Virtual Environment Applications Research Articles

An Open eLearning Platform for Robotics Training (OpenPLeRobot Project)

In Greece, educational robotics does not have the impact observed in other countries, mainly because of the limited number of structures that offer educational robotics courses, the cost of participation, the cost of robotic packages and the lack of time of young students combined with the inability to move independently. OpenPLeRobot project promotes development of innovative product of eLearning open platform for Robotics Training, with experimental learning procedures and promotes the idea of an integrated robotics toolbox of education and training, based upon innovative ICT tools, that simulates robotics applications in virtual reality environment, supported with robotics training equipment and ICT toolkits. OpenPLeRobot project is designed to support communication of trainers and trainees of robotics, through synchronous and asynchronous e- learning educational environment, in pre - school and school children and performs as a prototype robotics laboratory that stimulates creative robotics constructions and motivates computational logic in education. As a result this project has positive results at all levels of the educational process, and providing skills (teaching becomes more effective), motivation (the conscious and unconscious factors are enhanced), readiness (helps to build an adequate background of experiences), experience (enhances experience), adaptation (improves the ability of the individual to live harmoniously) and health (contributes to the proper normal physical health, but also to his mental health).

Learning in immersed collaborative virtual environments: design and implementation

ABSTRACT Immersive virtual environments hold unexplored potential to scaffold and stimulate learning in multiple ways for the purpose of increasing potential learning gains. Yet, the number of implementations in educational settings remains very limited. One reason for limited implementation of immersive virtual environment applications may be a lack of recommendations for their effective design. Building on an extensive theoretical framework, this paper provides such recommendations, specific to immersive educational settings. The recommendations are divided into strategies to optimize cognitive load, foster collaborative learning, leverage platform-specific affordances, mitigate platform-specific limitations and to obtain additional benefits. We illustrate the implementation of these recommendations using a novel collaborative virtual reality environment shown to yield learning gains in two prior studies. Moreover, we detail how a non-invasive and cost-effective feature of automated performance analysis can monitor learning gains in collaborative virtual reality environments. The recommendations based on the example of a collaborative virtual reality environment pave the way for more such implementations to maximize benefits for learners and educators alike.

Virtual Light Environment of Underground Spaces: An Alternative to Interaction

The goal of this article is to determine various approaches to forming of virtual luminous environment using latest international technologies and resources. Special attention is paid to the systematic approach to research of the ways of adaptation in architecture including elements of contemporary digital technologies and achievements in the field of virtual luminous environment arrangement. Conditions, theoretical basis and tools of virtual luminous environment forming in an enclosed underground space are reviewed. Virtual techniques of luminous environment modification are identified based on analysis of cases of their application. It is noted that different techniques of virtual luminous environment application as an integral component of an underground space use numerous ways to converse and control electrical lighting. The article may be useful both for theory and practice of virtual luminous environment forming in underground spaces providing brand new capabilities to architecture.

Utilising virtual environments for radiation therapy teaching and learning

IntroductionModern radiation therapy undergraduate education comprises the illustration of theoretical, technical concepts in a classroom setting, coupled with the acquisition of practical handling and patient communication skills within the clinical environment. In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the application of virtual environments to education, despite ongoing inconclusive evidence on the use of virtual environments for enhancing student educational achievement. Aim and objectivesThe aim of our research is to evaluate a custom-built 3D virtual radiation oncology department created within Second Life®, an online virtual world, as an alternative to traditional physical classroom-based didactic instruction, in tandem with a Virtual Environment for Radiotherapy Training (VERT) system, for the peer support and training of junior radiation therapy students in their first and second year of undergraduate studies. To achieve this aim, we investigated learning achievement outcomes, knowledge retention over a 2-week time interval and learner self-perceived confidence post-instruction, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis. MethodsInstitutional ethics approval was granted for an exempted review. Participants were currently enrolled undergraduate Year 1 and Year 2 students at our institution. Student participants were randomised into two groups; the control group attended a face-to-face classroom session centred on the illustration of theoretical, technical concepts, while the intervention group attended a virtual classroom session online on Second Life®, where similar content was delivered. Both groups then attended a VERT practical session to acquire practical handling and communication skills in radiation therapy. Upon completion of the sessions, confidence surveys, knowledge-based written and practical assessments were administered to the student participants. ResultsWe found that the instructional session conducted within the custom-built 3D virtual radiation oncology department in Second Life® compared to the traditional didactic classroom setting increased undergraduate Year 1 radiation therapy students’ perceived confidence to a greater extent compared to Year 2 students, in performing radiation therapy treatment procedures. In addition, our findings revealed that overall learning achievement outcomes and knowledge retention scores between Second Life® and non- Second Life® student participants were closely similar and statistically insignificant. Thematic analysis of the confidence survey questionnaires revealed that the students in general desired more clinical hands-on practice. DiscussionSecond Life® is equally effective in disseminating theoretical, technical course content delivery to undergraduate radiation therapy students. The use of virtual environments appears to have increased the perceived confidence of the Year 1 undergraduate students to a greater extent compared to the Year 2 undergraduates, suggesting that the adoption of virtual environments early in the students’ educational journey can have a positive effect on students’ learning experience. Conclusions and RecommendationsThe development and use of our custom-built Second Life® radiation oncology department provides a novel way of delivering remote, virtual training instruction to undergraduate radiation therapy students over traditional, didactic classroom instructional delivery. We recommend, based on the results of this pilot study, that future research can involve a larger study sample of undergraduate RT students, to explore both the short-term and long-term impact of virtual environments on student learning outcomes across their enrolled years of study. This would in turn mean progressive attempts to revamp our existing curricula structure, to deliberately incorporate the use of virtual environments, especially during early undergraduate years, towards enhanced modern RT education.

