Virtual Reality View Research Articles

Understanding multi-modal brain network data: An immersive 3D visualization approach

Understanding the human brain requires the incorporation of functional interaction patterns that depend on a variety of features like experimental setup, strength of directed connectedness or variability between several individuals or groups. In addition to these external factors, there are internal properties of the brain network as for example temporal propagation of connections, or connectivity patterns that only occur in a distinct frequency range of the signal. The visualization of detected networks covering all necessary information poses a substantial problem which is mainly due to the high number of features that have to be integrated within the same view in a natural spatial context.To address this problem, we propose a new tool that transfers the network into an anatomically arranged origin–destination view in a virtual visual analysis lab. This offers the user an opportunity to assess the temporal evolution of connectivity patterns and provides an intuitive and motivating way of exploring the corresponding features via navigation and interaction in virtual reality (VR). The approach was evaluated in a user study including participants with neuroscientific background as well as people working in the field of computer science. As a first proof of concept trial we used functional brain networks derived from time series of electroencephalography recordings evoked by visual stimuli. All participants gave a positive general feedback, notably they saw a benefit in using the VR view instead of the compared 2D desktop variant. This suggests that our application successfully fills a gap in the visualization of high-dimensional brain networks and that it is worthwhile to further follow and enhance the proposed representation method.

PoVRPoint: Authoring Presentations in Mobile Virtual Reality.

Virtual Reality (VR) has the potential to support mobile knowledge workers by complementing traditional input devices with a large three-dimensional output space and spatial input. Previous research on supporting VR knowledge work explored domains such as text entry using physical keyboards and spreadsheet interaction using combined pen and touch input. Inspired by such work, this paper probes the VR design space for authoring presentations in mobile settings. We propose PoVRPoint-a set of tools coupling pen- and touch-based editing of presentations on mobile devices, such as tablets, with the interaction capabilities afforded by VR. We study the utility of extended display space to, for example, assist users in identifying target slides, supporting spatial manipulation of objects on a slide, creating animations, and facilitating arrangements of multiple, possibly occluded shapes or objects. Among other things, our results indicate that 1) the wide field of view afforded by VR results in significantly faster target slide identification times compared to a tablet-only interface for visually salient targets; and 2) the three-dimensional view in VR enables significantly faster object reordering in the presence of occlusion compared to two baseline interfaces. A user study further confirmed that the interaction techniques were found to be usable and enjoyable.

What are the visuo-motor tendencies of omnidirectional scene free-viewing in virtual reality?

Central and peripheral vision during visual tasks have been extensively studied on two-dimensional screens, highlighting their perceptual and functional disparities. This study has two objectives: replicating on-screen gaze-contingent experiments removing central or peripheral field of view in virtual reality, and identifying visuo-motor biases specific to the exploration of 360 scenes with a wide field of view. Our results are useful for vision modelling, with applications in gaze position prediction (e.g., content compression and streaming). We ask how previous on-screen findings translate to conditions where observers can use their head to explore stimuli. We implemented a gaze-contingent paradigm to simulate loss of vision in virtual reality, participants could freely view omnidirectional natural scenes. This protocol allows the simulation of vision loss with an extended field of view (80°) and studying the head's contributions to visual attention. The time-course of visuo-motor variables in our pure free-viewing task reveals long fixations and short saccades during first seconds of exploration, contrary to literature in visual tasks guided by instructions. We show that the effect of vision loss is reflected primarily on eye movements, in a manner consistent with two-dimensional screens literature. We hypothesize that head movements mainly serve to explore the scenes during free-viewing, the presence of masks did not significantly impact head scanning behaviours. We present new fixational and saccadic visuo-motor tendencies in a 360° context that we hope will help in the creation of gaze prediction models dedicated to virtual reality.

