ICAT-EGVE2018

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https://diglib.eg.org/handle/10.2312/2632674

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Effects of Embodiment on Generic and Content-Specific Intelligent Virtual Agents as Exhibition Guides
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Schmidt, Susanne; Bruder, Gerd; Steinicke, Frank; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) received enormous attention in recent years due to significant improvements in voice communication technologies and the convergence of different research fields such as Machine Learning, Internet of Things, and Virtual Reality (VR). Interactive conversational IVAs can appear in different forms such as voice-only or with embodied audio-visual representations showing, for example, human-like contextually related or generic three-dimensional bodies. In this paper, we analyzed the benefits of different forms of virtual agents in the context of a VR exhibition space. Our results suggest positive evidence showing large benefits of both embodied and thematically related audio-visual representations of IVAs. We discuss implications and suggestions for content developers to design believable virtual agents in the context of such installations.
Virtual Reality Application for Blind People in Unknown Interior Spaces
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Guerrón, Nancy E.; Cobo, Antonio; Olmedo, José J. Serrano; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
Virtual reality applications (VRA) with 3D sounds on smartphones were used by six blind adults for indoor navigation. Each application provided users with three audio outputs with linear, logarithmic and customized response curves, that guided them during their tour within a real scenario that was previously virtualized using Unity 3D. The audio was transmitted, via low-power Bluetooth, from the mobile to the bone conduction headphones that were used to guide the user during his tour through an unknown space. The user's avatar moved through the virtualized environment simultaneously with the participant's movements in the real scenario. The movements of the user and the duration of the tour to go from a starting point to a target point were recorded each tour, in order to compare the efficiency and precision achieved by each sound during navigation. This research established that the VRA with a female voice and a customized response, improved the efficiency by 59% in locating target points within unfamiliar environments (p-value= 0.03614) compared to musical sound having a logarithmic response. Furthermore, it was found that the female voice and the 440Hz beeps increase the navigation precision compared to musical sound. 3D sound for indoor navigation could replace the sounds inside the place, with a small variation in efficiency and precision.
Soft Finger-tip Sensing Probe Based on Haptic Primary Colors
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Kato, Fumihiro; Inoue, Yasuyuki; Tachi, Susumu; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
This paper describes a novel tactile sensing probe based on haptic primary colors (HPCs) and a tactile classifying system. We developed a finger-type soft tactile probe incorporating a sensor to measure three physical quantities: force, vibration, and temperature. We also constructed a tactile probe sliding system on the surface of the material repeatedly. The tactile fluctuation obtained from the tactile probe was recorded, and a frequency analyzed image was generated. In the evaluation experiments, the tactile images were generated by sliding the tactile probe on seven materials (ray fish skin, aluminum plate, rusting hemp fabric, MDF board, tatami mat fabric, acrylic board and rubber sheet). A convolutional neural network (CNN) was constructed and its classification performance was evaluated. In addition, we used tactile images to clarify the classification performance through TLAlexnet (transfer learned Alexnet). Pre-trained TLAlexnet was generated by domain adaptation using the tactile images. The results of TLAlexnet showed the great performance to be 85.0%, 91.7%, and 85.7% with respect to single primary colors of force, vibration, and temperature, respectively, and it improved to 96.4% when using three HPCs. In addition, the classification performance of the proposed seven-layered another CNN that was trained with the obtained tactile images was 98.2% of the CNN constructed using common filtering parameters. Thus, highly accurate classification was realized by using three HPCs elements.
Adaptive Filtering of Physical-Virtual Artifacts for Synthetic Animatronics
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Schubert, Ryan; Bruder, Gerd; Welch, Gregory; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR), e.g., based on monoscopic projected imagery on physical three-dimensional (3D) surfaces, can be particularly well-suited for ad hoc group or multi-user augmented reality experiences since it does not encumber users with head-worn or carried devices. However, conveying a notion of realistic 3D shapes and movements on SAR surfaces using monoscopic imagery is a difficult challenge. While previous work focused on physical actuation of such surfaces to achieve geometrically dynamic content, we introduce a different concept, which we call ''Synthetic Animatronics,'' i.e., conveying geometric movement or deformation purely through manipulation of the imagery being shown on a static display surface. We present a model for the distribution of the viewpoint-dependent distortion that occurs when there are discrepancies between the physical display surface and the virtual object being represented, and describe a realtime implementation for a method of adaptively filtering the imagery based on an approximation of expected potential error. Finally, we describe an existing physical SAR setup well-suited for synthetic animatronics and a corresponding Unity-based SAR simulator allowing for flexible exploration and validation of the technique and various parameters.
