The design space of dynamic interactive virtual environments

Virtual environments have become a key component of many fields and the critical component of virtual reality applications. Due to their virtual nature, they can accommodate an infinite number of possibilities. A theoretical work is presented, which decomposes those innumerous possibilities into concepts to help clarify the vast design space and provide insights into future applied research. We propose that what makes environments interesting and engaging is having worlds that are both active and reactive. This article explores the manifestations of those actions and reactions in what we term: dynamic components and interactions. We term worlds containing these dynamic interactive virtual environments (DIVE). An analysis of each component time was performed, with the purpose of providing a theoretical understanding of the respective design spaces. Initially, we collected the myriad possibilities of each component, e.g., the possible kinds of interactions. We point to examples throughout the field to ground and explain concepts presented. We then categorized of each area into taxonomies. The result of the analyses provides insights into the design space of virtual environments, exposes several avenues of research that are yet underexplored, and provides better understandings of ways in which DIVE creation can be supported.     

Exploring the design space of eyes-free target acquisition in virtual environments

Virtual Reality - Supporting smooth target acquisition is an important objective in immersive virtual reality (VR) environments. However, users were obliged to search for objects relying on the...     

Domain-oriented design environments

The field of knowledge-based software engineering has been undergoing a shift in emphasis from automatic programming to human augmentation and empowerment. In our research work, we support this shift with an approach that embedshuman-computer cooperative problem-solving tools intodomain-oriented, knowledge-based design environments. Domain orientation reduces the large conceptual distance between problem-domain semantics and software artifacts. Integrated environments support the coevolution of specification and construction while allowing designers to access relevant knowledge at each stage within the software development process.This paper argues thatdomain-oriented design environments (DODEs) are complementary to the approaches pursued withknowledge-based software assistant systems (KBSAs). The DODE extends the KBSA framework by emphasizing a human-centered and domain-oriented approach facilitating communication about evolving systems among all stakeholders. The paper discusses the major challenges for software systems, develops a conceptual framework to address these problems, illustrates DODE with two examples, and assesses the contributions of the KBSA and DODE approaches toward solving these problems.     

The design space of register renaming techniques

Register renaming is a technique to remove false data dependencie-write after read (WAR) and write after write (WAW)-that occur in straight line code between register operands of subsequent instructions. By eliminating related precedence requirements in the execution sequence of the instructions, renaming increases the average number of instructions that are available for parallel execution per cycle. This results in increased IPC (number of instructions executed per cycle). The identification and exploration of the design space of register-renaming lead to a comprehensive understanding of this intricate technique. As this article shows, the design space of register renaming is spanned by four main dimensions: the scope of register renaming, the layout of the rename buffers, the method of register mapping, and the rename rate. Relevant aspects of the design space give rise to eight basic alternatives for register-renaming. In addition, the kind of operand fetch policy significantly affects how the processor carries out the rename process, which duplicates the eight basic alternatives to 16 possible implementation schemes. The article indicates which basic implementation scheme is used in relevant superscalar processors. As register renaming is usually implemented in conjunction with shelving, the underlying microarchitecture is assumed to employ shelving     

Composing domain-specific design environments

Domain-specific integrated development environments can help capture specifications in the form of domain models. These tools support the design process by automating analysis and simulating essential system behavior. In addition, they can automatically generate, configure, and integrate target application components. The high cost of developing domain-specific, integrated modeling, analysis, and application-generation environments prevents their penetration into narrower engineering fields that have limited user bases. Model-integrated computing (MIC), an approach to model-based engineering that helps compose domain-specific design environments rapidly and cost effectively, is particularly relevant for specialized computer-based systems domains-perhaps even single projects. The authors describe how MIC provides a way to compose such environments cost effectively and rapidly by using a metalevel architecture to specify the domain-specific modeling language and integrity constraints. They also discuss the toolset that implements MIC and describe a practical application in which using the technology in a tool environment for the process industry led to significant reductions in development and maintenance costs     

The influence of new software environments on CAL development

This paper explores the significance of the advent of educational programming languages for the manner in which Computer Assisted Learning software is designed and produced. The notion of prototyping Computer Assisted Learning software in an educational sense through such languages is introduced. Particular consideration is given to the role of Logo in this context. Examples concerned with the development of foreign languages software and a general purpose modelling system are given.     

Models of software development environments

A general model of software development environments that consists of structures, mechanisms, and policies is presented. The advantage of this model is that it distinguishes intuitively those aspects of an environment that are useful in comparing and contrasting software development environments. Four classes of environments-the individual, the family, the city. and the state-are characterized by means of a sociological metaphor based on scale. The utility of the taxonomy is that it delineates the important classes of interactions among software developers and exposes the ways in which current software development environments inadequately support the development of large systems. The generality of the model is demonstrated by its application to a previously published taxonomy that categorizes environments according to how they relate to language-centered, structure-oriented, toolkit, and method-based environments     

Camera space shadow maps for large virtual environments

This paper presents a new single-pass shadow mapping technique that achieves better quality than the approaches based on perspective warping, such as perspective, light-space, and trapezoidal shadow maps. The proposed technique is appropriate for real-time rendering of large virtual environments that include dynamic objects. By performing operations in camera space, this solution successfully handles the general and the dueling frustum cases and produces high-quality shadows even for extremely large scenes. This paper also presents a fast nonlinear projection technique for shadow map stretching that enables complete utilization of the shadow map by eliminating wastage. The application of stretching results in a significant reduction in unwanted perspective aliasing, commonly found in all shadow mapping techniques. Technique is compared with other shadow mapping techniques, and the benefits of the proposed method are presented. The proposed shadow mapping technique is simple and flexible enough to handle most of the special scenarios. An API for a generic shadow mapping solution is presented. This API simplifies the generation of fast and high-quality shadows.     