Path advisor

The shortest path in both the two dimensional (2D) plane and the three dimensional (3D) terrain is extensively used both in industry and academia. Although there are some map visualization tools for viewing the shortest path in 2D and 3D views, we find two limitations: (1) they are not applicable for map applications with obstacles (such as the wall in a building), and (2) they look unrealistic and strange when a road network approach is blindly adopted. Motivated by this, we developed a web-based multi-functional campus map tool called Path Advisor , which allows users to visualize the shortest path in the 2D view, the bird's eye view and the virtual reality view (VR view). Path Advisor uses Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm and breadth-first tree in the 2D view, and the weighted shortest surface path algorithm in the bird's eye view and the VR view. We shot a video for demonstrating Path Advisor at https://youtu.be/ZgdjyXXHwqg.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Construction of complex environmental art design system based on 3D virtual simulation technology

A new advent has been achieved with the development of the perception of virtual reality in the field of multimedia for improving the modern environmental art design. Due to the excessive dependence on digital virtual technology for designing traditional environmental art, a new research method of environmental art design based on digital virtual technology is proposed in this work. The environmental art design is strengthened by combining virtual reality technology with the environmental art designing. In-depth consideration of the two environmental art attributes of environmental landscape and environmental form, obtain graphics and image layers, based on the proportion. The size of the three-dimensional environmental area obtains a two-dimensional vector map of the environmental area, and merge all the textures obtained by shooting at a small angle. The overall environment image texture is obtained, and on this basis, the Google Sketchup platform is used to draw the preliminary model of the virtual environment. The preliminary environment model is merged to construct a three-dimensional environment landscape model, by embedding the two-dimensional vector diagram in the terrain utilizing Google Sketchup platform. This work uses the three-dimensional environment landscape model based chaotic generation method for the generation and realization of the virtual environment form. The virtual reality view of the environmental form design drawing is obtained through the evolution of the environment experience. The experimental results show that the 3D modeling error of the proposed method is minimized to 1.2%, and the environmental art, fidelity, efficiency, and cost indicators of technical design are better.

How preadolescents and adults remember and experience virtual reality: The role of avatar incarnation, emotion, and sense of presence

Incarnate bodies in the first-person view in virtual reality, especially with a head-mounted display, could impact cognitive processes relying on self-representation, such as memory, emotion, or sense of presence. The goal of this study is to investigate these effects by comparing adults’ and preadolescents’ behaviors. We manipulated incarnation by presenting the experience with or without an avatar (full-body avatar versus VR controllers), while manipulating emotion with presented stimuli. 40 adults and 32 preadolescents were both divided into two experimental groups (avatar versus no-avatar). Valence, arousal, and presence were self-evaluated, and a free recall task was performed. Physiological measurements were carried out to add objective support for our findings. We showed an emotional enhancement of memory in both age groups. Importantly, embodying an avatar permitted preadolescents to have the same memory performance than adults. Memory was predicted by valence and head movements in adults, but no predictors were found for preadolescents. Overall, preadolescents rated virtual environments as more arousing, more positive, and inducing more presence than adults. Surprisingly, avatar incarnation did not impact these measures, we propose that immersion at a sensorimotor level is a more crucial component than incarnation.

Three-dimensional modeled environments versus 360 degree panoramas for mobile virtual reality training

Virtual field trip is a way of providing users with some knowledge and exposure of a facility without requiring them to physically visit the location. Due to the high computational costs that are necessary to produce virtual environments (VEs), the potential for photorealism is sacrificed. Often these three-dimensional (3D) modeled applications use an unrealistic VE and, therefore, do not provide a full depiction of real-world environments. Panoramas can be used to showcase complex scenarios that are difficult to model and are computationally expensive to view in virtual reality (VR). Utilizing 360° panoramas can provide a low-cost and quick-to-capture alternative with photorealistic representations of the actual environment. The advantages of photorealism over 3D models for training and education are not clearly defined. This paper initially summarizes the development of a VR training application and initial pilot study. Quantitative and qualitative study then was conducted to compare the effectiveness of a 360° panorama VR training application and a 3D modeled one. Switching to a mobile VR headset saves money, increases mobility, decreases set-up and breakdown time, and has less spatial requirements. Testing results of the 3D modeled VE group had an average normalized gain of 0.03 and the 360° panorama group, 0.43. Although the 3D modeled group had slightly higher realism according to the presence questionnaire and had slightly higher averages in the comparative analysis questionnaire, the 360° panorama application has shown to be the most effective for training and the quickest to develop.