Experts Review on Factors to Consider When Designing Virtual Environment for Stress Therapy

Virtual reality (VR) based therapy is an alternative technique available for stress treatment. In this technique, virtual reality is used as a tool to assist users to reduce stress and induce relaxation. Many previous literatures published have acknowledged the effectiveness of virtual reality based therapy as compared to other techniques such as breathing exercise and imagination. However, previous studies available only focused on proving the effectiveness of virtual reality application in reducing stress, but are lacking discussions on factors that should be taken into consideration when designing its virtual environment. In previous study, initial framework containing possible factors to be considered when designing virtual environment for stress therapy has been proposed. In this paper, an expert review was conducted to validate the usefulness of the identified factors. Findings from the validation process has resulted in the improved version of the initial framework and their application in virtual environment.

Application of Virtual Environments for Biophilic Design: A Critical Review

Biophilic design as a new design approach promotes the integration of natural elements into the built environment, leading to a significant impact on human health, well-being, and productivity. On the other hand, scholars have explored Virtual Environment (VE) to create virtual nature and provide a complex experience of exposure to natural elements virtually. However, there is a lack of understanding about such studies in general, which use VE as a reliable tool to support biophilic design. Thus, the authors conducted a literature review on the applications, capabilities, and limitations of VE for biophilic design. The literature review shows that VE is capable of supporting critical features of biophilic design studies such as representing combinations of biophilic patterns, providing multimodal sensory inputs, simulating stress induction tasks, supporting required exposure time to observe biophilic patterns, and measuring human’s biological responses to natural environment. However, factors affecting user’s experience of a virtual biophilic environment exist, such as VE experience dimensions, user-related factors, cybersickness, navigational issues, and possible limitations of VE sensory input. Overall, biophilic design studies in VEs are still limited. Nevertheless, there are many opportunities for further research in this field.

The Impact of Vertical Densification on Public Lighting in Informal Settlements: Using Virtual Environments as an Evaluation Tool for Policy Making

There are a variety of reasons to support the premise that public lighting is beneficial to urban communities. At the same time, a key challenge for the provision of public lighting in informal settlements is their constant physical transformation. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the application of virtual environments (VEs) in lighting planning and policy making. Despite the fact that VEs offer the opportunity to explore an environment by freely navigating through it, including environments that change over time, this feature is rarely taken into account in decision-making processes. A VE-based analysis tool for informal settlement lighting is presented using a case-study street in the informal settlement of Caracolí in Bogotá as its basis. A household survey, spatial measurements, participants’ observations, and luminous intensity distribution curves constituted the main data set for the VE scenarios. Time-related data on the incremental construction of Caracolí’s informal dwellings was collected by the household survey and that data was then projected into past, present, and future night-time scenarios. The lighting quality of these different scenarios was systematically evaluated via lighting calculation software, revealing a variety of shortcomings caused by the current lighting approach. Based on these findings, an alternative lighting approach was developed and re-examined using lighting calculations. Finally, custom game-engine technology and GPU computing were deployed, which allowed for real-time visualisation of the different lighting scenarios and their lighting quality. This setup therefore enables fast iterative feedback loops for current and future lighting policy scenarios and the resulting lighting design. In the first instance, a VE can illustrate well how current lighting policy results in a significant delay of lighting provision in the early stage of a settlement as well as highlighting the mismatch between lighting technology and the built environment during the vertical densification phases. Second, the VE is able to showcase alternative lighting technologies and policy approaches as well as the resulting lighting effects, enabling a visual comparison of different policy scenarios over several decades. In conclusion it will be argued that the dynamic VE technology appears to be a promising decision-making tool for illustrating potential planning and design shortcomings to policy stakeholders in a manner understandable to the layman.

