3D Virtual World Research Articles

Evaluating Layout Dimensionalities in PC+VR Asymmetric Collaborative Decision Making

With the commercialization of virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR) devices, there is an increasing interest in combining immersive and non-immersive devices (e.g., desktop computers) for asymmetric collaborations. While such asymmetric settings have been examined in social platforms, significant questions around layout dimensionality in data-driven decision-making remain underexplored. A crucial inquiry arises: although presenting a consistent 3D virtual world on both immersive and non-immersive platforms has been a common practice in social applications, does the same guideline apply to lay out data? Or should data placement be optimized locally according to each device's display capacity? This study aims to provide empirical insights into the user experience of asymmetric collaboration in data-driven decision-making. We tested practical dimensionality combinations between PC and VR, resulting in three conditions: PC2D+VR2D, PC2D+VR3D, and PC3D+VR3D. The results revealed a preference for PC2D+VR3D, and PC2D+VR2D led to the quickest task completion. Our investigation facilitates an in-depth discussion of the trade-offs associated with different layout dimensionalities in asymmetric collaborations.

Uncertain Future Dwelling: Emergent Interiors of the Metaverse

Contemporarily, a flood of digital interior architectural imagery has emerged of spaces developed for the Metaverse, a forthcoming immersive 3D virtual world. These spaces are not bound by the conventions of architectural practice nor the demands of the physical world, providing an opportunity for design exploration and innovation in the future of interiors and positing challenges to core architectural concepts that have accompanied traditional practice. This research offers a visual analysis of aesthetic trends and new typologies present in the interior architectural spaces designed for the Metaverse. The analysis features a curated and collaged collection of works from ten creators of Metaverse spaces, categorised to examine the impact of digital architectural spaces that increasingly detach from the needs of physical dwellings. The research reveals commanding visual trends in Metaverse interior imagery that challenge traditional notions of interiority and dwelling and finds aesthetic signifiers of belonging in spaces that Augé (1995/2009) would neatly classified as an empirical 'non-place.' Positioned as a form of heterotopia in a realm where architecture is being designed for the purely visual, we posit that the less recognisable these spaces become, the more potential they hold for innovation in both the Metaverse and in dialogue with real-world interior architecture.

Automatyczna generacja wirtualnych elementów infrastruktury kolejowej

This article is devoted to the issues of modeling a 3D virtual world for railroad simulators and the problems of creating a map for such a simulator. An algorithm using artificial intelligence methods for detection, classification, and place railway infrastructure objects from video recordings in a 3D virtual world, as well as GPS data has been proposed. The proposed solution, supporting automatic generation of virtual elements of railway infrastructure, is a significant innovation in the field of research.

Virtual Reality is Beneficial in Decreasing Pain in Laboring Women: A Preliminary Study

(Aust N Z J Obstet Gynaecol. 2023; 63: 193–197) Labor pain is a highly variable experience, with a wide range of both pharmacological and nonpharmacologic methods available to help relieve pain during labor. Virtual reality (VR) distraction therapy is one of many nonpharmacologic modalities shown to assist patients in managing their acute pain in clinical settings. This has been tested in patients undergoing chemotherapy, physical therapy, treatment for dental work, and burn wounds, among other procedures. Those who use VR technology wear a headset to experience a 3D multisensory virtual world. Four published quantitative studies to date have used VR to determine the influence of VR on laboring women’s pain scores. This preliminary study is an open-label, randomized, controlled cross-over trial to examine how effective VR is in decreasing pain in laboring women.

