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Now showing 1 - 10 of 77
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    Velocity-Based LOD Reduction in Virtual Reality: A Psychophysical Approach
    (The Eurographics Association, 2023) Petrescu, David; Warren, Paul A.; Montazeri, Zahra; Pettifer, Steve; Babaei, Vahid; Skouras, Melina
    Virtual Reality headsets enable users to explore the environment by performing self-induced movements. The retinal velocity produced by such motion reduces the visual system's ability to resolve fine detail. We measured the impact of self-induced head rotations on the ability to detect quality changes of a realistic 3D model in an immersive virtual reality environment. We varied the Level of Detail (LOD) as a function of rotational head velocity with different degrees of severity. Using a psychophysical method, we asked 17 participants to identify which of the two presented intervals contained the higher quality model under two different maximum velocity conditions. After fitting psychometric functions to data relating the percentage of correct responses to the aggressiveness of LOD manipulations, we identified the threshold severity for which participants could reliably (75%) detect the lower LOD model. Participants accepted an approximately four-fold LOD reduction even in the low maximum velocity condition without a significant impact on perceived quality, suggesting that there is considerable potential for optimisation when users are moving (increased range of perceptual uncertainty). Moreover, LOD could be degraded significantly more (around 84%) in the maximum head velocity condition, suggesting these effects are indeed speed-dependent.
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    Experiencing High-Speed Slash Action in Virtual Reality Environment
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Yamamoto, Toranosuke; Fukuchi, Kentaro; Theophilus Teo; Ryota Kondo
    When a user uses a hand controller to swing a virtual sword in a virtual space, the sword movement seems slow if the its trajectory reflects the input directly. We hypothesize that this is because we are accustomed to seeing fast and instantaneous motion through movies or animations, and thus we perceive their motion as relatively slow. To address this issue, we propose a novel method of displaying exaggerated sword motions to allow a virtual reality user to enjoy a fast slash action. This method displays an arc-shaped motion blur effect along the predicted motion when the system detects the start of the slashing motion until the hand controller motion stops. Graphics of the sword are not displayed during this time. Therefore, the user is unaware of the actual trajectory of their input and how far it differs from the exaggerated motion blur effect.
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    Variational Pose Prediction with Dynamic Sample Selection from Sparse Tracking Signals
    (The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2023) Milef, Nicholas; Sueda, Shinjiro; Kalantari, Nima Khademi; Myszkowski, Karol; Niessner, Matthias
    We propose a learning-based approach for full-body pose reconstruction from extremely sparse upper body tracking data, obtained from a virtual reality (VR) device. We leverage a conditional variational autoencoder with gated recurrent units to synthesize plausible and temporally coherent motions from 4-point tracking (head, hands, and waist positions and orientations). To avoid synthesizing implausible poses, we propose a novel sample selection and interpolation strategy along with an anomaly detection algorithm. Specifically, we monitor the quality of our generated poses using the anomaly detection algorithm and smoothly transition to better samples when the quality falls below a statistically defined threshold. Moreover, we demonstrate that our sample selection and interpolation method can be used for other applications, such as target hitting and collision avoidance, where the generated motions should adhere to the constraints of the virtual environment. Our system is lightweight, operates in real-time, and is able to produce temporally coherent and realistic motions.
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    ``Yunluo Journey'': A VR Cultural experience for the Chinese Musical Instrument
    (The Eurographics Association, 2024) Wang, Yuqiu; Guo, Wenchen; He, Zhiting; Fan, Min; Chen, Renjie; Ritschel, Tobias; Whiting, Emily
    The sustainability of the cultural heritage of traditional musical instruments requires integrating musical culture into people's daily lives. However, the Yunluo, a traditional Chinese musical instrument, is too large and expensive to be easily incorporated into everyday life. To promote the sustainability and dissemination of Yunluo culture, we designed a VR Yunluo cultural experience that allows people to engage in the creation and performance of Yunluo, as well as learn about its historical and cultural significance through a Yunluo experience. This embodied, gamified, and contextualized VR experience aims to enhance participants' interest in Yunluo culture and improve their understanding and appreciation of the related knowledge.
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    Immersive WebXR Data Visualisation Tool
    (The Eurographics Association, 2023) Ogbonda, Ebube Glory; Vangorp, Peter; Hunter, David
    This paper presents a study of a WebXR data visualisation tool designed for the immersive exploration of complex datasets in a 3D environment. The application developed using AFrame, D3.js, and JavaScript enables an interactive, device-agnostic platform compatible with various devices and systems. A user study is proposed to assess the tool's usability, user experience, and mental workload using the NASA Task Load Index (NASA TLX). The evaluation is planned to employ questionnaires, task completion times, and open-ended questions to gather feedback and insights. The anticipated results aim to provide insights into the effectiveness of the application in supporting users in understanding and extracting insights from complex data while delivering an engaging and intuitive experience. Future work will refine and expand the tool's capabilities by exploring interaction guidance, visualisation layout optimisation, and long-term user experience assessment. This research contributes to the growing field of immersive data visualisation and informs future tool design.
