0000000000113473
AUTHOR
Inmaculada Coma
Towards an extensible simulator of real motion platforms
Abstract The limitations of a real motion platform will not normally be discovered until it is completely built and tested. Late identification of its limitations imposes the necessity of a redesign of the motion platform. This, in turn, incurs important and significant economic costs for the manufacturer. Note that any change in the original design of the motion platform requires an investment in resources, money and time in order to perform the re-design of the platform. The main contribution of this paper is to address this problem by creating a virtual motion platform (VMP). This virtual motion platform is a computer-based simulation of a real motion platform which produces the same out…
Augmented Mirror: Interactive Augmented Reality System Based on Kinect
Part 1: Long and Short Papers; International audience; In this paper we present a virtual character controlled by an actor in real time, who talks with an audience through an augmented mirror. The application, which integrates video images, the avatar and other virtual objects within an Augmented Reality system, has been implemented using a mixture of technologies: two kinect systems for motion capture, depth map and real images, a gyroscope to detect head movements, and control algorithms to manage avatar emotions.
Optimization of 3-DOF Parallel Motion Devices for Low-Cost Vehicle Simulators
Motion generation systems are becoming increasingly important in certain Virtual Reality (VR) applications, such as vehicle simulators. This paper deals with the analysis of the Inverse Kinematics (IK) and the reachable workspace of a three-degrees-of-freedom (3-DOF) parallel manipulator, proposing different transformations and optimizations in order to simplify its use with Motion Cueing Algorithms (MCA) for self-motion generation in VR simulators. The proposed analysis and improvements are performed on a 3-DOF heave-pitch-roll manipulator with rotational motors, commonly used for low-cost motion-based commercial simulators. The analysis has been empirically validated against a real 3-DOF …
Applying particle swarm optimization to the motion-cueing-algorithm tuning problem
The MCA tuning problem consists in finding the best values for the parameters/coefficients of Motion Cueing Algorithms (MCA). MCA are used to control the movements of robotic motion platforms employed to generate inertial cues in vehicle simulators. This problem is traditionally approached with a manual pilot-in-the-loop subjective tuning, based on the opinion of several pilots/drivers. Instead, this paper proposes applying Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to solve this problem, using simulated motion platforms and objective indicators rather than subjective opinions. Results show that PSO-based tuning can provide a suitable solution for this complex optimization problem.
Combining traditional and indirect augmented reality for indoor crowded environments. A case study on the Casa Batlló museum
Abstract Mobile audio-guides are currently being used in museums to enhance the visitors’ experience. Over the past few years, some Augmented Reality (AR) solutions have been explored in this context, making it possible to provide augmented visual and sonic stimuli through the use of smartphones. However, the special conditions of museums (e.g. artificial markers cannot be used, small, crowded rooms, etc.) and the limited computational capacity of smartphones mean that there are important restrictions in the use of this technology. In this paper we introduce a novel mobile augmented guide for the Casa Batllo museum (Barcelona, Spain) which is based on a combination of traditional and indire…
Towards a simulation-based tuning of motion cueing algorithms
Abstract This paper deals with the problem of finding the best values for the parameters of Motion Cueing Algorithms (MCA). MCA are responsible for controlling the movements of robotic motion platforms used to generate the gravito-inertial cues of vehicle simulators. The values of their multiple parameters, or coefficients, are hard to establish and they dramatically change the behaviour of MCA. The problem has been traditionally addressed in a subjective, partially non-systematic, iterative, time-consuming way, by seeking pilot/driver feedback on the generated motion cues. The aim of this paper is to introduce a different approach to solve the problem of MCA tuning, by making use of a simu…
A Multi-Projector Calibration Method for Virtual Reality Simulators with Analytically Defined Screens
The geometric calibration of projectors is a demanding task, particularly for the industry of virtual reality simulators. Different methods have been developed during the last decades to retrieve the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of projectors, most of them being based on planar homographies and some requiring an extended calibration process. The aim of our research work is to design a fast and user-friendly method to provide multi-projector calibration on analytically defined screens, where a sample is shown for a virtual reality Formula 1 simulator that has a cylindrical screen. The proposed method results from the combination of surveying, photogrammetry and image processing approac…
Motion-Cuing Algorithms
Objective:The aim of this study was to characterize the human response to motion-cuing algorithms (MCAs) by comparing users’ perception to several proposed objective indicators.Background:Other researchers have proposed several MCAs, but few improvements have been achieved lately. One of the reasons for this lack of progress is that fair comparisons between different algorithms are hard to achieve, for their evaluation needs to be performed with humans and the tuning process is slow.Method:This characterization is performed by means of a comparison of the subjective perception of vehicle simulation users (90 participants) against several proposed objective indicators that try to measure MCA…
A Reconfigurable Immersive Workbench and Wall-System for Designing and Training in 3D Environments
Virtual and Augmented Reality have been widely used in many scientific fields for the last two decades in order to visualize complex data and information. Although both techniques are oriented to show users complex 3D environments by means of an intuitive and easy mechanism, they use to become useless to manipulate the information in an intuitive and realistic way. In this paper, we present SOROLLA, a new concept of workbench designed for virtual and augmented reality purposes and specially oriented to the fields of teleeducation and engineering. Unlike other proposals, SOROLLA not only allows an easy utilization and configuration, but also shows a cost-effective immersive visualization sys…
Locally constrained synthetic LoDs generation for natural terrain meshes
Terrain representation is a basic topic in the field of interactive graphics. The amount of data required for a good quality of the terrain offers an important challenge to developers of such systems. For users of these applications, the accuracy of geographical data is generally less important than its natural visual appearance. This makes it possible to maintain a limited geographical database for the system and to extend it generating synthetic data. The evaluation of the intrinsic properties of the terrain (i.e. fractal dimension, roughness, etc.) may be used as the basis for generating extra data accomplishing the same patterns discovered in the actual information. However, it is also …
Intelligent eye
This paper describes Intelligent Eye, a mobile phone interactive leisure guide that offers location-based multimedia information. The information offered is related to the user's position, so the main goal of this work is the development of an efficient system to detect where the user is pointing his/her camera at by means of a content-based image retrieval algorithm (CBIR). The CBIR procedure uses color histograms in the HS color space extracted from images, and employs Kullback-Leibler divergence as the similarity measure. Intelligent Eye can be used in a wide range of camera-equipped mobile phones; however, efficiency is improved if GPS data is available. In order to outperform other sys…