The design of a handheld,location-aware guide for indoor environments

Because of the growing spread of mobile and small devices (like PDAs, mobile phones, etc.), designers and developers of interactive systems have to consider user mobility and the dynamic context of use. In this paper we discuss the design criteria we have defined for developing handheld location-aware systems for indoor environments. We analyse some of the technologies currently available for this purpose and examine how to use them in order to obtain location-dependent information. We report on our experience in designing a location-aware guide for museum visitors and identify possible design criteria for this type of system, which uses automatic detection of a change in environment to trigger the presentation of multi-modal, context-dependent information through a hand-held guide.     

Requirements for model development environments

This paper deals with the initial phase of our ongoing research project on the Definition of a Discrete Event Simulation MDE which started on 1 June 1983. The first phase of the rapid prototyping approach we are using in designing the MDE involves the requirements specification. A literature review revealed eleven current problems in modeling. To address these problems, a MDE was identified as composed of four layers: (1) hardware and operating system, (2) kernel MDE, (3) minimal MDE and (4) MDEs. Requirements were then perceived for each layer and are reported in this paper. The feasibility of the requirements have been assessed throughout our prototyping efforts. This paper has provided significant guidance to our research group in designing the MDE and its associated tools. We believe that the designers and implementers of other types of MDEs can benefit from the research described herein.     

Developing applications using model-driven design environments

Historically, software development methodologies have focused more on improving tools for system development than on developing tools that assist with system composition and integration. Component-based middleware like Enterprise Java-Beans (EJB), Microsoft .NET, and the CORBA Component Model (CCM) have helped improve software reusability through component abstraction. However, as developers have adopted these commercial off-the-shelf technologies, a wide gap has emerged between the availability and sophistication of standard software development tools like compilers and debuggers, and the tools that developers use to compose, analyze, and test a complete system or system of systems. As a result, developers continue to accomplish system integration using ad hoc methods without the support of automated tools. Model-driven development is an emerging paradigm that solves numerous problems associated with the composition and integration of large-scale systems while leveraging advances in software development technologies such as component-based middleware. MDD elevates software development to a higher level of abstraction than is possible with third-generation programming languages.     

基于XML的C#多语言界面实现

国际通用的应用程序需要不同语言的软件界面.传统的开发一般是先开发出一种语言的应用程序,然后再开发其它需要的语言版本.这样做使得开发周期延长,不同版本的软件的发布时间不同,软件界面显示信息和程序紧密结合,软件的版本多给升级和维护带来了困难.在C#下将应用程序和界面显示信息进行分离,将界面显示信息保存在XML文档中,用这种方法实现应用程序的多语言版本.实践结果表明,这种方法开发周期短,应用程序所有的语言版本可以同时发布,减少了软件的升级和维护的工作量.     

面向普适环境的协同设计框架研究

提出了一种面向普适环境的协同设计框架。该协同设计框架在现有分布协同对象计算技术和网格服务的基础上,引入了普适环境“随时随地”和“透明”的思想,巧妙地把协同设计技术融入第三代计算环境中。该文讨论了普适计算的相关理论,也涉及了网格计算的相关技术。并且建立了第三代计算环境下分布式协同设计模型。该框架能够很好地利用各种网络资源,随时随地的进行产品设计开发。最后简要介绍该框架在在自主开发的HUST-CAIDS中的初步应用。     

Information management for integrated design environments

This paper identifies requirements for an engineering design information management system. Future CAD systems must support a wide range of activities — such as definition, manipulation and analyses of complex product information models. These models represent not only conventional data associated with current CAD applications, but also design information characterizing the correlations between the requirements, functions, behaviors and physical form of the product. Such functionality is important for both the individual designer and the design organization, as the need to manage information as a corporate asset is becoming a critical component of business strategy. This paper explores these needs using two design studies. The first study illustrates some major concepts relative to non-routine design activities, while the second study focuses on the routine design activities relative to organization interactions. These studies were used to elicit high level requirements which serve as the basis for the development of prototype software systems. These prototypes are briefly introduced here.     

Requirement-based approach for groupware environments design

Groupware applications have special features that, if they were taken into account from the very beginning, could reasonably improve the quality of the system. Such features concern human-computer-human interactions, i.e. a further step in the human-computer interaction field: communication, collaboration, cooperation and coordination, time, space, and awareness are issues to be considered. This paper presents a novel approach to gather requirements for groupware applications. The proposal is based on a methodology that includes the use of templates to gather the information regarding the different types of requirements. The requirements templates have been extended to include new information to give account of specific features concerning groupware applications. The information gathered is managed in a CASE tool we have developed; then general and specific diagrams are automatic or semi-automatically generated.     

Investigating design issues in household environments

This paper argues that the current involvement of end users in the design of technological artefacts is too superficial. It is common to involve people in requirements generation, but rarely in product inception or design. A study is reported involving five households in central Scotland, who were each visited on three occasions, using a new investigative framework. Illustrative examples are provided of the strengths and weaknesses of the methods used. Despite the latter, it is demonstrated that the general public can both generate and critique design ideas and that valuable contributions to understanding people's relationships with technologies can be expected both from children and from the elderly. Electronic Publication     

User-centered design and evaluation of virtual environments

We present a structured, iterative methodology for user-centered design and evaluation of VE user interaction. We recommend performing (1) user task analysis followed by (2) expert guidelines-based evaluation, (3) formative user-centered evaluation, and finally (4) comparative evaluation. In this article we first give the motivation and background for our methodology, then we describe each technique in some detail. We applied these techniques to a real-world battlefield visualization VE. Finally, we evaluate why this approach provides a cost-effective strategy for assessing and iteratively improving user interaction in VEs