The GPS for surgery: A user-centered evaluation of a navigation system for laparoscopic surgery.

Unsafe surgical care has emerged as a significant public health concern, motivated by a high percentage of major complications happening during surgery, attributed to surgeons' skills and experience, and determined to be preventable. This article presents APSurg, an Abdominal Positioning Surgical system designed to improve awareness and safety during laparoscopic surgery. The proposed system behaves like a GPS, offering an additional dynamic virtual reality view of the surgical field. This work presents an evaluation study in terms of accuracy, effectiveness, and usability. Tests were conducted performing a localization task on an abdomen phantom in a simulated scenario. Results show a navigation accuracy below 5 mm. The task execution time was reduced by a 15% and the performed incision dimension was reduced by a 46%, with respect to a standard setup. A custom questionnaire showed a significant positive impact in exploiting APSurg during the surgical task execution.

Active View and Passive View in Virtual Reality Have Different Impacts on Memory and Impression.

Virtual reality (VR) through a head-mounted display (HMD) can provide new experiences. However, it remains unclear how the characteristics of HMDs affect users’ memory. To use HMDs more effectively and appropriately in several applied fields, including education, it is necessary to clarify what characteristics of HMDs affect users’ memory. A head-tracking function mounted on an HMD helps to detect the user’s head direction to enable a simulation experience akin to the real world. When we experience a simulation on an HMD, we actively perceive the visual world. In this study, we assessed how active/passive viewing affects users’ memory of VR content. We conducted a psychological experiment in which participants watched a movie on an HMD. In the active viewing condition, the presented view changed depending on the participant’s head direction. In the passive viewing condition, the presented view was a recorded movie that was shown to the participants in the active viewing condition. All participants took a memory test about the content presented in the movie on the day of viewing and 2 weeks later. The results showed that performance on the memory test in the active viewing condition was significantly lower than that in the passive viewing condition after 2 weeks. This result indicated that active viewing in VR inhibited users’ memory compared to passive viewing. The current study contributes to the development of new VR techniques, such as educational learning.

The Application of Virtual Reality in Patient Education

Virtual reality (VR) provides an immersive image-viewing experience that has recently been expanding in use in clinical medicine. We developed a three-dimensional (3D) model of an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) for patients with a diagnosis of an AAA to view in VR to assess the use of VR in patient education. This was a cross-sectional study using an educational intervention. A standardized 3D model of an AAA was generated from a computed tomography scan and uploaded onto a 3D image-hosting website. Patients with an AAA who participated in the study wore a Google Cardboard VR headset, with a mobile device displaying the digital 3D AAA image in VR. Patients completed a survey afterward for assessing satisfaction with VR on a 5-point agreement Likert scale. Between September 2017 and January 2018, 19 patients participated in our study (90% participation rate). Most participants had no prior experience with VR (n=15; 79%), and the mean age was 69±8years. Seventeen (89%) participants agreed or strongly agreed that they felt better informed about their health status after using VR and would like to see VR used more in their health care, while sixteen (84%) agreed or strongly agreed that they felt more engaged in their health care because of using VR. Almost all participants felt comfortable using VR (n=17; 90%) and enjoyed using the technology (n=16; 84%). VR proved to be an engaging learning tool that patients perceived as beneficial in understanding their health status. Further efforts to investigate the role of VR in education andhealth care should be explored.

Can virtual reality really be used within the lecture theatre?