Studying Levels of Presence in a Virtual Environment Simulating Drug Use in Schools: Effect on Different Character Perspectives
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Christofi, Maria; Baka, Evangelia; Stavroulia, Kalliopi Evangelia; Michael-Grigoriou, Despina; Lanitis, Andreas; Thalmann, Nadia Magnenat; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
This paper studies the aspect of presence in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment that can be used for training purposes in the education sector and more specifically for teacher training and professional development. During the VR experience trainees had the chance to view the world from different perspectives through the eyes of different characters appearing in the scene. The experimental evaluation conducted aims to examine the effect of viewing the experience from different perspectives and viewpoints in relation to the overall user experience and the level of presence achieved. To accomplish these objectives an experiment was performed investigating presence and the correlation between presence and different viewpoints/perspectives. To measure presence a combination of methods were used including two different questionnaires, the use of an eeg device, EMOTIV EPOC+ and the analysis of heart rates. The results indicate that high levels of presence were recorded and that increased levels of presence are associated with viewing the VE from a student rather than a teacher perspective.
Verification of Necessity of Equivalent Gravity in Telexistence With Scale Conversion for Utilization of Humanoid Small Robot
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Matsumoto, Kohei; Furukawa, Masahiro; Wada, Kosuke; Kurokawa, Masataka; Miyamoto, Hiroki; Maeda, Taro; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
According to the concept of telexistence, even telexistence with scale conversion requires control of a robot to maintain the same attitude as that of the operator. However, a mismatch arises between the posture of a person and that of a robot because gravity between the operator and the robot is not subjectively equivalent. Our previous research demonstrated the motion of standing from a sitting position in telexistence with scale conversion using a dynamic control method, which can subjectively achieve the equivalent gravity condition between operator and robot. Acceleration in the forward direction is required to move from a standing position to walking at a constant speed. However, the moment compensation device does not consider the motion that produces acceleration in the forward direction. In this research, we achieve the equivalent gravity state without using a moment compensation device and verify the feasibility of generating walking motion from a standing position.
Materiality Manipulation by Light-Field Projection from Reflectance Analysis
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Murakami, Kouki; Amano, Toshiyuki; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
In this paper, we report a method for changing the appearance of an object to different colors as a function of viewing perspective with multiple projectors and cameras. If such appearance manipulation becomes possible, morpho butterfly colors, metallic reflection, and other structural colors can be expressed. For such appearance editing, we proposed a reflection model which describes the optical response of projectors and cameras. We also propose methods for calculating the reflectance matrix and the optimized projection images using non-negative minimization. Through experimental results, we confirmed our method allowed perspective-dependent appearance to be designed by choosing the appropriate reflectance from the non-Lambert reflection area.
Geometrical Algorithms for Real Time Sound Rendering Using Intelligent Prioritization
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Charalampous, Panagiotis; Michael-Grigoriou, Despina; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
Geometrical algorithms have been the main subject of research in the field of real time sound rendering. These algorithms are variants of the image source and ray tracing algorithms, enhanced with improvements that speed up substantially their performance. The fundamental concepts behind the improvements achieved up to now was the reduction of the processed information and the acceleration of the actual processing. In this paper, we show how altering the traversal method affects significantly the algorithm's performance. These optimizations alter its behavior, providing better results for real time purposes. We separate the techniques into three major categories and we propose a stochastic Monte Carlo algorithm which involves optimizations based on prioritization.
Scalable Autostereoscopic Display with Temporal Division Method
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Kurogi, Tadatoshi; Nii, Hideaki; Peiris, Roshan Lalintha; Minamizawa, Kouta; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
Science-fiction has frequently depicted people directly interacting with life-size autostereoscopic images projected from the walls of buildings in public places. In this paper, we present a large modularized autostereoscopic display. The shape and size can be easily changed by rearranging the number of the multiple display modules. We propose a reconfigurable temporal division multiplexed autostereoscopic display module that can display aerial images. More-over, we show that the temporal division multiplexing method allows the autostereoscopic display to be viewed from a broad range of positions. In this paper, we discuss the design and implementation of this modularized 3D display technology. Furthermore, user evaluations confirmed that the depth perception of the image was improved by con-necting the multiple display modules.
