Visual Immersion Research Articles

Hacia una arqueología de la inmersión visual. Reflexiones sobre la pantalla en el estereoscopio de Wheatstone y el Sensorama de Heilig.

When we refer to the idea of visual immersion, we imagine a displacement towards a virtual space in which we immerse ourselves and with which we interact. Proposals associated with immersion, such as the topic of travel, were already presented in advertising images of the early twentieth century. In this article, we will establish that these notions of immersion have been developed since the middle of the 18th century, specifically with the creation of the lenticular stereoscope in 1851. Using medial archaeology as a methodological approach, we will demonstrate that devices such as the stereoscope (18th century) and the Sensorama (20th century) not only transformed the form of visualization, but also offered immersive experiences that linked the viewer to both physical and virtual spaces.

A comprehensive review of quality of experience for emerging video services

The recent advances in multimedia technology have significantly expanded the range of audio–visual applications. The continuous enhancement of display quality has led to the emergence of new attributes in video, such as enhanced visual immersion and widespread availability. Within media content, the video signals are presented in various formats including stereoscopic/3D, panoramic/360°and holographic images. The signals are also combined with other sensory elements, such as audio, tactile, and olfactory cues, creating a comprehensive multi-sensory experience for the user. The development of both qualitative and quantitative Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics is crucial for enhancing the subjective experience in immersive scenarios, providing valuable guidelines for system enhancement. In this paper, we review the most recent achievements in QoE assessment for immersive scenarios, summarize the current challenges related to QoE issues, and present outlooks of QoE applications in these scenarios. The aim of our overview is to offer a valuable reference for researchers in the domain of multimedia delivery.

Implementation and Evaluation of Walk-in-Place Using a Low-Cost Motion-Capture Device for Virtual Reality Applications.

Virtual reality (VR) is used in many fields, including entertainment, education, training, and healthcare, because it allows users to experience challenging and dangerous situations that may be impossible in real life. Advances in head-mounted display technology have enhanced visual immersion, offering content that closely resembles reality. However, several factors can reduce VR immersion, particularly issues with the interactions in the virtual world, such as locomotion. Additionally, the development of locomotion technology is occurring at a moderate pace. Continuous research is being conducted using hardware such as treadmills, and motion tracking using depth cameras, but they are costly and space-intensive. This paper presents a walk-in-place (WIP) algorithm that uses Mocopi, a low-cost motion-capture device, to track user movements in real time. Additionally, its feasibility for VR applications was evaluated by comparing its performance with that of a treadmill using the absolute trajectory error metric and survey data collected from human participants. The proposed WIP algorithm with low-cost Mocopi exhibited performance similar to that of the high-cost treadmill, with significantly positive results for spatial awareness. This study is expected to contribute to solving the issue of spatial constraints when experiencing infinite virtual spaces.

Analysis of the effectiveness of virtual reality technology integration in landscape design

Abstract In this paper, we first studied the 3D visual immersion technology of virtual reality, explored the stereoscopic display and multi-channel stereoscopic display method of virtual reality, and corrected the nonlinear distortion by grating alignment and deformation correction. After that, the model’s lighting technology is examined, and the model’s lighting coefficient is analyzed and calculated. Then, the advantages of landscape design based on virtual reality technology in terms of subjective evaluation, human perception, and promotion of work efficiency were analyzed by comparing traditional landscape design with virtual reality landscape design. The results show that the Sig value of the environmental adaptability of the two spatial designs is 0.037, which is less than 0.05, and there is a significant difference between the two in terms of subjective ratings. People’s attention was enhanced by 7%-10% in the virtual design scene, and the induced brain frequency was 8%-10% higher than that of the traditional landscape design, indicating that the virtual landscape design was more effective.

The Design of Virtual Reality Learning Module in Neurolinguistics: Focus on Aphasia

The metaverse, which is essentially a virtual environment parallel to the actual world, is the most recent stage in the evolution of visual immersion technology and is quickly emerging as a testing ground for new social innovations. Since two-dimensional network technology struggles to meet students' demands for immersive learning environments and organic human-computer interactions, meta-universes will change how online education is taught to support students' individualized learning and overall development. In order to push the boundaries of virtual reality technology utilized in various disciplines, this paper will create a virtual reality classroom for neurolinguistics students to learn about aphasia. Different scenarios are built to help students experience communicating with aphasic patients, familiarize themselves with different types of aphasic symptoms and causes, and discuss the rehabilitation program for aphasic patients with peers. Students can complete the whole process of knowledge cognition-experience-construction in a richer and more vivid learning form.

