Immersive 3D visualization laboratory concept
In the paper an advanced concept for a Virtual Reality (VR) CAVE installation is presented, which should allow for human immersion in a spatially unlimited virtual world. The CAVE will be completed by the end of 2013 in a special building designed and constructed for the purpose. The unit will simulate an autonomous movement of a human inside a computer generated scenery. The person immersed in VR space will be placed in a transparent sphere with a large diameter supported on rollers and equipped with a motion tracking system. Walking motion of the person will inflict the revolution of the ball and trigger changes in the computer generated images on screens surrounding the sphere thus creating an illusion of motion. The projection system will be equipped with a 3D simulation capability and supplemented with a spatial sound generation system.
Cybersphere: the fully immersive spherical projection system
The computer generated virtual environments made possible by virtual reality (VR) may be moved through and manipulated by users in real time [1], but most display methods, including computer monitors, head-mounted displays, or projection screens, have an important limitation—they do not allow users to move around the virtual environment in a natural way. Efforts to remove this limitation include the development in the U.S. of a device similar to a stationary unicycle [3], which attempts to simulate the walking motion of a person sitting upon it. But this lessthan-ideal solution introduces its own restrictions on freedom of movement. By contrast, freedom of movement is not restricted with the fully immersive spherical projection system known as the Cybersphere, developed through joint research by VR Systems and the University of Warwick, both in the U.K. Users who enter this spherical system—which represents a new approach to VR visualization—can walk, run, jump, or crawl in any direction, while at the same time being able to observe an allencompassing virtual environment. In this article we describe where the Cybersphere fits in the world of virtual reality interfaces, and discuss ways it can be applied to a cross-sectional audience, ranging from simple component visualization to highly complex military simulations. Since the advent into VR in 1965, when Ivan Sutherland presented a paper describing the concepts of the Head Mounted Display (HMD), several systems have been developed to “perceive” physical objects. The Cybersphere, launched in October 2000, is the latest such system; others include the cathode ray tube (CRT), the head mounted display (HMD), the binocular omni-oriented monitor (BOOM), and a projection screen environment known as a CAVE. Following is a brief description of each.
Implementing virtual stairs on treadmills using torso force feedback
Describes the simulation of stairs on a treadmill style locomotion interface using torso force feedback. The active mechanical tether of the Sarcos Treadport locomotion interface applies a specialized force profile to simulate the forces of stair walking. The biomechanics of subjects walking on real stairs versus walking under the specialized force profile were compared. It was found that the tether force was able to adjust the subject's motion from standard slope walking towards that of stairs.