A Scoping Review Exploring the Feasibility of Virtual Reality Technology Use with Individuals Living with Dementia
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Rose, Vienna; Stewart, Inga; Jenkins, Keith G.; Ang, Chee Siang; Matsangidou, Maria; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
The existing evidence base in relation to the feasibility of using Virtual Reality technology systems with individuals living with a dementia appeared limited and was therefore explored. The research was collected and reviewed in terms of the different types of Virtual Reality systems (equipment and levels of immersion) and feasibility of the technology within different stages of demen-tia as well as the methodological limitations. A systematic search of the literature was conducted using the healthcare databases advanced search (Medline, PsychINFO, and EMBASE) and snowballing methods. The participants had a dementia diagnosis and the feasibility of Virtual Reality in terms of its acceptability and practicality was discussed. Only five articles met the eligibility criteria. Four included semi-immersive Virtual Reality with participants in the early stages of dementia. One included fully-immersive Virtual Reality where dementia stage ranged from 'mild' to 'severe'. Based on available demographic information, study participants resided in residential care homes, alone in the community or with their spouse. The existing literature sug-gests that both semi and fully-immersive Virtual Reality technology use can be feasible amongst individuals living within the ear-lier stages of dementia outside of a hospital environment, with it being viewed as a welcomed distraction that increased alert-ness and pleasure. However, Virtual Reality was also found to increase fear and anxiety in one study, raising important ethical implications around the safety of the user. The current evidence-base leaves a predominant gap in Virtual Reality technology system use for people within the moderate to later stages of dementia and those living in a hospital environment.
BuzzwireVR: An Immersive Game to Supplement Fine-Motor Movement Therapy
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Christou, Chris G.; Michael-Grigoriou, Despina; Sokratous, D.; Tsiakoulia, M.; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
Recovery of upper-body fine-motor skills after brain trauma, e.g. after a stroke, involves a long process of movement rehabilitation. When the arms and hands are affected patients often spend many hours exercising in order to regain control of their movements, often using children's toys. This paper describes the process of development of a Virtual Reality (VR) system designed to supplement rehabilitation by encouraging hand movements while playing a fun game. The system is based on the well-known Buzzwire children's toy that requires steady hand-eye coordination to pass a ring along a wire without touching the wire. The toy has in the past been used in a variety of research studies, but we considered it ideal for motor rehabilitation because it requires steady hand and finger movements. In our virtualised version of the toy the wire consists of a parametric spline curve with cylindrical cross-section positioned in front of the player. Cylinders at the ends of the 'wire' change colour to indicate which hand to use. The parametric nature of the wire allows us to record performance variables which are not readily available in the physical version. We report on two initial experiments which tested and evaluated various aspects of performance on able-bodied participants and stroke patients, followed by a description of how we developed the toy into a multi-level game that encourages increasingly intricate hand movements. In the first evaluation we tested if performance variables (such as average speed, and distance from the wire) could distinguish between dominant and non-dominant hands of able-bodied participants. We also compared performance with and without binocular viewing. Results showed that our metrics could distinguish between the players dominant versus non-dominant hand. We also noted a dramatic disruption of performance when binocular stereopsis was not available. The second experiment was a usability study involving a sample of stroke-affected participants with post-stroke hemiparesis. Results showed positive acceptance of the technology with no fatigue or nausea. Our gamified version of the task utilizes learnings from the previous studies to create an enjoyable multi-level game involving auditory guidance as feedback. Results are discussed in terms of potential benefits of using such technology in addition to conventional therapy.
