Virtual Environment Tools Research Articles

A phenomenological exploration of experience of Syrian dentists with online Course “Traumatic dental injuries”

BackgroundSeveral learning modalities have been implemented to improve learning about Traumatic Dental Injuries (TDIs) worldwide. Free online courses about TDIs might be an effective and convenient approach for equipping Syrian dentists with essential competencies during the Syrian crisis. Therefore, this qualitative study with a descriptive phenomenological method was undertaken to explore the lived experience of Syrian dentists enrolled in an online course about TDIs and investigate areas requiring improvement. MethodsEthical approval was obtained from the Faculty of Dentistry, Damascus University, and the University of Dundee. Educational contents of the TDI course were developed. About 10 dentists who completed the TDI course, were interviewed. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed to identify emerging themes. Inductive thematic analysis was performed to extract all data. ResultsAbout 10 clustered categories were first developed and this has led to the emergence of 3 themes that represent the lived experience including usefulness, challenges, and recommendations. Participants were so motivated and keen to take advantage of the course despite the personal, technical problems, and crisis-related challenges. TDIs course was effective for general and specialists despite the challenges they experienced. Factors that lead to effective TDIs courses as reported by participants were flexibility in time and location, interactivity with colleagues, other commitments, quantity and quality of content, easiness, and variety of virtual environment tools. Conversely, negative attitudes were linked to factors like lack of interest, unfamiliarity with the learning environment and tools, late participation, lack of confidence, anxiety about independent learning and insufficient interactivity and engagement tools. ConclusionSyrian dentists can benefit from online courses if constraints and various learning needs are addressed during the design and delivery of online courses. Future work is still required to identify other effective instructional modalities that equip Syrian dentists to overcome challenges and enhance their learning.

TESTING HUMAN ERRORS IN VIRTUAL REALITY TRAINING

The emergency training of industrial process plant operators is one of the most widely used tools to increase the reliability of human factors to handle an emergency situation. However, the preparation and operation of full-fledged simulators and trainers is very expensive and, therefore, virtual environment tools are used. A question that has not yet been answered is: Can virtual reality match the reliability of other methods of operation and is the same training in virtual reality effective? The experiment was carried out in the three-walled virtual CAVE, with virtual reality glasses, with a computer, a tablet, and a real control panel. Visual stimuli were displayed on the screen of the virtual monitor (green, yellow, and red); auditory stimuli were pure tones with frequencies of 250, 1000 and 4000 Hz. The conclusion should explicitly state if the hypothesis defined for the research has been confirmed and there are significant differences in terms of interface type. Training in virtual reality induces lower operator reliability, but in specific conditions (visual stimuli, virtual reality glasses) can match the reliability of other methods of operation and can be effective.

Responsible digital communication, infographics and organizations.

Objective: To describe the presence of Responsible Digital Communication (DigRC) in infographics disseminated by organizations of various kinds on the social network Facebook. Methodology: Quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional, and non-experimental, through convenience sampling, taking four Mexican organizations from different sectors. Results: Organizations publish high-quality infographics, but there is a lack of information referents to support their content. Furthermore, the scarcity of feedback affects traits such as Credibility and Reputation of institutions. Conclusion: Analyzing the incidence of digital tools in virtual environments helps to enhance the benefits that their socialization provides to organizations.

Authenticity perceptions in virtual environments

PurposeThis paper aims to examine three distinct aspects of authenticity that pre-service teachers (PSTs) experience when they engage with virtual classroom environments to develop their content-intensive instructional practice – task authenticity, student avatar authenticity and performance authenticity – and their perceptions about the usefulness of the simulated teaching experience to support their learning.Design/methodology/approachThis paper explored these conceptions of authenticity and usefulness within a larger research study whose goal was to develop virtual environment tools to help elementary PSTs learn how to engage in one ambitious teaching practice: facilitating discussions that engage students in argumentation. To examine these aspects of authenticity and usefulness, this paper used a general qualitative deductive analysis approach to examine data from 104 interviews with 26 case study teachers and examined patterns in PSTs’ perceptions within and across interviews and authenticity aspects.FindingsWhile these PSTs strongly value the utility of these tools to support their learning, findings point to variation in their perceptions of authenticity. Findings showed that most PSTs perceived the tasks as an authentic representation of the work of teaching. However, their perceptions of task authenticity did not always align with their perceptions of avatar or performance authenticity.Originality/valueThis paper argues that these three aspects of authenticity relate to, but expand upon, the broader notions of presence and plausibility noted in the literature on virtual environments and should be taken up more directly in future studies of users’ perceptions of virtual environments both within and outside of educational contexts.

