Establishing virtual production as a research and teaching activity at QUT

Located within the Creative Industries Faculty, the Animation team at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) recently acquired a full-body inertial motion capture system. Our research to date has been predominantly concerned with interdisciplinary practice and the benefits this could bring to undergraduate teaching. From early experimental tests it was identified that there was a need to develop a framework for best practice and an efficient production workflow to ensure the system was being used to its full potential. Through our ongoing investigation we have identified at least three areas that stand to have long-term benefits from universities engaging in motion capture related research activity. This includes interdisciplinary collaborative research, undergraduate teaching and improved production processes. The following paper reports the early stages of our research, which explores the use of a full-body inertial motion capture (MoCap) solution in collaboration with performing artists.

Business research in virtual worlds : possibilities and practicalities

Purpose – It is predicted that virtual business and related research possibilities will expand significantly. In this context, the aim of this paper is to use insights from a virtual research project to present a theoretically-informed toolbox of practical suggestions to guide the conduct of virtual world business research. Design/methodology/approach – Archival evidence is presented, and data from a study conducted in Second Lifew in 2007 is interpreted through Llewellyn’s framework (physical, structural, agential, cultural and mental dimensions). Findings – With the burgeoning of virtual business applications, appropriate systems that encompass the dynamics of both the real and the virtual will need to be developed by and for accountants, auditors and business professionals. Researchers of virtual business activities will need to adapt to the physical, structural, agential, cultural and mental dimensions unique to virtual worlds. Research limitations/implications – While based on reflections from a single study in Second Life, this paper identifies possibilities for future virtual research on issues of accountability and accounting relating to virtual worlds. Practical implications – The practical toolbox will assist virtual researchers to deal with the possibilities and practicalities of conducting research in virtual worlds. Originality/value – Despite the proliferation of virtual worlds, predictions of virtual business applications, and consequent accountability and accounting implications, there is a paucity of academic literature on conducting business research in virtual settings. This prescient paper develops a conceptual framework to guide the conduct of research in virtual worlds, and identifies the unique opportunities and challenges they present.

A theoretical basis for using virtual worlds as a personalised process visualisation approach

Communication processes are vital in the lifecycle of BPM projects. With this in mind, much research has been performed into facilitating this key component between stakeholders. Amongst the methods used to support this process are personalized process visualisations. In this paper, we review the development of this visualization trend, then, we propose a theoretical analysis framework based upon communication theory. We use this framework to provide theoretical support to the conjecture that 3D virtual worlds are powerful tools for communicating personalised visualisations of processes within a workplace. Meta requirements are then derived and applied, via 3D virtual world functionalities, to generate example visualisations containing personalized aspects, which we believe enhance the process of communcation between analysts and stakeholders in BPM process (re)design activities.

An informal community of practice : the case of the DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group

The DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group has an informal membership of nearly 200 members with an interest in education and virtual worlds within the Australian and New Zealand context. Members come from a variety of academic disciplines and may be teaching or research academics, Research Higher Degree candidates, project managers, virtual world builders and developers. The group acts as an informal Community of Practice, facilitating learning and the transfer of skills through social contact, opportunities to collaborate on projects and publications, and through the sharing of knowledge and experience. This poster provides a snapshot of the activity of this highly active group.

Virtual world process education

Video presented as part of Smart Services CRC Participants meeting. A short demonstration video of our ideas for using Business Process Software in Virtual Worlds for Process Education.

Virtual birding : extending an environmental pastime into the virtual world for citizen science

This paper investigates engaging experienced birders, as volunteer citizen scientists, to analyze large recorded audio datasets gathered through environmental acoustic monitoring. Although audio data is straightforward to gather, automated analysis remains a challenging task; the existing expertise, local knowledge and motivation of the birder community can complement computational approaches and provide distinct benefits. We explored both the culture and practice of birders, and paradigms for interacting with recorded audio data. A variety of candidate design elements were tested with birders. This study contributes an understanding of how virtual interactions and practices can be developed to complement existing practices of experienced birders in the physical world. In so doing this study contributes a new approach to engagement in e-science. Whereas most citizen science projects task lay participants with discrete real world or artificial activities, sometimes using extrinsic motivators, this approach builds on existing intrinsically satisfying practices.