Compression Of 16K Video For Mobile VR Playback Over 4K Streams
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Vazquez, Iker; Cutchin, Steve; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
Mobile virtual reality headset devices are currently constrained to playing back 4K video streams for hardware, network, and performance reasons. This strongly limits the quality of 360 degrees videos over 4K streams; which in turn translates to insufficient resolution for virtual reality video playback. Spherical stereo virtual reality videos can be currently captured at 8K and 16K resolutions, with 8K being the minimal resolution for an acceptable quality video playback experience. In this paper, we present a novel technique that uses object tracking to compress 16K spherical stereo videos captured by a still camera into a format that can be streamed over 4K channels while maintaining the 16K video resolution for typical video captures.
Individualized Calibration of Rotation Gain Thresholds for Redirected Walking
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Hutton, Courtney; Ziccardi, Shelby; Medina, Julio; Rosenberg, Evan Suma; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
Redirected walking allows the exploration of large virtual environments within a limited physical space. To achieve this, redirected walking algorithms must maximize the rotation gains applied while remaining imperceptible to the user. Previous research has established population averages for redirection thresholds, including rotation gains. However, these averages do not account for individual variation in tolerance of and susceptibility to redirection. This paper investigates methodologies designed to quickly and accurately calculate rotation gain thresholds for an individual user. This new method is straightforward to implement, requires a minimal amount of space, and takes only a few minutes to estimate a user's personal threshold for rotation gains. Results from a user study support the wide variability in detection thresholds and indicate that the method of parameter estimation through sequential testing (PEST) is viable for efficiently calibrating individual thresholds.
Error Correction in Redirection: Rotational Manipulation for Natural Walking and Control of Walking Paths
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Mizutani, Junya; Matsumoto, Keigo; Nagao, Ryohei; Narumi, Takuji; Tanikawa, Tomohiro; Hirose, Michitaka; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
This study proposes a novel rotational manipulation method for redirection when users attempt to turn around a corner within a virtual environment. The basic manipulation of conventional redirection can be classified into translational, rotational, and curvature manipulations. In conventional rotational manipulation, users must stop and rotate. However, this behavior is not natural in everyday walking. In addition, because the manipulated rotation varies depending on the amount of the user's rotation, this manipulated rotation could differ from the assumed rotation if the user does not rotate by the assumed angle during this manipulation. Correspondingly, the actual walking path may deviate from the planned path. Misalignment of the walking path may cause a deviation in the interaction with an object in real space, thus resulting in collision with real-space objects and other users. We devised a basic manipulation of redirection and formulated a novel method for manipulating the amount of rotation when users rotate while moving. Using this method, we changed the axis of rotational manipulation for preventing mismatches between real and virtual environments, and set an area to correct the error in rotational manipulation. The results of our experiments demonstrated that it is possible to control the walking paths and manipulate the amount of rotation during movement without changing the amount of rotation perceived by users, and without increasing discomfort. The results demonstrated that our method is useful for manipulating the viewpoint when a user walks naturally.
Usability of Augmented Reality in Aeronautic Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Fischini, Antoine; Ababsa, Fakhreddine; Grasser, Mickaël; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
Augmented Reality (AR) is a strong growing research topic in several areas including industry, training, art and entertainment. AR can help users to achieve very complex tasks by enhancing their vision with useful and well-adapted information. This paper deals with evaluating the usability of AR in aeronautic maintenance training tasks. A case study in the on-site maintenance department was conducted using an augmented reality application, involving operators at several levels of expertise. Obtained results highlighted the full efficacy of AR in the field of aeronautic maintenance.
A Touch Panel for Presenting Softness with Visuo-Haptic Interaction
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Murata, Karen A.; Oishi, Erika; Nakamura, Takuto; Kajimoto, Hiroyuki; Tanaka, Nobuya; Sano, Takahiro; Naya, Masayuki; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
This paper proposes a system capable of presenting softness using a touch panel. Many studies of touch panel-based haptic displays have developed methods for manipulating macro-roughness (shape), fine-roughness (texture), and friction. On the contrary, few studies have examined the sensation of softness. One reason for this is that to represent the spring constant of the object material, it becomes necessary to present a reaction force in the vertical direction, and this requires a large-scale device to move the surface up and down, or a device attached to the finger, both of which degrade the touch panel experience. To tackle this issue, we propose and have developed a system that can express softness not only visually but also haptically using a motor-driven film covering the touch panel to present a tangential force to the finger and with a simple visual shadow effect. In addition, we used the system to evaluate the subjective softness and confirmed the visual and haptic modulation with a realistic 3D image and a 2D image.