Using biomechanics to investigate the effect of VR on eye vergence system

Vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC) is the main contributor to visual fatigue during immersion in virtual environments. Many studies have investigated the effects of VAC using 3D displays and expensive complex apparatus and setup to create natural and conflicting viewing conditions. However, a limited number of studies targeted virtual environments simulated using modern consumer-grade VR headsets. Our main objective, in this work, is to test how the modern VR headsets (VR simulated depth) could affect our vergence system, in addition to investigating the effect of the simulated depth on the eye-gaze performance. The virtual scenario used included a common virtual object (a cube) in a simple virtual environment with no constraints placed on the head and neck movement of the subjects. We used ocular biomechanics and eye tracking to compare between vergence angles in matching (ideal) and conflicting (real) viewing conditions. Real vergence angle during immersion was significantly higher than ideal vergence angle and exhibited higher variability which leads to incorrect depth cues that affects depth perception and also leads to visual fatigue for prolonged virtual experiences. Additionally, we found that as the simulated depth increases, the ability of users to manipulate virtual objects with their eyes decreases, thus, decreasing the possibilities of interaction through eye gaze. The biomechanics model used here can be further extended to study muscular activity of eye muscles during immersion. It presents an efficient and flexible assessment tool for virtual environments.

Aprendizaje interactivo en estudiantes de contabilidad de la carrera de administración de empresas

Las tecnologías de la información y comunicación fueron introducidas años atrás y paulatinamente han revolucionado los sistemas empresariales e incursionaron también en los entornos educativos, generando un nuevo modelo de enseñanza y aprendizaje, debido a que involucraron cambios en los procesos, objetivos, contenidos e infraestructura de las instituciones educativas que se van adecuando a las necesidades actuales de las empresas.
 Con el presente artículo se pretende que los docentes de la asignatura de contabilidad de la carrera de Administración de Empresas, cuenten con acciones que contribuyan a elevar motivación en el estudio de la asignatura. Para ello fue necesario investigar y reflexionar en las causas de las elevadas tasas de reprobación de los estudiantes y de esa manera poder enfocar el problema con las metodologías adecuadas.
 La metodología utilizada en el presente artículo fue de carácter mixto. El estudio cuantitativo, se llevó a cabo con la aplicación de una encuesta dirigida a los estudiantes que cursaron las asignaturas de Contabilidad 1 y 2 de la carrera de Administración de Empresas, durante el período 47. El estudio cualitativo, se llevó a cabo con la aplicación de entrevistas en profundidad dirigidas a los docentes de las asignaturas contables. En ambos casos los objetivos apuntaron a determinar la necesidad de tener tácticas que impliquen la utilización de nuevas tecnologías y del aprendizaje interactivo.
 Los resultados confirman la necesidad de aplicar estrategias de aprendizaje interactivo, entre las cuales figuran las tutorías virtuales, la creación de videos tutoriales, la explotación de herramientas interactivas en los ambientes virtuales. Con esto se pretende, elevar la motivación de los estudiantes y disminuir las tasas de reprobación actualmente evidenciadas en la carrera.

Fronter: A Virtual Environment Tool in Pathway to Higher Education Business English Program

Fronter: A Virtual Environment Tool in Pathway to Higher Education Business English Program

Road Signs Perception Evaluation by Means of a Semi-immersive Tool

To reduce the number of road accident victims the European Commission has encouraged the European member states to implement a series of actions in this field. These actions include the development of intelligent and integrated safety systems as well as educational and training initiatives. Educational initiatives include the training of the drivers to improve their ability and sense of responsibility. In addition to the direct use of the vehicle, the training includes the recognition of the traffic signs. Since the recognition may be influenced by both the position of the signal and the weather conditions, the authors have studied the possibility of evaluate the drivers' perception of road signs by means of a virtual environment tool able to perform different operative conditions. A series of tests was conducted to evaluate the visualization tool created and its ability to replace other recognition tests. This paper reports first tests results.