We present our initial experiences integrating virtual reality (VR) 360° viewable images within a university medical imaging teaching session and some general transferable learning points for the successful delivery of VR content. VR has the potential to offer students an immersive educational experience but is not without its limitations. Our initial experience using VR with small groups (n<7) and larger groups (n<35) highlighted several obstacles which needed to be overcome to be able to successfully use VR in teaching. We found that requiring students to use their own devices to view VR content during teaching sessions (downloading the media content and loading it into a suitable app for viewing) presented a variety of problems, with pilot studies only a limited students successfully engaged with the VR content. The problems faced by students were a result of device compatibility (such as software versions, sensor capability such as lack of accelerometers), storage limitations app and browser capabilities (eg, 360° video on YouTube is currently not supported by the Safari browser). The physical device size, button location and screen brightness caused issues when attempting to use some phones in consumer VR headsets. A diversity in student’s digital fluency impacted on the level of student support required in the classroom to ensure engagement, and also made the activity highly labour intensive. The assumption …

Dynamic Response of Tall Buildings on Sedimentary Basin to Long-Period Seismic Ground Motion

Characteristics of long-period seismic ground motion and response of tall buildings are investigated in this paper to promote earthquake proof countermeasures considering the damage caused by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. 3D finite difference method and the reciprocal theorem are used to examine the effect of sedimentary basin structures on seismic wave amplification. Natural period and damping of tall buildings are evaluated by ambient vibration tests and earthquake response observation during construction or demolition of the buildings. The effects of dynamic soil-structure interaction on response amplification of tall buildings are confirmed applying wave propagation theory to a continuum building model. Finally, a newly built base-isolated building with an isolated rooftop laboratory is introduced for full-scale long-period shaking experiment by installing actuators and jacks. Experience of long-period shaking in the building is also available with virtual reality view of indoor damage, which is effective for promotion of seismic countermeasures such as fixing furniture and safe evacuation.

USING VIRTUAL REALITY AS A METHOD OF ACCELERATED REHABILITATION AMONG THE PATIENTS AFTER STROKE

Aim - exploring the effect of displaying the motion from the first-person’s point of view in virtual reality on the recovery of motor disorders among patients in the acute period of cerebrovascular disorder. Materials and methods. 45 patients with acute cerebrovascular disorder aged 58±7 years were analyzed. Patients were randomized in two groups. The first group received either standard rehabilitation or training with virtual reality equipment. The second group received only standard rehabilitation. Training included displaying the motion from the first-person’s point of view in the virtual reality during 3-7 sessions, 15 minutes each. In this exercise a patient could see his “virtual legs”. Speed range was 2-5 km/h. Berg’s balance assessment was used to score movement function (14 questions, where max score - 56 points - means that there is no dysfunction to notice). Assessment method for comparing groups with unusual distribution (Mann-Whitney criteria) was used as statistical analysis. Results. Exercises with the virtual reality equipment show their efficiency on 15th-19th day after stroke. The most significant outcome can be achieved in 5-9 days after stroke (p=0,022). The rate of movement function recovery depends on the duration of training (p=0,001); the highest outcome can be achieved during the first 3-5 sessions. Conclusion. Additional exercises with the virtual reality equipment help to improve outcomes of movement function recovery among patients with acute cerebrovascular disorder.

Multidisciplinary Study of Biological Parameters and Fatigue Evolution in Quay Crane Operators

In intermodal terminals the handling of containers and the number of accidents still depends on a wide range of human errors due to fatigue despite the automation level reached nowadays. For this reason it is very important to increase knowledge about the factors affecting the propensity of operators to make errors, increasing the chance of accidents happening. The aim of this work is to propose a novel approach to assess fatigue and performance levels in quay crane operators as a function of physiological parameters and of the many varying boundary conditions encountered in daily work. During their work, quay crane operators have to deal with variable environmental conditions, such as task type, wind speed and direction, lighting conditions that reduce visibility that can require an exacting level of attention. In the trial eight operators have been examined in a session lasting four hours. All actual conditions are reproduced through a fully immersive quay crane simulator. The operator completes the assigned task (the same for each one) and can see through four wide monitors a high quality virtual reality view of the simulation. Most biological parameters are acquired using different devices including a Holter ECG monitor, electromyographic monitoring the four trunk muscles most involved in the test, eye tracker and seat-body pressure interface for both seat pan and backrest. Changes in physiological parameters have been monitored during the trial and interesting correlations with performance levels and boundary conditions have been found for each operator, in accordance with their age and skills. The present study can form the basis for further investigations aimed at developing a cost effective, reliable and robust system for monitoring increasing fatigue and for predicting the critical conditions that may result in an accident.