Application of Virtual Environment for Radiotherapy Training System for Educational Purposes at Institute of Physics of Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce

Application of Virtual Environment for Radiotherapy Training System for Educational Purposes at Institute of Physics of Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce

Application of a Multi-User Virtual Environment for Simulating Operations for New Projects of Manned Space Flights.

The paper deals with the problem of obtaining professional experience by cosmonauts under the earth conditions in the interests of promising projects of manned space flights using a multi-user virtual environment as an online tool providing communication and control of an operational interaction between a cosmonaut and a scientific-pedagogical team of experts in various related fields when developing scenarios for the crew's activities under conditions of high uncertainty of the initial data in future projects.

The Development of Gun-Shaped VR Haptic Controller and Virtual Environment Application for Immersive First Person Shooting Game

The Development of Gun-Shaped VR Haptic Controller and Virtual Environment Application for Immersive First Person Shooting Game

VSocial: a cloud-based system for social virtual reality learning environment applications in special education

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are spaces designed to educate student groups remotely via online platforms. Although traditional VLEs have shown promise in educating students, they offer limited immersion that overall diminishes learning effectiveness. In this paper, we describe vSocial, a cloud-based virtual reality learning environment (VRLE) system that can be deployed over high-speed networks using the High Fidelity “social VR” platform. vSocial provides flexible control of group learning content and compliance with established VLE standards with improved immersive user experience for both instructor(s) and students. For our vSocial development, we build upon the use case of an existing special education VLE viz., iSocial that trains youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder by implementing the Social Competence Intervention (SCI) curriculum. The vSocial can be used to: (a) implement multiple learning modules using wearable VR technologies, (b) integrate cognitive state sensing devices, and (c) organize learning session data securely using web applications hosted on cloud resources. Our experiment results show that the VR mode of content delivery in vSocial better stimulates the generalization of lessons to the real world than non-VR lessons, and provides improved immersion when compared to an equivalent desktop version. Further, usability study results show that users can successfully use the web application features in vSocial for group learning activities with ease-of-use and consistency.

Preserving Riau’s Malay Culture Through Virtual Environment Application

Riau Malay culture provides inspiration and guidance for the community. Malay culture that is based on religion provides many guidelines and advice for the community in acting. Unfortunately, the community is difficult to access Riau Malay cultural objects because of separated locations of each district in Riau Province. Additional factors, many Malay cultural objects have been damaged and lost. This research aims to develop a three-dimensional virtual environment application to facilitate community access in knowing and studying Riau’s Malay cultural objects. Starting from the initiation of the environment, making surface contours, creating environmental objects to the addition of cultural objects are the phases carried out in this study. The results of this study indicate that the application is very interesting and able to facilitate public access in knowing and preserving Riau’s Malay culture.

T218. A REAL ENVIRONMENT BASED VIRTUAL REALITY PSYCHOSOCIAL TREATMENT MAY HELP PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA TO INCREASE SOCIAL FUNCTIONING: A PRELIMINARY STUDY

BackgroundEmerging new technologies may lead to the discovery of new treatment techniques in psychiatric disorders. Virtual Reality (VR) is being one of the newly developed techniques that has also taken its place in literature very recently. VR is a new technology for treatment of psychiatric symptoms. This is a pilot study that aims to determine the behavioral and symptomatic response of patients to a real recorded VR environment. In this study, a virtual reality laboratory has been established and a psychosocial treatment program through virtual reality has been developed for patients with schizophrenia. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of VR psychosocial treatment program on psychosocial functioning in schizophrenia.MethodsData were collected from the patients who applied to Dokuz Eylül University School of Medicine, Schizophrenia and Psychosis Outpatient Clinic. Seven schizophrenia patients who met schizophrenia according to DSM-V diagnostic criteria were included into the study. The level of psychosocial functioning was assessed using the Personal and Social Performance Scale (PSP), the positive and negative symptom severity was evaluated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and social skills were assessed by using the Social Skills Checklist (SSC). The VR psychosocial treatment program included 10 sessions and was carried on for five weeks as twice a week. Each session had different real virtual environment applications including social interaction components such as in a café to buy a beverage, a bazaar or market to do shopping, taking a bus, tram, and/or ferry, etc.ResultsPSP scores were statistically different after and before virtual reality assessment (p=0,018). SSC scores were trend to be significance after the VR application (p=0,062). After five weeks, patients’ the number of going outside home, the places they go and the activities they do have been increased compared to the numbers at the beginning but did not differ in statistically significance. None of the patients reported motion sickness due to exposure to real environment during or after immersive process of VR. There was no significant difference regarding PANSS scores after the VR psychosocial treatment. In this study real environment VR sessions did not trigger positive symptoms of schizophrenia patients.DiscussionIn this preliminary study, we found that the real environment VR psychosocial application is eligible for schizophrenia patients to improve their social skills and daily activities. This study helped patients to experience the real environment without being there and encouraged them to be “really” in there. Soon, cognitive remediation programs and psychosocial functioning therapies may be conducted via VR and may help the patients to cope with their symptoms and daily life difficulties.

