Web-based Virtual Reality Research Articles

Combining Mobile Web-Based Virtual Reality and Simulation in Training Programs: An Extension of XR Education

Combining Mobile Web-Based Virtual Reality and Simulation in Training Programs: An Extension of XR Education

Evaluation of Student Perceived Learning Effectiveness and Motivation for a Capstone Design Web-based Virtual Reality Activity

This study reports on the second implementation of a chemical processing plant web-based VR for a fourth-year chemical engineering capstone design course. The web-based VR provides a high fidelity representation of an ampicillin processing facility. To examine the effect of the web-based VR on student motivation and perceived learning effectiveness, a broken plant scenario was developed, and the class was divided into two groups: paper based, and web-based VR. Students completed the scenario in teams, either as a paper-based activity or using the web-based VR. This was followed by completion of an individual tutorial assignment and a survey. Survey findings indicated that students in the web-based VR group had a significantly higher positive response for motivation and perceived learning effectiveness compared to students in the paper-based group. However, students in the paper group scored higher on the individual follow-up assignment. Possible factors contributing to the results are discussed.

Extended Reality Platform for Metaverse Exhibition

This paper proposes a web-based extended reality (XR) platform integrating exhibitions based on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). The proposed platform includes an XR cloud for managing and sharing data in XR spaces, a VR client for users, and an AR client for real-world users. The XR cloud is a web-based VR service responsible for managing objects and spatial information related to real and virtual spaces while simultaneously facilitating real-time information sharing and synchronization between AR and VR users. The VR client offers a virtual exhibition environment based on the virtual space and information for VR users. The AR client overlays virtual information over objects in a real space, allowing for intuitive interaction with them. The proposed XR platform was implemented with Oculus Quest 2 for VR and HoloLens 2 for AR and was evaluated in a small exhibition environment. In this experimental environment, VR and AR users were able to participate in the same exhibition from different spaces and share their experiences in real time.

Research competencies in university students: Intertwining complex thinking and Education 4.0

Research competencies are skills that university students must develop to create and socialize scientific products during their academic live. In this research, an experience was implemented to improve the students’ competency levels through its imbrication with complex thinking and the use of Education 4.0 applications, such as remote team workflow development apps, web-based virtual reality, and social robotics. The study was sequential-quantitative and descriptive. A questionnaire was applied before and after the experience to know the perception of 105 Mexican university students, later a rubric was implemented for the teacher’s assessment. The results indicate that the students perceived an improvement in their research skills, however, the evaluation showed a difference between the student’s perception and the teacher’s regarding improvement in said skills. The experience can be scaled to other scenarios, where disruptive teaching strategies can support research skills development.

INTERACTIVE VISUALIZATION FOR COASTAL HAZARDS

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that integrates 3D virtual objects into the physical world in real-time, while virtual reality (VR) is a technology that immerses users in an interactive 3D virtual environment. The fast development of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies has reshaped how people interact with the physical world. This presentation will outline the results from two unique AR and one Web-based VR coastal engineering projects, motivating the next stage in the development of the augmented reality package for coastal students, engineers, and planners.

Adding a Web-Based Virtual Reality Classroom Experience to a Hybrid, Blended Course Modality

The blended classroom is a unique space for face-to-face (F2F) interaction and online learning. The blended classroom has three distinct interaction types: in-person synchronous, virtual synchronous, and virtual asynchronous; each of these modalities lends itself to different forms of extended reality. This case study looks at using a virtual reality (VR) classroom for an online synchronous weekly meetings for three upper-division or advanced (junior and senior level) higher education design classes at a university. The use of social web VR for a classroom can offer a collaborative, real-time environment that bridges the gap between virtual video conferences and gaming platforms. This paper examines how to use social web VR in a virtual classroom. Mixed methods were used to collect usability data at the end of the semester survey. The system usability scale (SUS) and several qualitative questions gathered student feedback. Overall, the students enjoyed using the VR classroom, but audio issues seemed to be the most significant pain point. While the overall response was positive, this study will address several areas for improvement from both the student and instructor perspectives. Social, web-based VR offers promising potential. Designing a human-centered virtual environment and considering all participants’ total user experience is critical to a successful learning tool.

The Role of Emotional Responses in the VR Exhibition Continued Usage Intention: A Moderated Mediation Model.