Positioning of Subtitles in Cinematic Virtual Reality
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Rothe, Sylvia; Tran, Kim; Hussmann, Heinrich; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
Cinematic Virtual Reality has been increasing in popularity in recent years.Watching 360 degree movies with a head mounted display, the viewer can freely choose the direction of view and thus the visible section of the movie. Therefore, a new approach for the placements of subtitles is needed. In a preliminary study we compared several static methods, where the position of the subtitles is not influenced by the movie content. The preferred method was used in the main study to compare it with dynamic, worldreferenced subtitling, where the subtitles are placed in the movie world. The position of the subtitles depends on the scene and is close to the speaking person. Even if the participants did not prefer one of these methods in general, for some cases in our experiments world-referenced subtitles led to a higher score of presence, less sickness and lower workload.
Analysis of Spatio-temporal Data in Virtual Historic Spaces
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Artopoulos, Georgios; Charalambous, Panayiotis; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
This paper presents a virtual reality workflow for citizen engagement in the management of neglected historic sites in contested cities, such as Nicosia, Cyprus, the last divided capital of Europe. It is contextualized in an ongoing research for the use of interactive visualization technologies for co-creation and co-management design practices in public space management. We demonstrate initial results from tracking the movement and gaze of users in VR walkthroughs of a historic site with and without user driven interventions and discuss on future directions.
Feasibility Study of an Augmented Reality System for People with Dementia
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Andrade Ferreira, Luis Duarte; Cavaco, Sofia; Bermúdez i Badia, Sergi; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
While augmented reality (AR) can be valuable in therapy with people with dementia (PwD), when designing an AR system for PwD, it is important to understand how PwD interact with to such systems. Here we discuss an experiment that aims to study how PwD can complete a set of activities using a variety of human - computer interaction techniques in an AR environment. During our analysis, we will answer 4 research questions: (RQ1) How autonomous are PwD while using the proposed system? (RQ2) How engaging is the system? (RQ3) How proficient are PwD in doing the proposed activities using errorful and errorless approaches? (RQ4) How useful is the proposed system as perceived by therapists? There were 7 people diagnosed with dementia participating in the study. We also invited 3 health professionals to provide feedback regarding the overall usefulness of the AR system for stimulation purposes in PwD who are at initial to intermediate stages of dementia.The experiment showed that, in general, participants did enjoy doing the activities and were able to complete them independently. As far for the therapists, they showed interest in using the system for stimulation purposes in the future interventions. However, the experiment also revealed that it is important to adapt the activities to the patient's profile.
Blowing in the Wind: Increasing Copresence with a Virtual Human via Airflow Influence in Augmented Reality
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Kim, Kangsoo; Bruder, Gerd; Welch, Gregory; Bruder, Gerd and Yoshimoto, Shunsuke and Cobb, Sue
In a social context where two or more interlocutors interact with each other in the same space, one's sense of copresence with the others is an important factor for the quality of communication and engagement in the interaction. Although augmented reality (AR) technology enables the superposition of virtual humans (VHs) as interlocutors in the real world, the resulting sense of copresence is usually far lower than with a real human interlocutor. In this paper, we describe a human-subject study in which we explored and investigated the effects that subtle multi-modal interaction between the virtual environment and the real world, where a VH and human participants were co-located, can have on copresence. We compared two levels of gradually increased multi-modal interaction: (i) virtual objects being affected by real airflow as commonly experienced with fans in summer, and (ii) a VH showing awareness of this airflow. We chose airflow as one example of an environmental factor that can noticeably affect both the real and virtual worlds, and also cause subtle responses in interlocutors.We hypothesized that our two levels of treatment would increase the sense of being together with the VH gradually, i.e., participants would report higher copresence with airflow influence than without it, and the copresence would be even higher when the VH shows awareness of the airflow. The statistical analysis with the participant-reported copresence scores showed that there was an improvement of the perceived copresence with the VH when both the physical-virtual interactivity via airflow and the VH's awareness behaviors were present together. As the considered environmental factors are directed at the VH, i.e., they are not part of the direct interaction with the real human, they can provide a reasonably generalizable approach to support copresence in AR beyond the particular use case in the present experiment.

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