Developing an online VR tool for participatory evaluation of animal vocal behaviours

ABSTRACT Animal vocal behaviour represents a certain meaning, which is the explicit expression of animal emotions, needs and communication. Different from human language, animal vocal behaviour is very abstract, and the learning material of animal vocal behaviour is also more difficult to obtain. It is hard for college students to recognize vocal behaviours of animals accurately. Using virtual reality (VR) to describe them is an innovation in outdoor practice. Zoology teaching can be further enhanced by VR online application. However, current online VR application is mostly restricted as visualization tools, and the application in virtual sound environment is rarely supported. An online VR demonstrator tool was developed by integrating affordable visualization and auralization components. The tool could be published in mainstream web browsers with users’ own devices. Sichuan golden monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana) of Shennongjia Nature Reserve in Hubei province, China was used as the case site to create the virtual environment. A participatory evaluation was performed to test and evaluate the effect of the online VR tool. The result was analysed and discussed on the usability and potential of the VR tool in animal vocal behaviours.

Enabling Hardware Performance Counters for Microkernel-Based Virtualization on Embedded Systems

Virtualization techniques continue to evolve at rapid speed and have now come to find its application in embedded and mobile computing devices. Virtualization improves the utilization of system resources effectively and also enhances security by providing isolated environments to run untrusted applications. There are various approaches to virtualization of embedded systems, from among them, we have chosen microkernel-based virtualization for our analysis due to its low memory requirements and advantages in terms of security. The microkernel selected for our work is the L4/Fiasco microkernel. Most of the modern CPUs consist of Performance Monitoring Unit (PMUs), which have a set of hardware counters that can be configured to monitor events. These hardware performance counters in the PMU block is not accessible from a microkernel-based virtualization environment. Access to PMU from a virtual environment would facilitate profiling with better accuracy and reduced overheads. To get this realized we propose a method to access the hardware performance counters from a microkernel-based virtualization environment. We have used this implementation to analyze the performance of applications in a microkernel-based virtual environment and to compare its performance in a non-virtual environment.

Communication framework for hybrid fire testing: Developments and applications in virtual and real environments

The response of structural systems to fire loads is typically assessed through performing ‘standard’ fire tests on individual members under constant mechanical boundary conditions. Full scale tests showed different behavior compared to the standard tests, but remain impractical. A promising approach to predict the behavior of full scale tests through testing individual structural members is Hybrid Fire Testing technique, where a subset of the structural system (Physical Substructure PS), is physically tested, while the remaining structure (Numerical Substructure NS), is simultaneously numerically analyzed. During the test, the mechanical boundary conditions on the PS and NS are continuously updated, and the updates are enabled by the communication framework. The communication framework is a key element for a successful hybrid fire test and this paper will present the development of such communication in MATLAB. To validate the communication framework, first, a single degree of freedom linear system was analyzed, followed by a ten-story steel frame structure exposed to design fire. The analysis of the latter underlined the importance of considering the effect of the cold surrounding in assessing the fire behavior of structures under design fires. Sensitivity analysis showed the importance of several parameters (time step and substructures stiffness) in hybrid fire testing.

Applications of Virtual Environments in Human Factors Research and Practice

Virtual reality, augmented reality, and other forms of virtual environments have the potential to dramatically change how individuals work, learn, and interact with each other. A key objective of human factors research and practice is to determine how these environments should be designed to maximize performance efficiency, ensure health and safety, and circumvent potential human virtual environment interaction problems. This session will demonstrate some of the distinct and diverse uses of virtual reality, mixed reality, and virtual environments in an alternative format. The session will begin with each demonstrator providing a brief overview of their virtual environment and describing how it has been used to address a particular problem or research need. Following the description portion of the session, all demonstrations will be set-up around the room, and session attendees will be encouraged to directly interact with the environment and ask demonstrators questions about their research and inquire about the effectiveness of using their virtual environment for research, training, and evaluation purposes. The overall objective of this alternative session is to provoke ideas among the attendees for how virtual reality, mixed reality, and virtual environments can help address their research, training, education or business needs.