During COVID-19, many renowned galleries and art fairs used Virtual Reality (VR) exhibitions for art information dissemination and online displays. To avoid the risks of offline viewing of exhibitions, users can access a web-based VR exhibition platform for remote appreciation of artworks, gaining a rich art experience and thus contributing to physical and mental health. The reasons affecting users' continued usage intentions are not clear enough in the existing studies of VR exhibitions. Therefore, further studies are needed. This paper explores the relationship between users' escapist experience, aesthetic experience, presence, emotional responses, and continued usage intention through a survey of VR exhibition users. The survey data were collected from 543 users who had experienced the VR exhibition through an online survey website. The study results show that users' continued usage intentions are influenced by escapist experience and aesthetic experience. Presence plays a mediating role in the influence of escapist experiences and aesthetic experiences on continued usage intention. Emotional responses play a moderating role in the impact of user experience on continued usage intention. This paper provides a theoretical reference for the study of the impact mechanism of continued usage intention of VR exhibitions from the perspective of mental health. In addition, this study enables VR exhibition platforms to better understand the emotional state of users during art experiences to create and share healthy aesthetic information that can contribute to the management and enhancement of mental health. At the same time, it provides valuable and innovative guidance solutions for the future development of VR exhibitions.

End-user development for interactive web-based virtual reality scenes

Recent advances in Virtual Reality (VR) technology and the increased availability of VR-equipped devices enable a wide range of consumer-oriented applications. For novice developers, however, creating interactive scenes for VR applications is a complex and cumbersome task that requires high technical knowledge which is often missing. This hinders the potential of enabling novices to create, modify, and execute their own interactive VR scenes. Although recent authoring tools for interactive VR scenes are promising, most of them focus on experts as the target group and neglect the novices with low programming knowledge. To lower the entry barrier, we provide an open-source web-based End-User Development (EUD) tool, called VREUD, that supports the rapid construction and execution of interactive VR scenes. To address the aspect of construction, VREUD enables the specification of the VR scene including interactions and tasks. Furthermore, our tool supports the execution and immersive experience of the created interactive VR scenes on VR head-mounted displays. Based on a user study, we have analyzed the effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction of VREUD which shows promising results to empower novices in creating their interactive VR scenes.

Malawi open crowd sourced virtual reality experience

The advent of Virtual Reality (VR) technology has opened up new possibilities for promoting tourism and enhancing visitor experiences. This paper focuses on leveraging VR technology and the A-Frame framework to create an immersive website that offers virtual visits to tourist sites. By harnessing the power of VR, users can explore famous landmarks, historical sites, and natural wonders from the comfort of their own homes. The objective of this paper is to develop a userfriendly and interactive platform that allows tourists to virtually visit popular destinations. The A-Frame framework is employed to create a web-based VR experience accessible from desktop and mobile devices. The platform incorporates 360-degree panoramic images, interactive hotspots, and multimedia elements to provide an engaging and realistic environment. The implementation involves designing and developing the VR website, capturing highquality 360-degree images of various tourist sites, and integrating them seamlessly into the A-Frame framework. The user interface is designed to be intuitive, enabling users to navigate through different locations, access information about each site, and interact with the virtual environment. The significance of this paper lies in its potential to revolutionize the tourism industry by providing an immersive and accessible way for people to explore destinations remotely. The VR visits can offer a preview of tourist sites, stimulate interest, and inspire travellers to embark on physical journeys to experience the real locations. In conclusion, this paper aims to promote tourism through virtual reality visits to sites using a web-based platform.

AnonymousTool: A web-based virtual reality environment for programming - Replication package

AnonymousTool: A web-based virtual reality environment for programming - Replication package

Domain expert evaluation of advanced visual computing solutions and 3D printing for the planning of the left atrial appendage occluder interventions.

Advanced visual computing solutions and three-dimensional (3D) printing are moving from engineering to clinical pipelines for training, planning, and guidance of complex interventions. 3D imaging and rendering, virtual reality (VR), and in-silico simulations, as well as 3D printing technologies provide complementary information to better understand the structure and function of the organs, thereby improving and personalizing clinical decisions. In this study, we evaluated several advanced visual computing solutions, such as web-based 3D imaging visualization, VR, and computational fluid simulations, together with 3D printing, for the planning of the left atrial appendage occluder (LAAO) device implantations. Six cardiologists tested different technologies in pre-operative data of five patients to identify the usability, limitations, and requirements for the clinical translation of each technology through a qualitative questionnaire. The obtained results demonstrate the potential impact of advanced visual computing solutions and 3D printing to improve the planning of LAAO interventions as well as the need for their integration into a single workflow to be used in a clinical environment.