Immersive Interaction in Digital Factory: Metaverse in Manufacturing

Digital twins and virtual reality are pivotal technologies in the context of Industry 4.0, facilitating the design, simulation, optimization, and remote interaction with production systems. These technologies also present new prospects for developing immersive and hyper-realistic digital factories within the metaverse. This paper aims to enhance collaboration and communication in a 3D virtual world, focusing on shared reality and the metaverse's integration in digital factories. Our main contribution enables users to have full-body immersive interaction with virtual 3D assets and realistic locomotion in a 3D environment, fostering flexibility in collaboration and environment monitoring/control. To achieve this, we propose a systematic methodology for designing and implementing a digital twin-based factory with an IoT infrastructure. By replicating sensors and actuators in digital twins, real-time asset management synchronized with the physical factory is realized, empowering full-body interaction. To enable full-body interaction with virtual equipment, we employ a human motion tracking system. A proof-of-concept case study, developed using Unity3D game engine, Solace PubSub+ event streaming APIs, and Awinda Xsens wearable inertial sensors as the motion tracking system, validates our proposed methodology. The results of the case study demonstrate the successful integration of digital twins, virtual reality, and the metaverse, enabling real-time monitoring and control, full-body interaction, and immersive user experiences in the virtual environment.

Multi-Antenna Coded Caching for Location-Dependent Content Delivery

Human-computer interaction continuously evolves towards a genuinely immersive experience, submerging users in a three-dimensional (3D) virtual world. A realistic, immersive experience necessitates a highly reliable and agile wireless connection to support immense data transmission. Yet, there are abundant but underutilized memory resources available at the devices which can be harnessed as supplementary assets to reduce the excessive burden on the wireless medium. What is more, the use of Coded Caching (CC) techniques enables the cumulative cache memory of users in the network to be used as an additional communication resource. To this end, a location-dependent multi-antenna CC-based content delivery scheme tailored specifically for wireless extended reality applications is proposed in this paper. First, a novel memory allocation process is developed, enabling an appropriate trade-off between local and global caching gains. In this regard, the local caching gain is maximized when the memory is mostly dedicated to locations with poor connectivity conditions (absolute fairness). In contrast, the global caching gain is maximized when the memory is uniformly allocated among all the locations. As a result of the memory allocation process, unequal fractions of location-dependent multimedia content are cached by each user. Given the asymmetric cache placement, a novel algorithm is proposed to create suitable codewords for each user during the subsequent delivery phase, which simultaneously achieves a global and local caching gain. The proposed delivery scheme also combines global caching and spatial multiplexing gains using a weighted max-min multicast beamformer design with multi-rate modulation. Numerical experiments and mathematical analysis demonstrate significant performance gains, in terms of the 95-percentile expected delivery time, compared to unicast and multicast scenarios where either the local or global caching gain is maximized.

Integrating Digital Twin and Advanced Intelligent Technologies to Realize the Metaverse

The advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have led to technological advancements in a plethora of domains. Healthcare, education, and smart city services are now enriched with AI capabilities. These technological advancements would not have been realized without the assistance of fast, secure, and fault-tolerant communication media. Traditional processing, communication and storage technologies cannot maintain high levels of scalability and user experience for immersive services. The metaverse is an immersive three-dimensional (3D) virtual world that integrates fantasy and reality into a virtual environment using advanced virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) devices. Such an environment is still being developed and requires extensive research in order for it to be realized to its highest attainable levels. In this article, we discuss some of the key issues required in order to attain realization of metaverse services. We propose a framework that integrates digital twin (DT) with other advanced technologies such as the sixth generation (6G) communication network, blockchain, and AI, to maintain continuous end-to-end metaverse services. This article also outlines requirements for an integrated, DT-enabled metaverse framework and provides a look ahead into the evolving topic.

Health literacy practices in 3D social virtual world

Abstract Background Social Virtual Worlds (VWs), for example, Second Life are online 3D multiuser virtual environments (MUVE). Access by users or ‘residents’ of these environments is through the creation of a representation of themselves, known as an avatar. These social immersive environments have been used to present health information using interactive games, simulations, support groups and healthcare seminars. The use of these environments during COVID-19 increased especially in countries with strict lockdown rules. However, limited published studies have investigated the health literacy (HL) skills and practices undertaken by individuals or communities in virtual worlds. Therefore, this study aimed to advance understanding of the social skills and health literacy practices used by individuals and communities within this immersive ‘place’ and the influence on physical world health behaviour. Methods 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants within the virtual world Second Life. Results Findings demonstrated that participants used their social VW networks within the VW to search for, access, experience, appraise, understand, and make decisions to use health information. These social methods allowed reciprocal sharing of information, access to people within multiple VW groups who had different VW knowledge, skills, and health literacy practices. Additionally, this maximised the health literacy resources available, meaning improvements to individual or community HL. Conclusions An adapted framework of social skills and cultural literacy competencies used within VWs to improve individual and community HL be discussed and how this leads to distributed HL within the community. This framework is the first collection of social skills and adult HL used within VWs and make a unique contribution to ncreasing the understanding of the type of literacies used in social VWs to manage health information in online and offline communities.