Compact near‐eye display for firefighter's self‐contained breathing apparatus

AbstractWe introduce a display for virtual‐reality (VR) fire training. Firefighters prefer to wear and operate a real breathing apparatus while experiencing full visual immersion in a VR fire space. Thus, we used a thin head‐mounted display (HMD) with a light field and folded optical system, aiming to both minimize the volume for integration in front of the face into a breathing apparatus and maintain adequate visibility, including a wide viewing angle and resolution similar to that of commercial displays. We developed the optical system testing modules and prototypes of the integrated breathing apparatus. Through iterative testing, the thickness of the output optical module in front of the eyes was reduced from 50 mm to 60 mm to less than 20 mm while maintaining a viewing angle of 103°. In addition, the resolution and image quality degradation of the light field in the display was mitigated. Hence, we obtained a display with a structure consistent with the needs of firefighters in the field. In future work, we will conduct user evaluation regarding fire scene reproducibility by combining immersive VR fire training and real firefighting equipment.

브랜드 웹툰에 대한 2030세대의 기대가치 연구

The purpose of this paper is to establish a conceptual foundation to help brand communication activities using brand webtoons apply them as a strategic tool that naturally leads to empathy, participation, and spreading messages positively by quantitatively confirming the expected value of brand webtoons consumers in their 20s and 30s have. The scope of the paper was limited to the food and beverage sector, and qualitative and quantitative surveys were conducted. Research results show that the expected value of these consumers for brand webtoons were divided into 5 perspectives(practical, self-identity, hedonic, artistic, and social relations) and 11 expected values(information, message suitability, authenticity, voluntary solo, subjective self-satisfaction, hedonic, visual immersion, workmanship, creativity, interactivity, maintaining minimum distances in relationships). These results mean that the use of webtoons, potential tools for strategic communication and empathy expansion for consumers who may avoid commercial messages, should ultimately be planned and executed by utilizing consumers' expected values.

Eyebox expansion with accurate hologram generation for wide-angle holographic near-eye display.

Small eyebox in wide-angle holographic near-eye display is a severe limitation for 3D visual immersion of the device. In this paper, an opto-numerical solution for extending the eyebox size in these types of devices is presented. The hardware part of our solution expands the eyebox by inserting a grating of frequency fg within a non-pupil forming display configuration. The grating multiplies eyebox, increasing the possible eye motion. The numerical part of our solution is an algorithm that enables proper coding of wide-angle holographic information for projecting correct object reconstruction at arbitrary eye position within the extended eyebox. The algorithm is developed through the employment of the phase-space representation, which facilitates the analysis of the holographic information and the impact of the diffraction grating in the wide-angle display system. It is shown that accurate encoding of the wavefront information components for the eyebox replicas is possible. In this way, the problem of missing or incorrect views in wide angle near-eye display with multiplied eyeboxes is efficiently solved. Moreover, this study investigates the space-frequency relation between the object and the eyebox and how the hologram information is shared between eyebox replicas. The functionality of our solution is tested experimentally in an augmented reality holographic near-eye display that has maximum field of view of 25.89°. Obtained optical reconstructions demonstrate that correct object view is obtained for arbitrary eye position within extended eyebox.

Age-related decrease in functional mobility score when performing a locomotor task in an immersive environment.

