使用户获得更佳的购物体验。     

桌面虚拟现实技术在电子商务商品展示中的应用

虚拟现实技术是一种计算机仿真技术，可以提供更为直观的用户界面与交互接口。本文鉴于虚拟现实技术在WEB表现中的独特优势，提出将其应用到电子商务中商品展示中，以使用户获得更佳的购物体验。     

Vision‐tangible interactive display method for mixed and virtual reality: Toward the human‐centered editable reality

Building a human‐centered editable world can be fully realized in a virtual environment. Both mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR) are feasible solutions to support the attribute of edition. Based on the current development of MR and VR, we present the vision‐tangible interactive display method and its implementation in both MR and VR. We address the issue of MR and VR together because they are similar regarding the proposed method. The editable mixed and virtual reality system is useful for studies, which exploit it as a platform. In this paper, we construct a virtual reality environment based on the Oculus Rift, and an MR system based on a binocular optical see‐through head‐mounted display. In the MR system about manipulating the Rubik's cube, and the VR system about deforming the virtual objects, the proposed vision‐tangible interactive display method is utilized to provide users with a more immersive environment. Experimental results indicate that the vision‐tangible interactive display method can improve the user experience and can be a promising way to make the virtual environment better.     

Exploring MARS: developing indoor and outdoor user interfaces to a mobile augmented reality system

We describe an experimental mobile augmented reality system (MARS) testbed that employs different user interfaces to allow outdoor and indoor users to access and manage information that is spatially registered with the real world. Outdoor users can experience spatialized multimedia presentations that are presented on a head-tracked, see-through, head-worn display used in conjunction with a hand-held pen-based computer. Indoor users can get an overview of the outdoor scene and communicate with outdoor users through a desktop user interface or a head- and hand-tracked immersive augmented reality user interface.     

The effect of tracking technique on the quality of user experience for augmented reality mobile navigation

Augmented reality (AR) technology is changing the way we interact with the world by making the journey seamless and interactive. This is done by layering digital enhancements over an existing reality or real life scenario. However, employing AR technologies in wayfinding and navigation does not automatically bring positive experiences. We argue that tracking techniques are important in mobile AR navigation and fundamentally affect the quality of user experience. In this paper, we propose two different tourist AR applications based on different tracking techniques. In addition to the analysis of the applications, we conducted a user evaluation to study the effect of different AR tracking techniques on the performance of users and the quality of user experience.     

Design and implementation of somatosensory interactive game based on Leap Motion

Recently, virtual reality and interactive somatosensory technology has become one of the hot issues in the research of computer applications. Leap Motion is a new type of interactive somatosensory devices which bring users senses of immersion efficiently. This paper studies a interactive somatosensory game model based on Leap Motion and implemented with Unity. Based on the two core technology philosophy of Leap Motion, i.e., virtual reality technology and body sense of interactive technology, the design implementation of each sub module of the system and Leap Motion game algorithm are thoroughly addressed. This paper has certain significance for future application of Leap Motion in film, television, and interactive games.     

浅谈严肃游戏在计算机基础课程教学中的应用

严肃游戏是不以娱乐为主要目的,而是采用寓教于乐的游戏形式,让用户在游戏过程中接受信息,并获得个性化、互动性和娱乐性极强的全新学习体验,从而激发学习者的创造力和创新意识的游戏。该文文主要从严肃游戏的趣味性、虚拟性以及多样性方面来探讨严肃游戏在计算机基础课程当中的应用。     

Trade-off between resolution and interactivity in spatial taskperformance

Virtual reality displays usually lag far behind classical computer graphics displays in static image quality parameters, such as resolution. Both the popular press and scientific papers often stress that resolution will have to increase greatly before users can experience virtual environments as “the real thing”. Nevertheless, it is already possible to do some useful work in VR environments. The point we experimentally demonstrate here is that resolution is much less important for interactive tasks that employ immersive VR, where users can explore the environment by moving their heads and bodies, than it is in classical computer graphics applications, where users can only explore by gazing at a single picture. In the context of unmanned aerial vehicles, frame rate (read: passive camera movement) is more important than resolution for target detection, recognition, designation, and tracking. In the experiments reported here, we investigated the relative importance of various image parameters like spatial resolution (number of pixels per video frame), intensity resolution (number of gray levels per pixel), and temporal resolution (number of frame updates per second). Most experimental data concerning these resolutions come from classical psychophysics. However, experimental conditions in classical psychophysics feature stationary observers looking at short-term, pointlike flashes on stationary displays, and are thus far more representative of human interaction with pictures and photographs than with highly interactive systems like those employed in virtual reality     