Development and testing of an endoscopic pseudo-viewpoint alternating system.

Purpose An endoscopic system is needed that presents informative images irrespective of the surgical situation and the number of degrees of freedom in endoscopic manipulation. This goal may be achieved with a virtual reality view for a region of interest from an arbitrary viewpoint. An endoscopic pseudo-viewpoint alternation system for this purpose was developed and tested.Method Surgical experts and trainees from an endoscopic surgery training course at the minimally invasive surgery training center of Kyushu University were enrolled in a trial of a virtual reality system. The initial viewpoint was positioned to approximate the horizontal view often seen in laparoscopic surgery, with 20^{circ } between the optical axis of the endoscope and the task surface. A right-to-left suturing task with right hand, based on a task from the endoscopic surgery training course, was selected for testing. We compared task outcomes with and without use of a new virtual reality-viewing system.Result There was a 0.37 mm reduction in total error (p = 0.02) with use of the proposed system. Error reduction was composed of 0.1 mm reduction on the y-axis and 0.27 mm reduction on the x-axis. Experts benefited more than novices from use of the proposed system. Most subjects worked at a pseudo-viewpoint of around 34^circ .Discussion Suturing performance improved with the new virtual reality endoscopic display system. Viewpoint alternation resulted in an overview that improved depth perception and allowed subjects to better aim the marker. This suggests the proposed method offers users better visualization and control in endoscopic surgery.

A POINT-BASED ASYNCHRONOUS REMOTE VISUALIZATION FRAMEWORK FOR REAL-TIME VIRTUAL REALITY

High speed interactive virtual reality (VR) exploration of scientific datasets is a challenge when the visualization is computationally expensive. This paper presents a point-based remote visualization pipeline for real-time virtual reality (VR) with asynchronous client-server coupling. Steered by the client-end frustum request, the remote server samples the original dataset into 3D point samples and sends them back to the client for view updating. From every view updating frame, the client incrementally builds up a point-based geometry under an octree-based space partition hierarchy. At every view-reconstruction frame, the client continuously splats the available points onto the screen with efficient occlusion culling and view-dependent level of detail (LOD) control. An experimental visualization framework with a server-end computer cluster and a client-end head-tracked autostereo VR desktop display is used to visualize large-scale mesh datasets and ray-traced 4D Julia set datasets. The overall performance of the VR view reconstruction is about 15 fps and independent of the original dataset complexity.

3-D visualisation of design patterns and Java programs in computer science education

Object technology is the dominant software engineering paradigm in most undergraduate computer science courses. Two important topics in this area are design patterns and Java programming, and indeed these are increasingly taught side by side. This paper describes a novel form of visualisation that makes use of a combination of virtual reality and hypertext to represent the structure and behaviour of object-oriented design patterns and simple Java programs, with the overall aim of providing tools to enhance learning and understanding of these topics.For patterns, the solution part of a pattern, which consists of a software fragment of interacting objects, is visualised in an animated 3-dimensional virtual environment. The virtual reality view is embedded in a rich inter-linked hyper-textual description.For Java programs, the source code is first transformed into the same simple software description language (SVL, Software Visualisation Language) used for patterns. Also included is a simple textual specification of a run-time scenario defining the creation of objects and their typical interaction, together with explanatory "comments". As with design patterns, the structure and run-time behaviour of the Java program can then be visualised in three dimensions with synchronised hyper-textual commentary.