Energy efficient virtual machine placement in data centers

Electricity cost has become a major expense for running data centers and server consolidation using virtualization technology has been used as an important technology to improve the energy efficiency of data centers. In this research, a genetic algorithm and a simulation-annealing algorithm are proposed for the static virtual machine placement problem that considers the energy consumption in both the servers and the communication network, and a trading algorithm is proposed for dynamic virtual machine placement. Experimental results have shown that the proposed methods are more energy efficient than existing solutions.

Harnessing the power of real and virtual social networks during disasters

The mass media and emergency services organisations routinely gather information and disseminate it to the public. During disaster situations both the media and emergency services require acute situational awareness. New social media technologies offer opportunities to enhance situational awareness by crowd-sourcing information using real and virtual social networks. This paper documents how real and virtual social networks were used by a reporter and by members of the public to gather and disseminate emergency information during the flash flood disaster in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley in January 2011 and in the days and weeks after the disaster.

Universal active and reactive power control of electronically interfaced distributed generation sources in virtual power plants operating in gridconnected and islanding modes

The control paradigms of the distributed generation (DG) sources in the smart grid are realised by either utilising virtual power plant (VPP) or by employing MicroGrid structures. Both VPP and MicroGrid are presented with the problem of control of power flow between their comprising DG sources. This study depicts this issue for VPP and proposes a novel and improved universal active and reactive power flow controllers for three-phase pulse width modulated voltage source inverters (PWM-VSI) operating in the VPP environment. The proposed controller takes into account all cases of R-X relationship, thus allowing it to function in systems operating at high, medium (MV) and low-voltage (LV) levels. Also proposed control scheme for the first time in an inverter control takes into account the capacitance of the transmission line which is an important factor to accurately represent medium length transmission lines. This allows the proposed control scheme to be applied in VPP structures, where DG sources can operate at MV LV levels over a short/medium length transmission line. The authors also conducted small signal stability analysis of the proposed controller and compared it against the small signal study of the existing controllers.

Addressing Public and Private Issues in a Virtual Ethnography Study of an Open Online Community: a Reflective Paper

This paper discusses the ethical consequences of employing virtual ethnography to observe human behaviour in open online communities. In this paper, we discuss the nature of the online community being studied as well as the lessons learned from both literature and also the ethical clearance application process undertaken by the research team. A key finding was that despite the community being open to the public, generally community members expected the research team to employ strategies similar to those required when dealing with a private community.

Using natural user interfaces for collaborative process modelling in virtual environments

Modelling business processes for analysis or redesign usually requires the collaboration of many stakeholders. These stakeholders may be spread across locations or even companies, making co-located collaboration costly and difficult to organize. Modern process modelling technologies support remote collaboration but lack support for visual cues used in co-located collaboration. Previously we presented a prototype 3D virtual world process modelling tool that supports a number of visual cues to facilitate remote collaborative process model creation and validation. However, the added complexity of having to navigate a virtual environment and using an avatar for communication made the tool difficult to use for novice users. We now present an evolved version of the technology that addresses these issues by providing natural user interfaces for non-verbal communication, navigation and model manipulation.

Using natural user interfaces for collaborative process modelling in virtual environments

A demo video showing the BPMVM prototype using several natural user interfaces, such as multi-touch input, full-body tracking and virtual reality.

Social technologies in public libraries : exploring best practice

Purpose This article reports on a research project that explored social media best practice in the public library sector. Design/methodology/approach The primary research approach for the project was case study. Two organisations participated in case studies that involved interviews, document analysis, and social media observation. Findings The two case study organisations use social media effectively to facilitate participatory networks, however, there have been challenges surrounding its implementation in both organisations. Challenges include negotiating requirements of governing bodies and broader organisational environments, and managing staff reluctance around the implementations. As social media use continues to grow and libraries continue to take up new platforms, social media must be considered to be another service point of the virtual branch, and indeed, for the library service as a whole. This acceptance of social media as being core business is critical to the successful implementation of social media based activities. Practical implications The article provides an empirically grounded discussion of best practice and the conditions that support it. The findings are relevant for information organisations across all sectors and could inform the development of policy and practice in other organisations. This paper contributes to the broader dialogue around best practice in participatory service delivery and social media use in library and information organisations.

Motion capture and the future of virtual production

Motion capture continues to be adopted across a range of creative fields including, animation, games, visual effects, dance, live theatre and the visual arts. This panel will discuss and showcase the use of motion capture across these creative fields and consider the future of virtual production in the creative industries.