A Survey on the Metaverse: The State-of-the-Art, Technologies, Applications, and Challenges

In recent years, the concept of the Metaverse has attracted considerable attention. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the Metaverse. First, the development status of the Metaverse is presented. We summarize the policies of various countries, companies, and organizations relevant to the Metaverse, as well as statistics on the number of Metaverse-related publications. Characteristics of the Metaverse are identified: 1) multi-technology convergence; 2) sociality; 3) hyper-spatio-temporality. For the multi-technology convergence of the Metaverse, we divide the technological framework of the Metaverse into five dimensions. For the sociality of the Metaverse, we focus on the Metaverse as a virtual social world. Regarding the characteristic of hyper-spatio-temporality, we introduce the Metaverse as an open, immersive, and interactive 3D virtual world which can break through the constraints of time and space in the real world. The challenges of the Metaverse are also discussed.

Investigating Users’ Acceptance of the Metaverse with an Extended Technology Acceptance Model

The Metaverse, characterized as an interactive and immersive 3D virtual world, is widely recognized for its considerable potential across a range of industries. However, the long-term viability and success of the Metaverse are contingent upon the extent to which users accept and adopt it. Despite this critical aspect, there is a scarcity of research that investigates the factors influencing user acceptance of the Metaverse. To address this research gap, the present study expands upon the technology acceptance model by integrating social and psychological constructs such as social interaction, social presence, conformity, emotional attachment, flow, and perceived enjoyment. The data for this study were obtained through an online survey. A total of 418 responses were collected from Metaverse users, with a response rate of 84%. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the survey data. Results showed that: (1) perceived ease of use (β = 0.214, p < 0,001), emotional attachment (β = 0.375 p < 0,001), and enjoyment (β = 0.194, p < 0,001) could have a positive effect on perceived usefulness; (2) emotional attachment (β = 0.142, p = 0.018), enjoyment (β = 0.179, p = 0.008), and social presence (β = 0.183, p = 0.008) could have a positive effect on perceived ease of use; (3) perceived usefulness (β = 0.432, p < 0,001), perceived ease of use (β = 0.106, p = 0.011), emotional attachment (β = 0.209, p < 0,001), and social interaction (β = 0.209, p < 0,001) have a positive effect on attitudes toward using the Metaverse; (4) perceived usefulness (β = 0.174, p = 0.001), attitudes (β = 0.35, p < 0,001), flow (β = 0.128, p = 0.011), and social interaction (β = 0.106, p = 0.015) could positively influence users’ intention to use the Metaverse. However, social presence could not significantly influence perceived usefulness (β = 0.078, p = 0.141). These results offer important implications for developers and practitioners looking to design and promote the utilization of the Metaverse.

Mining Metaverse – a future collaborative tool for best practice mining

ABSTRACT Futuristic views of mine operations allude to the use of immersive virtual worlds that transport people into what is now called a Metaverse, a network of 3D virtual worlds that can be experienced by an unlimited number of people simultaneously. The concept and benefit of combining real and virtual worlds have been around for many decades and have evolved considerably in recent years. When these are presented as a digital twin with bidirectional data and collaboration capability, potential exists for a powerful communications tool for mining operations. Hence, it is time to discuss the Metaverse from a mining perspective and this paper asks, ‘What is the Metaverse and how does it relate to mining?’ This paper presents some case studies, concepts, a model and considers the benefits of a Mining Metaverse as a communications tool that enhances decision making via remote collaboration.

