Cross Reality Research Articles

Usability and User Experience Challenges of Cross Reality Laboratories Experienced by Creators

Usability and User Experience Challenges of Cross Reality Laboratories Experienced by Creators

“I Feel Like I’m in a Box”: Contrasting Virtual Reality “Imaginaries” in the Context of Academic Innovation Labs

ABSTRACT As immersive technology grows in popularity, universities are developing academic innovation labs (AIL) that often introduce students to virtual reality (VR) and other emerging cross reality applications. Although these labs help educate students on emerging technology, a more critical eye is needed to examine user experience (UX). This article reports on a qualitative, multimethod study that employed a talk-aloud UX protocol to gather data on VR users’ experience at the University of Connecticut’s OPIM Research Lab. To fully define and contrast this data, we juxtapose these individual narratives with rhetorical analysis of marketing discourse, as presented by VR platform HTC Vive, Google’s VR application Tilt Brush, and the Research Lab’s promotional material. Based on our findings, we assert that sociotechnical imaginaries as constructed by promotional material often reduce the complexities of immersion in user experience. Such marketing rhetoric creates “top-down” imaginaries that contrast with “bottom-up” imaginaries generated in user experience, reinforcing the complex and fluid definitions of immersion. The resulting study has practical implications for stakeholders across higher education, especially in the context of innovation labs, as well as for technical and professional communication educators and practitioners.

Intention-reflected predictive display for operability improvement of time-delayed teleoperation system

Robotic teleoperation is highly valued for its ability to remotely execute tasks that demand sophisticated human decision-making or that are intended to be carried out by human operators from a distance. However, when using the internet as a communication framework for teleoperation, high latency, and fluctuations make accurate positioning and time-dependent tasks difficult. To mitigate the negative effects of time delay, this paper proposes a teleoperation system that uses cross reality (XR) as a predictive display of the outcome of operators’ intended actions and develops a time-delay aware shared control to fulfill the intention. The system targets a liquid pouring task, wherein a white ring that indicates the intended height of the liquid surface is overlayed onto the beaker in a delayed camera image to close the visual feedback loop on the leader side. Simultaneously, the shared control automatically completes the pouring action to track the intended liquid height. The performance of the proposed system is validated based on liquid pouring experiments performed by human subjects. When compared with direct control, the absolute error rate decreased significantly for a constant round-trip time delay of 0.8 s and 1.2 s, similarly for a time-varying delay of 0.4 s and 0.8 s. Moreover, when the time-varying delay was 0.8 s, operators achieved significantly higher accuracy while maintaining comparable operation time. These results indicate that our proposed system improves operability even in the presence of time-varying delays in communication networks.

Introduction of Practical Use of XR (Cross Reality) for Research Field

様々な業種や分野においてDX（ディジタルトランスフォーメーション）の推進が活発化する中，RX（リサーチトランスフォーメーション）が注目を集めている．RX とは「DX 等を駆動力として研究開発活動を革新し，そのオペレーティングシステムをトランスフォームすること」である．DX やRX のために活用されるディジタルテクノロジーには5G, IoT, AI などが挙げられるが，最近注目を集めているのが「XR（クロスリアリティ）技術」である．XR とは，現実世界と仮想世界を融合することにより，現実にはないものを知覚できる技術の総称である．本解説論文では，国立の研究機関に所属する筆者が，自身の研究開発活動のプロセスを刷新し，研究組織のDX やRX の可能性を探るために行っている「XR 技術の活用事例」を紹介する．特に，現実世界のライブ映像を含む仮想空間の作成手法と，その手法を活用したプレゼンテーションや実験装置リモート操作，見学ツアーなどへの活用事例を詳しく説明する．

A cross reality wire assembly training system for workers with disabilities

A cross reality wire assembly training system for workers with disabilities

Digitalizing experiential celebrations in the early modern civic space: A methodological investigation of augmented reality as an interpretative tool

Abstract This article investigates the methodological suitability of Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR and AR) to the recreation of early modern civic spectacles. These are presented as instances of controlled engagement of a (royal) user with a civic space temporarily ‘augmented’ by the engaging superimposition of structures, performances, and haptic experiences – hence fulfilling Ronald Azuma’s definition of AR. The writings of theorists of space and Cross Reality innovators provide the basis for a comparative discussion of practical applications of VR and AR in history-related fields (archaeology, history, education, and gaming and entertainment). For their methodological similarities to civic festivals in addressing the complexity of human experiences in augmented spaces, AR-based virtual reconstructions are demonstrated to be cognate and ductile investigative tools.

Cross Reality Spaces in Engineering Education – Online Laboratories for Supporting International Student Collaboration in Merging Realities

This paper discusses online laboratories as cross reality spaces in education. Cross Reality (also XR) as a term is borrowed from the field of gaming and broadly describes the integration of immersive, augmented, mixed, and virtual reality technology within physical reality. Online laboratories form an ideal example, as different realities (the real hands-on world in real labs, the virtual world in simulated labs or even a mixture of both in context with remote labs) are merged. The connection between different realities in laboratory education and their relation to engineering education contexts are discussed by describing a three-dimensional matrix for categorizing (online) laboratories in teaching and displaying current research results in this area. On basis of this, a scholarly research study is discussed, which is making use of a remote lab in mechanical engineering education for an international student body. In this study, the lab and its application are evaluated from the learner, the system, and the course perspective. These three perspectives offer a holistic view of the lab and the students’ learning. The study proofs a positive effect on the students learning experiences. The results also show which current needs and future potentials lie on the intersection of engineering education, internationalization, and digitalization in terms of collaborating and learning in Cross Reality Spaces.

Automated Assessment System with Cross Reality for Neonatal Endotracheal Intubation Training.

Neonatal endotracheal intubation (ETI) is a resuscitation skill and therefore, requires an effective training regimen with acceptable success rates. However, current training regimen faces some challenges, such as the lack of visualization inside the manikin and quantification of performance, resulting in inaccurate guidance and highly variable manual assessment. We present a Cross Reality (XR) ETI simulation system which registers ETI training tools to their virtual counterparts. Thus, our system can capture all aspects of motions and visualize the entire procedure, offering instructors with sufficient information for assessment. A machine learning approach was developed to automatically evaluate the ETI performance for standardizing assessment protocols by using the performance parameters extracted from the motions and the scores from an expert rater. The classification accuracy of the machine learning algorithm is 83.5%.

Cross reality to enhance worker cognition in industrial assembly operations

In this paper, we discuss how Cross Reality (XR) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) can support assembly tasks in hybrid human-machine manufacturing lines. We describe a Cross Reality system, designed to improve efficiency and ergonomics in industrial environments that require manual assembly operations. Our objective is to reduce the high costs of authoring assembly manuals and to improve the process of skills transfer, in particular, in assembly tasks that include workers with disabilities. The automation of short-lived assembly tasks, i.e., manufacturing of limited batches of customized products, does not yield significant returns considering the automation effort necessary and the production time frame. In the design of our XR system, we discuss how aspects of content creation can be automated for short-lived tasks and how seamless interoperability between devices facilitates skills transfer in human-machine hybrid environments.

Metaphor and Manifestation Cross-Reality with Ubiquitous Sensor/Actuator Networks

Looks at how MIT Media Lab's Responsive Environments Group is exploring ways to bridge networked electronic sensors and human perception through cross reality implementations that render and manifest phenomena between real world and virtual environments via densely embedded sensor and actuator networks.