Evaluation of Wayfinding Aids in Virtual Environment

It is difficult for a navigator to find directions to a given target in an unfamiliar environment, especially a virtual environment. The commonly used overview maps can show survey knowledge only on one particular scale but cannot provide spatial knowledge at other scales. In this study, three wayfinding aids (a view-in-view map, animation guide, and human system collaboration) were compared experimentally in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and users' satisfaction. Results show that although these three aids all can effectively help participants find targets quicker and easier, their usefulness is different, with the view-in-view map being the best and human system collaboration the worst. Their usefulness also appears to be different for people with different spatial abilities. The results indicate that the design of wayfinding tools in virtual environments should consider the type and the presentation style of spatial information based on wayfinding tasks and users' spatial ability.

Interaction styles in tools for developing virtual environments

This article discusses and compares interaction styles in development tools for virtual environments (VE). The comparison relies on a qualitative empirical study of two development processes where a command language and a direct manipulation based tool were used to develop the same virtual environment application. The command language tool proved very flexible and facilitated an even distribution of effort and progress over time, but debugging and identification of errors was very difficult. Contrasting this, the direct manipulation tool enabled faster implementation of a first prototype but did not facilitate a shorter implementation process as a whole. On the basis of these findings, the strength and weaknesses of direct manipulation for developing virtual environment applications are explored further through a comparison with a successful direct manipulation tool for developing interactive multimedia applications. The comparisons are used to identify and emphasize key requirements for virtual environment development tool interface design.

Using bat-modelled sonar as a navigational tool in virtual environments

Bats are able to use active sonar as a mechanism for locating object in three dimensions and for generating spatial maps of their environments. Humans use passive sound cues to detect features of the space they occupy, as well as react to the spatial location of objects which generate sound. The system described in this paper allows free-ranging humans to locate a virtual sound location using active sonar. An emitted pulse, centred on the users head, serves as an intensity and time marker. The return pulse is rendered at the virtual target location and emitted after a time delay corresponding to the two-way path from sender to target and back again. The sonar system is modelled on those of bats, using ultrasonic frequency-modulated signals reflected from simple targets. The model uses the reflectivity characteristics of ultrasound, but the frequency and temporal structure used are scaled, with the speed of sound being set to 8.5 ms −1 to bring the frequency range and temporal resolution within the capabilities of the human auditory system. Orientation with respect to the ensonified target is achieved by time-of-flight time delays to give target range, and binaural location information derived from interaural timing differences, interaural intensity differences, and head-related transfer functions. Subjects performed significantly better at a localization task when given temporal data based on echo delays with an outgoing reference pulse than without a reference pulse. Frequency-modulated signals sweeping from 1.5 kHz–100 Hz over 500 ms provide the best localization cues, and users found them significantly easier to locate than continuous sounds.

Dynamic virtual environment to test teleoperated systems with time delay communications

This paper presents a dynamic virtual environment tool for training operators and to prove different control schemes in telerobotic systems, and describes virtual reality environments used in teleoperated robotic systems. In the presented tool, the kinematic and dynamic model of the remote environment which is manipulating the operator is considered. The paper also describes how time delays in the communication channel can be easily added to the simulator, in order to analyze their effects in the teleoperated system. Finally, some experimental results achieved with this virtual teleoperated system are shown. With the presented dynamic simulator, different control schemes designed to overcome the time delay problem could be tested. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Choosing Tools for Virtual Environments

The author describes how virtual reality tools can allow greater access to the imagination and explains how he has chosen his tools for creating virtual environments such as navigable movies and interactive cable television shows. He discusses how his work is moving toward minimizing special effects in order to enlist the cooperation of the user’s imagination. He is now making use of less-immersive interactive multimedia to create virtual spaces, rather than relying on more realistic and expensive tools for sensory illusion.