In recent years, immersive virtual reality technology has emerged in the field of health. Its use could allow the assessment of the motor behavior of individuals in adaptable and reproducible immersive environments, simulating real situations. This study aimed to assess the effect of an immersive scenario on functional mobility during a simple locomotor task according to age. Sixty young adults and 60 older volunteers, who were autonomous and without cognitive and neurological impairment participated. A locomotor task based on the "Timed Up and Go" task was performed in real and virtual conditions. A functional mobility score was calculated by combining the time and the number of steps used and compared between young and older people. Results showed that correlations between time and the number of steps were the same in VR and real conditions, but the locomotor performance decreased significantly in VR for both populations. Additionally, older people exhibited a more reduced locomotor performance in a virtual environment than young adults, thereby their functional mobility score decreased more to complete the task, reflecting the adoption of a more secure locomotion strategy often related to the fear of falling, with an increase in time and number of steps to support balance. The major difference between reality and VR is the visual immersion with an HMD, and visual information is more important in the sensory integration of older people. Therefore, the reduction in visual field and lack of visual exproprioceptive information about the body segments in the virtual environment could explain these results. Finally, the effect of immersion in a virtual scenario on mobility exists for both populations but is accentuated by the aging process and is therefore age dependent.

My cosmos, my opportunities, our spaces: Methodological reflections on photographic perspectives of young adopted children on their (new) environments

Despite much discourse on growing-up environment as a central dimension of “child-well-being”, little is still known about why, how, and where meanings are created in it for children. For despite ongoing efforts in childhood research, children's perspectives remain methodologically poorly embedded. Therefore, the author of this paper asks about relevance settings in children’s lifeworld - derived exemplarily from adopted preschool children’s environments. For this purpose, the author sets the demanding methodological balancing act between trivialising and exaggerating childhood in the research process as a central challenge. He makes it possible by a visual immersion in photographs taken by young children. In doing so, the arguments sometimes push into the hybrid and transformative.As a result, not only possibilities to always switch between dimensions of ‘My Cosmos’, ‘My Possibilities’ and ‘Our Places’ become apparent as relevant to environment of growing up. The findings can also be read as an encouragement to research and argue more consistently and creatively. They show step by step why and how new paths can be taken and socio-scientific fears of the non-linguistic overcome to take research and thinking decisively further.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Immersive animation scene design in animation language under virtual reality

The study aims to explore a new form of immersive animation scene design and improve the application effect of virtual reality (VR) in immersive animation scene design. First, the research status of VR and the related concepts of animation scene design are analyzed, and the basic characteristics of visual effects in immersive VR animation scenes are summarized. Second, three elements to create immersion in a VR animation scene are color, light and shadow, and digital information technology. Finally, the application of VR technology to an animation scene design is analyzed, the problem of vertigo caused by VR animation scenes is deeply discussed, the vertigo test process in an immersive VR scene is proposed, and an experiment is designed to verify it. The results show that in the design of an immersive VR scene, the relative moving speed of the forward straight line should be maintained less than 6.5 times of the audience’s perceived speed, and the optimal relative moving speed of the scene should be maintained below 5 times of the audience’s perceived speed when they moving backward. In the design of a rotating animation scene, the long-term high-speed rotation should be avoided. If there must be a rotating scene, the rotation speed should be as low as 50°/s. The research provides some guidance for the application of VR to immersive animation scene design.This study discusses immersive animation scene design from dizziness prospective. It is novel.This study introduces relative motion perception illusion and use displacement velocity and relative displacement to analyze VR vertigo.Len motion is divided into forward and reverse linear, horizontal and vertical rotation and camera center rotation to study vertigo source.The dizziness evaluation model is designed and combined with the virtual indoor scene developed to achieve a visual immersion experience.

Aural heritage preservation and access: Methodological explorations from data collection to immersive multimodal virtual reality

From prehistorical archaeological sites to middle-American banks, classic Nashville recording studios, and present-day concert halls, spatial acoustics influence human experience, behavior, and interactions. We previously proposed a definition of aural heritage: “spatial acoustics as physically experienced by humans in cultural contexts,” and have tested equipment and methods to document aural heritage in diverse sites. In fieldwork and in the studio/lab, we have evaluated and extended standard room acoustics techniques to address ecological validity (realism) in aural heritage preservation including specific human-centered methods. For the translation of aural heritage data into auralizations, we have focused on multichannel audio with and without congruent visual immersion, anticipating multimodal virtual reality presentations of cultural heritage reconstructions. Here, we overview our multi-year project to develop, test, and share aural heritage preservation, translation, and access technologies via three detailed case study applications and associated outreach projects. We (1) summarize the translatable aural heritage data collection protocol for long-term preservation; (2) discuss preferred methods for processing aural heritage data into scalable auralizations for different audio platforms; and (3) preview extensibility pathways for other researchers to implement these methodologies that enable researchers and public audiences to explore and experience this aspect of intangible culture.