Forest Fire Spread Simulation and Fire Extinguishing Visualization Research

There are three main types of forest fires: surface fires, tree crown fires, and underground fires. The frequency of surface fires and tree crown fires accounts for more than 90% of the overall frequency of forest fires. In order to construct an immersive three-dimensional visualization simulation of forest fires, various forest fire ignition methods, forest fire spread, and fire extinguishing simulation exercises are studied. This paper proposes a lightweight forest fire spread method based on cellular automata applied to the virtual 3D world. By building a plant model library using cells to express different plants, and by building a 3D geometric model of plants to truly capture the combustion process of a single plant, we can further simulate forest-scale fire propagation and analyze the factors that affect forest fire spread. In addition, based on the constructed immersive forest scene, this study explored various forms of fire extinguishing methods in the virtual environment, mainly liquid flame retardants such as water guns, helicopter-dropped flame retardants, or simulated rainfall. Therefore, the forest fire occurrence, spread, and fire extinguishing process can be visualized after the interactive simulation is designed and implemented. Finally, this study greatly enhanced the immersion and realism of the 3D forest fire scene by simulating the changes in plant materials during the spread of a forest fire.

3D reconstruction system and multiobject local tracking algorithm designed for billiards

The use of virtual reality or augmented reality systems in billiards sports are useful tools for pure entertainment or improving the player’s skills. Depending on the purpose of these systems, tracking algorithms based on computer vision must be used. These algorithms are especially useful in systems aiming to reconstruct the trajectories followed by the balls after a strike. However, depending on the billiard modality, the problem of tracking multiple small identical objects, such as balls, is a complex task. In addition, when an amateur or nontop professional player uses low-frame-rate and low-resolution devices, problems such as blurred balls, blurred contours, or fuzzy edges, among others, arise. These effects have a negative impact on ball-tracking accuracy and reconstruction quality. Thus, this work proposes two contributions. The first contribution is a new tracking algorithm called “multiobject local tracking (MOLT)”. This algorithm can track balls with high precision and accuracy even with motion blur caused by low-resolution and low-frame-rate devices. Moreover, the proposed MOLT algorithm is compared with nine tracking methods and four different metrics, outperforming the rest of the methods in the majority of the cases and providing a robust solution. The second contribution is a whole system to track (using the MOLT algorithm) and reconstruct the movements of the balls on a billiard table in a 3D virtual world using computer vision. The proposed system covers all steps from image capture to 3D reconstruction. The 3D reconstruction results have been qualitatively evaluated by different users through a series of questionnaires, obtaining an overall score of 7.6 (out of 10), which indicates that the system is a promising and useful tool for training. Finally, both the MOLT algorithm and the reconstruction system are tested in three billiard modalities: blackball, carom billiards, and snooker.

Metaverse: Telepresence in 3D Virtual Digital Worlds through the use of Avatars

This article addresses telepresence through avatars in virtual environments such as Metaverso. Important concepts such as Metaverse and 3D Virtual Digital Worlds, avatars, presence and telepresence were discussed. The applications of avatar telepresence in a variety of areas, including education, healthcare, entertainment, professional training, and customer service, as well as privacy and security concerns associated with this technology, were also explored.

Soft, miniaturized, wireless olfactory interface for virtual reality

Recent advances in virtual reality (VR) technologies accelerate the creation of a flawless 3D virtual world to provide frontier social platform for human. Equally important to traditional visual, auditory and tactile sensations, olfaction exerts both physiological and psychological influences on humans. Here, we report a concept of skin-interfaced olfactory feedback systems with wirelessly, programmable capabilities based on arrays of flexible and miniaturized odor generators (OGs) for olfactory VR applications. By optimizing the materials selection, design layout, and power management, the OGs exhibit outstanding device performance in various aspects, from response rate, to odor concentration control, to long-term continuous operation, to high mechanical/electrical stability and to low power consumption. Representative demonstrations in 4D movie watching, smell message delivery, medical treatment, human emotion control and VR/AR based online teaching prove the great potential of the soft olfaction interface in various practical applications, including entertainment, education, human machine interfaces and so on.