Being there to Learn: Narrative Style and Cross-platform Comparison for 360-degree Educational Videos

360-degree videos hold great potential as learning tools that can provide a sense of presence with instructors. However, much remains to be explored about how these videos should be designed. Across three within-subjects studies, we compared the effects of two different narrative styles, monologue and dialogue, on learning experiences in 360-degree videos filmed in an apple orchard. Study 1 presented the 360-degree videos using virtual reality (VR) with head-mounted displays. Study 2 presented the same content in web-based VR using computer screens. Replicating Study 2, Study 3 further examined users' interaction with the video content using on-screen mouse tracking. Across all three studies, participants preferred a monologue format, and also reported higher physical and social presence in this format. Furthermore, greater physical presence correlated with improved recall of informative content. This suggests that many of the benefits of 360-degree videos can be enjoyed even by students and teachers without access to VR headsets, providing more inclusive and accessible learning opportunities.

A comparative usability testing between a web-based and non-immersive VR reminiscence therapy for persons with dementia

A comparative usability testing between a web-based and non-immersive VR reminiscence therapy for persons with dementia

Evaluation of a Virtual Campus Adapted to Web-Based Virtual Reality Spaces: Assessments of Teachers and Students

Educational institutions have continuously adapted to new realities in school education, accelerated recently by the COVID-19 pandemic’s transformation of learning modalities. This article analyzes teachers’ and Students’ acceptance of a web-based virtual reality (WebVR) tool called Virtual Campus proposed to overcome the limitations of teaching strategies using video conferencing platforms. To measure the acceptance of the Virtual Campus, we designed an instrument based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that involves variables related to online contexts, the future perception of using the tool, skills development, and appreciation and recommendation. The results indicate that the participants favorably accepted WebVR technology as an alternative teaching methodology in emerging learning scenarios and intend to use it post-pandemic. The best-valued elements were interactions in the socialization spaces, the simulation of presence, and the environmental dynamics. The principal areas of opportunity for improvement were overcoming technical problems and improving the internet connection quality; however, these did not affect the participants’ recommendations. Future studies should incorporate variables related to analyzing learning mediated by WebVR-based strategies and using different methodological designs to compare the findings.

From visualization to discovery, a transdisciplinary framework to re-engineer engineering practices

One way business students apply theoretical knowledge and enhance their decision-making skills is by using digital simulators and seldomly in real life due to the strategic and economic nature of the consequences involved. Besides, engineering students practice their knowledge and skills in laboratories and or actual companies, in many cases, due to the economic and tactical nature of the decisions involved. Due to the COVID pandemic starting in 2020, many engineering schools closed their laboratory access while companies also paused their students' involvement. Hence, many engineering faculties searched for new ways to keep educational schedules and standards. The contribution of this work supplies a transdisciplinary framework (involving faculty, students, and practitioners) to redesign engineering practices to achieve and improve pre-pandemic learning levels. A Six Sigma experience using a web-based Virtual Reality production facility illustrates the framework through three iterations: one-way information flow, two-way interaction with limited capabilities, and complex systems simulations to explore sophisticated challenges. Results show that students experience a more substantial engagement in these novel practices where they expose themselves to challenges that, in many cases, could not be possible in a real-life experience due to safety and economic consequences.

THERAPY OF UPPER LIMBS BY MEANS OF VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGIES

This paper deals with an approach to upper limbs therapy that uses virtual reality technologies. The previous methods and subsequent improvements of these procedures by means of a skeletal model of the upper limb in a virtual environment are presented here. So, main focus of the paper is on the description of calculation related to the bone rotation system within appropriate skeletal model. The therapist can add either more virtual upper limb objects or more virtual training objects to the virtual environment and thus expand/change the scene or the therapy complexity. The functions used in the limb movement calculations are useful for creating additional animations with various objects. With this system, the patient can be stimulated under the supervision of a therapist to practice certain rehabilitation procedures. Due to the use of collaborative web-based virtual reality, the therapy can be also applied in a remote form. The way in which the underlying idea of rehabilitation process is implemented and it is also described. In the conclusion are the some notes about system testing and evaluation including description of a therapist interface.