The role of low-frequency oscillations in three-dimensional perception with depth cues in virtual reality

Currently, vision-related neuroscience studies are undergoing a trend from simplified image stimuli toward more naturalistic stimuli. Virtual reality (VR), as an emerging technology for visual immersion, provides more depth cues for three-dimensional (3D) presentation than two-dimensional (2D) image. It is still unclear whether the depth cues used to create 3D visual perception modulate specific cortical activation. Here, we constructed two visual stimuli presented by stereoscopic vision in VR and graphical projection with 2D image, respectively, and used electroencephalography to examine neural oscillations and their functional connectivity during 3D perception. We find that neural oscillations are specific to delta and theta bands in stereoscopic vision and the functional connectivity in the two bands increase in cortical areas related to visual pathways. These findings indicate that low-frequency oscillations play an important role in 3D perception with depth cues.

Musical Experience in the Bower: D. G. Rossetti, Listening, and Space

Abstract This essay traces Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s use of the bower as a visual space in relation to musical subject matter. Following the increasing popularity of instrumental music and musical discourse in the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of art music and its expressive abilities had become a pervasive discourse for painters. Through an examination of Rossetti’s images of bowers with a musical subject – specifically The Blue Bower (1865), Veronica Veronese (1872), and La Ghirlandata (1873) – this essay explores ideas of musical temporality and artistic spatiality, tonal relations between colour and music, and Rossetti’s emphasis on subjective experience in these images. The bower became a crucial feature in this exploration of music and painting, signalling a visual space characterized by ideas of immersion, artistic correspondences, and the abstracting of colour and form. This essay proposes that Rossetti’s bowers were sites of visual immersion for its viewers, alluding and appealing to the sensuous impact music could have on a listener by mimicking listening behaviour in a visual format. My discussion uncovers new contexts for Rossetti’s musical images and draws parallels between listening and viewing behaviour for both the Victorian and current public. The essay concludes that visual sites alluding to music can act as immersive spaces, contending that abstraction and temporality are drawn out in painting by virtue of an appeal to music.

Metaverse-Powered Experiential Situational English-Teaching Design: An Emotion-Based Analysis Method.

Metaverse is to build a virtual world that is both mapped and independent of the real world in cyberspace by using the improvement in the maturity of various digital technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), big data, and 5G, which is important for the future development of a wide variety of professions, including education. The metaverse represents the latest stage of the development of visual immersion technology. Its essence is an online digital space parallel to the real world, which is becoming a practical field for the innovation and development of human society. The most prominent advantage of the English-teaching metaverse is that it can provide an immersive and interactive teaching field for teachers and students, simultaneously meeting the teaching and learning needs of teachers and students in both the physical world and virtual world. This study constructs experiential situational English-teaching scenario and convolutional neural networks (CNNs)–recurrent neural networks (RNNs) fusion models are proposed to recognize students’ emotion electroencephalogram (EEG) in experiential English teaching during the feature space of time domain, frequency domain, and spatial domain. Analyzing EEG data collected by OpenBCI EEG Electrode Cap Kit from students, experiential English-teaching scenario is designed into three types: sequential guidance, comprehensive exploration, and crowd-creation construction. Experimental data analysis of the three kinds of learning activities shows that metaverse-powered experiential situational English teaching can promote the improvement of students’ sense of interactivity, immersion, and cognition, and the accuracy and analysis time of CNN–RNN fusion model is much higher than that of baselines. This study can provide a nice reference for the emotion recognition of students under COVID-19.