Fashion and the metaverse: Clarifying the domain and establishing a research agenda

In recent years, the metaverse has garnered significant attention as a term referring to a network of 3D virtual worlds that integrate elements of both physical and digital worlds. Fashion brands have begun exploring the metaverse as a new marketing platform, which is expected to bring about substantial changes in the fashion and retail industry. However, a lack of consensus on the nature of the metaverse and its impact on the fashion industry currently exists, and limited academic research is available on the metaverse's influence on fashion brands' marketing strategies and brand experiences. To address this gap, this study employs a thematic analysis approach on trade journals and industry articles that cover fashion brands' metaverse strategies. Through this analysis, the study provides a typology of current marketing strategies of fashion brands in the metaverse. Based on these empirical findings, this research proposes a theoretical framework that explains how different metaverse strategies affect different dimensions of brand equity. Finally, this study offers research directions for fashion brands' metaverse strategies by presenting an integrated framework that synthesizes the key insights from our research findings.

Metaverse platform ecosystems

Traditionally, the metaverse has been defined as a virtual reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users. Nowadays, it is much more than that—the metaverse can be described as a variety of digital platforms and ecosystems, with each ecosystem as an independent universe with its own material, complementors, and functionalities. Creating metaverse ecosystems and integrated platforms results in different roles and responsibilities for complementors, consumers, platform owners, and orchestrators. The term metaverse platforms is further structured and clarified by four perspectives: innovation, production, transaction, and social interaction. Consequently, this fundamental paper defines it as: “A Metaverse is a massively scaled and interoperable meta-ecosystem of other digital ecosystems of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds which can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an unlimited number of complementors and consumers with an increased user experience caused by a creativity-guided co-creation of goods managed by orchestrators and supported by platform owners.” Consequently, the metaverse offers vast opportunities for digital innovations beyond traditional social media or computer games and creates new infrastructures for add-on innovations in all areas of the digital economy.

Libraries on metaverse, do they exist?

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the existence of Metaverse or 3D virtual libraries and how they use Metaverse to expand library services.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use literature to search projects and research papers that discuss the metaverse library. They also did observations on metaverse libraries.FindingsThere are some virtual realities or metaverse platforms that a library or virtual community can use to build their 3D virtual world. Some libraries already create a virtual world library or metaverse library. However, those initiatives are still in the prototype stage and are used for exhibitions and projects.Originality/valueThis paper overviews and builds a simple understanding of the metaverse library. The value of the paper is giving motivation when building the metaverse library. This initiative shows that big hi-tech companies do not dominate Metaverse.

Virtual reality for shoulder arthroplasty education

Simulation provides an effective learning strategy to offset real-world training. Immersive virtual reality (IVR) is a form of simulation that incorporates unique software and hardware to create interactive, 3-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds to practice surgical procedures. In shoulder arthroplasty, IVR has shown consistent improvements in both technical skill and knowledge acquisition relative to traditional learning formats for trainees. The purpose of this review is to describe the current availability and application of IVR for shoulder arthroplasty education, and to describe future uses.

Effects of Simulation Games on students’ Computational Thinking and Game Experience for Programming Courses in Primary School

There is substantial evidence that incorporating interactive environments for game-based instruction has a significant potential to support the development of computational thinking and programming skills in primary education students. However, it is not clear whether a simulation game (SG) with different user interface elements, created via three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds and visual programming environments to project various problem-solving exercises in a simulated reality, can significantly influence students to think and practice "computationally" their solution plans into code. The current study aims to identify any possible added value of each instructional approach by measuring students’ game experience and learning performance. This quasi-experimental study involved ninety participants (n = 90) aged between 10 and 11 years that consisted of two comparison conditions. The experimental group (n = 45) received training using OpenSimulator in combination with Scratch4SL, whereas the control group (n = 45) was trained using Scratch. The findings indicate considerable differences in students’ game experience and satisfaction, but no statistically significant difference in their learning performance and knowledge gain was identified. This study provides several design implications for user interface and game elements to inform educational practitioners and instructors about the benefits that each approach can offer students for better knowledge acquisition and deeper disciplinary understanding.