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    Towards Improving Educational Virtual Reality by Classifying Distraction using Deep Learning
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Khokhar, Adil; Borst, Christoph W.; Hideaki Uchiyama; Jean-Marie Normand
    Distractions can cause students to miss out on critical information in educational Virtual Reality (VR) environments. Our work uses generalized features (angular velocities, positional velocities, pupil diameter, and eye openness) extracted from VR headset sensor data (head-tracking, hand-tracking, and eye-tracking) to train a deep CNN-LSTM classifier to detect distractors in our educational VR environment. We present preliminary results demonstrating a 94.93% accuracy for our classifier, an improvement in both the accuracy and generality of features used over two recent approaches. We believe that our work can be used to improve educational VR by providing a more accurate and generalizable approach for distractor detection.
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    Investigating Students' Motivation and Cultural Heritage Learning in a Gamified Versus Non-gamified VR Environment
    (The Eurographics Association, 2023) Souropetsis, Markos; Kyza, Eleni A.; Nisiotis, Louis; Georgiou, Yiannis; Giorgalla, Varnavia; Pelechano, Nuria; Liarokapis, Fotis; Rohmer, Damien; Asadipour, Ali
    This empirical study investigated how the use of a gamified versus a non-gamified Virtual Reality (VR) learning environment impacted student motivation and learning outcomes in the context of a virtual visit at a cultural heritage site. For this purpose, we adopted an experimental research design to analyse the experience of 46 undergraduate university students; 23 of them used a gamified version of the VR learning environment, while 23 of them used the same VR environment without the gamification elements. Data were collected using pre and post learning assessments, motivation questionnaires, as well as individual semistructured interviews. The data analyses showed that students who experienced the gamified VR learning environment had greater learning gains and perceived competence, as compared to their counterparts who used the VR environment without the gamification elements. The findings of this research contribute to the principled design of VR environments to optimize students' knowledge acquisition and learning experience.
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    4D Exploring System for Intuitive Understanding of 4D Space by Extending Familiar 3D Interfaces
    (The Eurographics Association, 2023) Igarashi, Haruo; Sawada, Hideyuki; Jean-Marie Normand; Maki Sugimoto; Veronica Sundstedt
    With the advancement of VR technology and the increasing demand for high-dimensional data, a variety of intuitive visualization and interaction methods for high-dimensional data have been proposed. In this paper, we propose a new 4D space interaction system aimed at not only being more intuitive but also making it easier for non-experts to understand 4D space. The proposed system functions as a familiar system for exploring 3D space, and when exploring the 4D space, a user is able to directly leverage the operations used for navigating the 3D space. This feature is achieved through a combination of displaying crosssections of 4D space by slicing through 3D screens and intuitive operation using motion controllers. By moving back and forth between exploring the 4D space and the 3D cross-sections, a user can observe and experience the relationships, aiding in the understanding of 4D space. From the maze exploration experiments, not only were promising results obtained, but interesting insights were also garnered regarding the field of high-dimensional space perception, an area with many unresolved aspects.
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    Effect of Spatial and Temporal Dilation of a Brand Logo Printed on a VR Shopping Bag
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Horii, Moeki; Yamazaki, Azusa; Kuratomo, Noko; Zempo, Keiichi; Theophilus Teo; Ryota Kondo
    Interaction opportunities in virtual environments (VE), such as stores and events using virtual reality (VR), are increasing, and advertisements for brand recognition may be introduced to VE in the future. The objective of this research is to find a way to display advertisements in a VE that is more likely to attract the attention of consumers. Additionally, this study investigates the differences in consumer reactions depending on the advertisement's display method. In the experiment, VR customer avatars who hold shopping bags were walking in a store. Fictitious Logos were attached to each shopping bag. Each type of logo was presented in four different ways. From the results of the questionnaires, the display method that attracted the participants' eyes using temporal dilation, such as footprints that disappear over time, was significantly more memorable than the methods that did not use it. In addition, the mean of the impressive value of the blue logo, which is close to the color of the floor, was smaller than that of the other color's logos at the one percent level of significance in 3D + footprint display. This also revealed that it is necessary to use a conspicuous color that will not be buried in background colors, such as the floor color.
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    A Visual-Scenario-Based Environmental Analysis Approach to the Model-Based Management of Water Extremes in Urban Regions
    (The Eurographics Association, 2023) Sen, Özgür Ozan; Backhaus, Lars; Farrokhzadeh, Siamak; Graebling, Nico; Guemar, Sara; Kiszkurno, Feliks; Krebs, Peter; Novoa, Diego; Stamm, Jürgen; Kolditz, Olaf; Rink, Karsten; Dutta, Soumya; Feige, Kathrin; Rink, Karsten; Zeckzer, Dirk
    Due to the present climate crisis, the increasing frequency of the water extreme events around urban regions in river basins may result in drastic losses. One of the most effective preventive measures is a prior analysis of the eventual effects to comprehend the future risks of such water extremes. As well as analysis of historical impacts, the model-based management of water extremes have also a crucial role. Therefore, we present a 3-dimensional visual-scenario-based environmental analysis framework by utilising a Virtual Geographic Environment for the visualisation and the exploration of model-based management of hydrological events in urban regions. Within the study, we focused on the City of Dresden in eastern Germany located in the basin of the Elbe River. We integrated a large set of historical observation data and the results of numerical simulations to explore the consequences of modelled heavy precipitation events within different scenarios. Utilising a framework developed in Unity, the resulting visualisation of different scenarios dealing with water extremes simulated with coupled numerical models constitute the overall focus of this particular study. The resulting application is intended as a collaboration platform in terms of the knowledge transfer among domain scientists, stakeholders and the interested public.