Affective experience modeling based on interactive synergetic dependence in big data

Affective computing is important in human–computer interaction. Especially in interactive cloud computing within big data, affective modeling and analysis have extremely high complexity and uncertainty for emotional status as well as decreased computational accuracy. In this paper, an approach for affective experience evaluation in an interactive environment is presented to help enhance the significance of those findings. Based on a person-independent approach and the cooperative interaction as core factors, facial expression features and states as affective indicators are applied to do synergetic dependence evaluation and to construct a participant’s affective experience distribution map in interactive Big Data space. The resultant model from this methodology is potentially capable of analyzing the consistency between a participant’s inner emotional status and external facial expressions regardless of hidden emotions within interactive computing. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the rationality of the affective experience modeling approach outlined in this paper. The satisfactory results on real-time camera demonstrate an availability and validity comparable to the best results achieved through the facial expressions only from reality big data. It is suggested that the person-independent model with cooperative interaction and synergetic dependence evaluation has the characteristics to construct a participant’s affective experience distribution, and can accurately perform real-time analysis of affective experience consistency according to interactive big data. The affective experience distribution is considered as the most individual intelligent method for both an analysis model and affective computing, based on which we can further comprehend affective facial expression recognition and synthesis in interactive cloud computing.     

Extended technology acceptance model of Internet utilization behavior

Based on the belief–attitude–performance chain, this study combines Davis’s technology acceptance model (TAM) and the information behavior model to develop an extended TAM for Internet use. The theoretical model was tested via a questionnaire survey of 203 Taiwanese office workers. The empirical results not only confirmed TAM, but also showed that the relevance of information needs strongly determines perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user attitudes toward Internet use for information seeking, as well as strongly influencing individual performance during the information use stage. More importantly, relevance has greater positive effect on perceived performance and perceived usefulness for enterprise Intranet users than for simple/interactive Intraweb users. Enterprise Intranet users have more positive attitudes toward the Internet and more positive perceptions of system effectiveness for supporting office tasks than simple/interactive Intraweb users. Furthermore, perceived ease of use is the strongest determinant of user attitude toward Internet use in both enterprise Intranet and simple/interactive Intraweb applications. Overall, the extended TAM explains the behavior of enterprise Intranet users better than that of simple/interactive Intraweb users. Limitations of this study are discussed.     

增强现实系统中的虚拟交互方法

在基于ARToolKit的增强现实系统中,注册在不同标识物上的三维虚拟物体因交互行为而发生碰撞时,虚实融合会失真。为解决该问题,提出一种能增加虚拟交互功能的碰撞反应算法。根据检测到的碰撞信息,实时调整虚拟物体碰撞后相对于标识物的位置和姿态,消除物体穿透现象,保持虚实融合场景的真实感。实验结果表明,该虚拟交互方法能获得比较自然和真实的交互性体验。     

基于AR-VR混合技术的博物馆展览互动应用研究

传统的博物馆展示方式大多采用橱窗陈列物品,存在信息表达单一,互动性差等缺陷。通过分析增强现实与虚拟现实混合所涉及的关键技术,提出了一种基于AR-VR混合开发博物馆互动展示系统的方法。实验表明,采用虚拟现实技术和增强现实技术结合的方式可以使馆藏信息展示更全面、效果更逼真,激发参观者的观察与思考,实现更深层次的交互体验。     