The Effects of Augmented Reality Interaction Techniques on Egocentric Distance Estimation Accuracy

Recent developments in virtual environment applications allow users to interact with three-dimensional (3D) objects in virtual environments. As interaction with 3D objects in virtual environments becomes more established, it is important to investigate user performance with such interaction techniques within a specific task. This study investigated two interaction modes, direct and indirect, depending on how the users interacted with the 3D objects, by measuring the accuracy of egocentric distance estimation in a stereoscopic environment. Fourteen participants were recruited to perform an acquisition task with both direct pointing and indirect cursor techniques at three egocentric distances and three task difficulty levels. The accuracy of the egocentric distance estimation, throughput, and task completion time were analyzed for each interaction technique. The indirect cursor technique was found to be more accurate than the direct pointing one. On the other hand, a higher throughput was observed with the direct pointing technique than with the indirect cursor technique. However, there were no significant differences in task completion time between the two interaction techniques. The results also showed accuracy to be higher at the greatest distance (150 cm from the participant) than at the closer distances of 90 cm and 120 cm. Furthermore, the difficulty of the task also significantly affected the accuracy, with accuracy lower in the highest difficulty condition than in the medium and low difficulty conditions. The findings of this study contribute to the understanding of user-interaction techniques in a stereoscopic environment. Furthermore, developers of virtual environments may refer to these findings in designing effective user interactions, especially those in which performance relies on accuracy.

Application of Stereoscopic Head-Mounted Displays and Interactive Virtual Reality Environments to an “Optical Illusion” Misstep and Fall Case

The ability to accurately depict the scene of an incident to a jury, who will never be able to experience it first-hand, is a key element of presenting trial demonstratives. In many cases, where visual perception and situational awareness are a key element in understanding the nature of an incident, traditional modes of presentation, such as two-dimensional photographs, may be insufficient and require a more sophisticated methodology. Specifically, as stereoscopic head-mounted displays (HMDs) and virtual reality (VR) programming continues to advance, it provides jurors the opportunity to experience an interactive, and more representative, virtual environment. Further, while immersed in these environments, jurors can direct their gaze to areas of interest, view them from multiple angles, and dictate the pace in which they do so providing an experience tailored to the individual that more fully utilizes the capabilities of their sensory system. Thus, forensic accident investigators, such as human factors expert witnesses, have the opportunity to leverage this technology to demonstrate aspects of perception and human performance. This study discusses the application of HMDs and VR to a real-world incident investigation, and discusses the reasons why such technology is required to accurately depict changes in walking surface level elevations.

ВИВЧЕННЯ ІНОЗЕМНОЇ МОВИ ЗА ДОПОМОГОЮ СИНХРОННОГО 3D ВІРТУАЛЬНОГО СЕРЕДОВИЩА

Learning a foreign language is considered in Ukraine as a necessary condition for admission to higher education institutions for highly paid professions and as an important part of globalization and international communication. The emphasis on learning a foreign language led to the introduction of a wide range of measures for effective language acquisition, from traditional English courses taught in the classroom of the University, to the use of synchronous-asynchronous learning tools. Learning through the Internet as a kind of distance learning “has the ability to be an ideal means of learning a foreign language, as synchronous and asynchronous technologies provide a large number of functions to ensure the organization and conduct of creative teaching activities, but the analysis of recent studies and publications showed that in the psychological and pedagogical, scientific and special literature is not sufficiently investigated the implementation of virtual electronic learning environments. The article presents the relevance of the need to find new methods and technologies of teaching activities for the study of a foreign language, which are adequate to modern trends and requirements of society. The analysis of the prospects of application of synchronous 3D virtual environment for the possibility of distance learning of a foreign language as one of the conditions of quality training of future specialists for professional activity is generalized. A number of General features, advantages, introduction of the virtual educational environment, in the conditions of the investigated technology considering psychological and pedagogical features of students, which are directed on development of productive thinking and educational activity, are characterized. Language learning in a 3D synchronous virtual environment is still at an experimental stage, with great potential for full immersion in distance learning programs. No change in the 21st century will be as significant or as far-reaching as distance learning, and if this is the case, the virtual learning environment in one form or another will play a very important role in educational programs.