GeospatialVR: A web-based virtual reality framework for collaborative environmental simulations

This research introduces GeospatialVR, an open-source collaborative virtual reality framework to dynamically create 3D real-world environments that can be served on any web platform and accessed via desktop and mobile devices and virtual reality headsets. The framework can generate realistic simulations of desired locations entailing the terrain, elevation model, infrastructures, dynamic visualizations (e.g. water and fire simulation), and information layers (e.g. disaster damages and extent, sensor readings, occupancy, traffic, weather). These layers enable in-situ visualization of useful data to aid public, scientists, officials, and decision-makers in acquiring a bird's eye view of the current, historical, or forecasted condition of a community. The framework incorporates multiuser support to allow different stakeholders to remotely work on the same VR environment and observe other users' actions and 3D positions via avatars in real-time, and thus, presenting the potential to be utilized as a virtual incident command center or a meeting room. GeospatialVR's purpose is to enhance existing web-based cyberinfrastructure systems with the integration of immersive geospatial capabilities to assist the development of next-generation information and decision support systems powered by virtual reality. Finally, several case studies have been developed for flooding, wildfire, transportation, and public safety.

Move The Object or Move The User: The Role of Interaction Techniques on Embodied Learning in VR

To incorporate immersive technologies as part of the educational curriculum, this article is an endeavor to investigate the role of two affordances that are crucial in designing embodied interactive virtual learning environments (VLEs) to enhance students’ learning experience and performance: 1) the sense of presence as a subjective affordance of the VR system, and 2) bodily engagement as an embodied affordance and the associated sense of agency that is created through interaction techniques with three-dimensional learning objects. To investigate the impact of different design choices for interaction, and how they would affect the associated sense of agency, learning experience and performance, we designed two VLEs in the context of penetrative thinking in a critical 3D task in geosciences education: understanding the cross-sections of earthquakes’ depth and geometry in subduction zones around the world. Both VLEs were web-based desktop VR applications containing 3D data that participants ran remotely on their own computers using a normal screen. In the drag and scroll condition, we facilitated bodily engagement with the 3D data through object manipulation, object manipulation. In the first-person condition, we provided the ability for the user to move in space. In other words, we compared moving the objects or moving the user in space as the interaction modalities. We found that students had a better learning experience in the drag and scroll condition, but we could not find a significant difference in the sense of presence between the two conditions. Regarding learning performance, we found a positive correlation between the sense of agency and knowledge gain in both conditions. In terms of students with low prior knowledge of the field, exposure to the VR experience in both conditions significantly improved their knowledge gain. In the matter of individual differences, we investigated the knowledge gain of students with a low penetrative thinking ability. We found that they benefited from the type of bodily engagement in the first-person condition and had a significantly higher knowledge gain than the other condition. Our results encourage in-depth studies of embodied learning in VR to design more effective embodied virtual learning environments.

Web-Based 3D and [formula omitted] VR Materials for IoT Security Education and Test Supporting Learning Analytics

Internet of Things (IoT) technology is developing rapidly and attract more and more attentions in recent years. With the maturity of this technology, many companies have already provided various IoT devices to consumers, such as smart speakers and smart meters. These devices are wildly used not only in researches but also in many people’s daily lives. However, with the widely use of these devices, the security problems of IoT devices become more and more important. Although the device makers will provide the security solutions in technology level, users and IoT professors should have enough security knowledge as well. In this paper, we introduce a novel framework for generating web-based 3D and 360-degree VR materials for IoT security education. Our framework also supports the automatic generation of quizzes of IoT security, which will be used for evaluating the learning effects. The generated e-learning materials and quizzes can collect users’ log data for further analyzation. In this paper,we import two visually analyzing tools, Time Tunnel and Cubic Gantt Chart, into our framework. By using these two tools, we can obtain the activity patterns of the learners in different score ranges. Based on such result, we can improve the e-learning materials for increasing the educational effects, or provide advices to help learners effectively use our e-learning materials.

UNIFORM SMARTPHONE CONTROLLER FOR WEB-BASED VIRTUAL REALITY PURPOSES

This work introduces a uniform smartphone controller interface integrated into LIRKIS G-CVE web-based global collaborative virtual environments. In general, VR controllers provide various kinds of interaction techniques to manipulate virtual objects. Mostly, those aim focus on controlling the virtual context and the interaction with 3D GUI integrated in the virtual environment. With respect to web-based virtual reality, the progress in development of uniform interfaces is raising thanks to emerging web technologies and frameworks with cross-platform support. Although there are many manufacturers of VR controllers, their usage is often limited only for specified display device. Our intention is to cover multiple devices through only one simple controller interface, that is capable to provide a variety of interactions for web-based VR. In this study we proposed Enhanced Smart Client Interface designed for providing fully immersive interaction through smartphones. We performed several experiments focused on user experience and usability under two cloud platforms. Results obtained from experiments performed in our study confirm that utilization of our interface is mostly affected by the server response time. Based on the results this solution is suitable for further development and improvements.