The input-interface of Webcam applied in 3D virtual reality systems

Our research explores a virtual reality application based on Web camera (Webcam) input-interface. The interface can replace with the mouse to control direction intention of a user by the method of frame difference. We divide a frame into nine grids from Webcam and make use of the background registration to compute the moving object. In order to make this technology apply to 3D virtual reality system, we use the Virtools Dev to build virtual scenes and the Microsoft Visual C++ to build this interface. We also use the MySQL database management system to access users’ data and the displaying data. We implement a number of Building Blocks (BB) to support Virtools Dev for using the database management system and the Webcam input-interface in this composite system. The results of research are expected to the digital content industries such that users can easy to use the input-interface to control browsing the virtual reality. Our system can supply interactive digital content, photographs, and access the questions from the database management system. In addition, the system provides the browsing mold, the question mold, and the course content describing mold with the input-interface. In order to explore the intention of users for using the system, we design the questionnaire based on the technology acceptance model (TAM). In our empirical study, we find that perceived playfulness is positive association with attitude toward using. Interface style is positive association with perceived ease of use.     

Effects of Stereoscopic Display on Learning and User Experience in an Educational Virtual Environment

Over the past decade, many studies have examined the potential benefits of educational virtual environments (EVEs), either by comparing them with other media or by assessing the effects of their features on learning. Paradoxically, very few of them have explored the effects of stereoscopic versus nonstereoscopic displays on learning and/or the subjective experience provided in an EVE. Our study was designed to fill this gap, by comparing the effects of these two virtual reality modes in an interactive mechanics learning task. We collected measures of task effectiveness (success/failure and completion time), learning outcomes and subjective experience (user experience, flow, and immersion). Results showed that (1) users were more successful in the learning tasks in the stereoscopic condition, and (2) perceived affective quality, flow, and immersion were better in this condition.     

用VRML优化三维场景的人机交互

在实际应用中,用户越来越重视三维场景的人权交工能力。本文介绍用ＶＩＬＭＬ优化 三维场景,提高人机交互的能力和真实性。     

Multi-user mixed reality system ‘Gulliver’s World’: a case study on collaborative edutainment at the intersection of material and virtual worlds

This case study is about ‘Gulliver’s World’, a multi-user mixed reality environment that functions simultaneously as interactive edutainment platform and learning environment as well as flexible infrastructure for the expansion of mixed reality environments via innovations in technology and media art. As an exhibition project, the installation is characterized by a nonlinear exhibition concept that activates interaction between individual users and different modes of virtual reality as well as collaboration among the users themselves. At seven workstations, people of all age groups range along the Reality–Virtuality continuum while collaboratively creating 3D worlds. Results of these creation activities are interactive worlds at the nexus of theatre, digital film production and game environment. As a research project, ‘Gulliver’s World’ features multilevel infrastructure with exemplary content in which the latest insights and models to emerge from HCI research as well as concepts of mixed reality and virtual environments and their supporting technology are brought together and developed further.     

Perceived usefulness of,engagement with,and effectiveness of virtual reality environments in learning industrial operations: the moderating role of openness to experience

The development of virtual reality (VR) in enhancing the effectiveness of the learning process, with its interactive, immersive, and intuitive pedagogical environment, has become a necessity for corporations with increasingly complex operations. However, VR users’ perceptions, openness and learning effectiveness are seldom comprehensively evaluated, particularly in learning complex industrial operations. In this study, grounded in the technology acceptance model, a moderated mediation model of perceived usefulness, ease of use, openness to experience, and engagement in VR-based learning was developed. The model was empirically validated using responses collected from 321 users who were trained on aircraft and cargo terminal operations powered by a novel VR-based learning platform. A survey to measure openness to experience and a pre-training performance test were carried out, followed by a post-training survey of learners’ intrinsic factors, including the influence of perceived usefulness, openness to experience, and attitude towards learning. The study revealed that learners with an open attitude towards experiencing new technology tend to perceive VR technology as a useful platform for training. In addition, the learners with more positive views of VR technology-supported training were more engaged in learning.

     

Analyzing the Role of Interactivity in User Experience

An experimental investigation into the role of interaction in user experience (UX) with a controlled manipulation of interactivity features (e.g., avatars, interactive video) in a university information website is reported. The more interactive version had better affect and hedonic ratings, even though its perceived usability was worse. Analysis of qualitative data showed users were attracted to the interactive features, although they complained about poor usability. The results of the experiments are discussed to consider the role of interactivity in UX and the differences between users’ quantitative judgments of UX and their comments on interactive features, which reveal different perspectives.