Application of VR Technology in Brand IP Image Design

Virtual reality (VR) refers to the computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image environment that can be interacted within a seemingly physical way by a person using special electronic equipment and making people interactive and immersive. VR technology is applied to communication activities, producing VR communication. VR technology is applied to news reports, giving birth to the emergence of VR news. The great significance of VR technology for news communication lies in the comprehensive intake and recording and transmission of news site materials so that news events can “reproduce” and “restore.” The most prominent feature of VR transmission is immersion. Immersivity is mainly reflected in the perceptual system and the behavioral system of the human body. The immersion of perception system includes visual immersion, auditory immersion, touch immersion, and other sensory immersion; behavioral system immersion includes the immersion of language system, direction system immersion, and expression system immersion. Immersive communication has experienced three development stages: interactive communication, invasive communication, infiltration, and audience experience. There are three hidden dangers in VR technology in the communication. One is the hidden danger of the technical operation level: the lack of security and stability of the production process may lead to the disappearance of the traditional reporter, the second is the ethical hidden danger: the degradation of “audience” to “mass,” and third is “body” weakening the authority of “addiction”: the emergence of “brain in the cylinder,” the emergence of snooping feast, and the formation of exposed carnival. There are three aspects to prevent VR hidden dangers, layout and top-level design, improve security, and communication efficiency, promote industrial application, enhance user stickiness, strengthen brand building, and create ace IP and quality content.

Review: Verde, by Federico Rios Escobar

Review: <i>Verde</i>, by Federico Rios Escobar

Authoring consistent landscapes with flora and fauna

We present a novel method for authoring landscapes with flora and fauna while considering their mutual interactions. Our algorithm outputs a steady-state ecosystem in the form of density maps for each species, their daily circuits, and a modified terrain with eroded trails from a terrain, climatic conditions, and species with related biological information. We introduce the Resource Access Graph, a new data structure that encodes both interactions between food chain levels and animals traveling between resources over the terrain. A novel competition algorithm operating on this data progressively computes a steady-state solution up the food chain, from plants to carnivores. The user can explore the resulting landscape, where plants and animals are instantiated on the fly, and interactively edit it by over-painting the maps. Our results show that our system enables the authoring of consistent landscapes where the impact of wildlife is visible through animated animals, clearings in the vegetation, and eroded trails. We provide quantitative validation with existing ecosystems and a user-study with expert paleontologist end-users, showing that our system enables them to author and compare different ecosystems illustrating climate changes over the same terrain while enabling relevant visual immersion into consistent landscapes.

EEG Cortical Activities and Networks Altered by Watching 2D/3D Virtual Reality Videos

Abstract. Virtual reality (VR), which can represent real-life events and situations, is being increasingly applied to many fields, such as education, entertainment, and medical rehabilitation. Correspondingly, the neural information processing of VR has attracted attention. However, the underlying neural mechanisms of VR environments have not yet been fully revealed. The purpose of this study was to examine the possible differences in brain activities and networks between the less immersive 2D and the fully immersive 3D VR environments. 3D VR videos and the same 2D scenes were presented to the participants and the scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded, respectively. Power spectral density (PSD) and the functional connectivity of these EEG signals were analyzed. The results showed that 3D VR videos significantly enhanced the PSD of θ rhythm (4–7 Hz) in the frontal lobe; decreased the PSD of α rhythm (8–13 Hz) in the parietal and the occipital lobes; increased the PSD of β rhythm (14–30 Hz) in the frontal, the parietal, the temporal, and the occipital lobes, relative to 2D VR watching. Furthermore, 3D versus 2D VR-induced alterations in the patterns of brain networks were similar to the patterns of PSD. Specifically, for the θ rhythm, 3D VR significantly enhanced the frontal and the temporal brain functional connectivity; for the α rhythm, 3D VR increased the parietal and the occipital networks; for the β rhythm, 3D VR remarkably increased the frontal, the occipital, the frontal-temporal and the frontal-occipital brain functional connectivity, relative to 2D VR. These significant differences between 3D and 2D VR video-watching suggest that the neural information processing of cortical activities and networks is correlated to the degree of immersion. The present results, collected with previous researches, implicate that some visual-related information processes, such as visual attention, visual perception, and visual immersion are more robust in 3D VR environments.

디지털 미디어를 활용한 예술의 시각적 확장과 몰입에 관한 연구 - 본인의 작품과 전시를 중심으로

디지털 미디어를 활용한 예술의 시각적 확장과 몰입에 관한 연구 - 본인의 작품과 전시를 중심으로