Extending haptic device capability for 3D virtual grasping

This paper presents an investigation into the workspace constraints observed through the use of multiple single point haptic interfaces, which lead to the design of a novel grasping device that improves upon current commercial haptic interfaces. The presented device is desktop based, and has been designed to maximise the haptic workspace while offering the ability to grasp and manipulate virtual objects, which is a function that current commercial interfaces are limited in providing. The performance of the commercial haptic interface in producing sustained effective operation and increased workspace with the attached haptic gripper is evaluated, and the improvement of both has been determined.

3D virtual haptic cone for intuitive vehicle motion control

Haptic human-machine interfaces and interaction techniques have been shown to offer advantages over conventional approaches. This work introduces the 3D virtual haptic cone with the aim of improving human remote control of a vehicle's motion. The 3D cone introduces a third dimension to the haptic control surface over existing approaches. This approach improves upon existing methods by providing the human operator with an intuitive method for issuing vehicle motion commands whilst simultaneously receiving real-time haptic information from the remote system. The presented approach offers potential across many applications, and as a case study, this work considers the approach in the context of mobile robot motion control. The performance of the approach in providing the operator with improved motion controllability is evaluated and the performance improvement determined.

3D virtual haptic cone for intuitive vehicle motion control

Haptic technology provides the ability for a system to recreate the sense of touch to a human operator, and as such offers wide reaching advantages. The ability to interact with the human's tactual modality introduces haptic human-machine interaction to replace or augment existing mediums such as visual and audible information. A distinct advantage of haptic human-machine interaction is the intrinsic bilateral nature, where information can be communicated in both directions simultaneously. This paper investigates the bilateral nature of the haptic interface in controlling the motion of a remote (or virtual) vehicle and presents the ability to provide an additional dimension of haptic information to the user over existing approaches [1-4]. The 3D virtual haptic cone offers the ability to not only provide the user with relevant haptic augmentation pertaining to the task at hand, as do existing approaches, however, to also simultaneously provide an intuitive indication of the current velocities being commanded.

Australian higher education institutions transforming the future of teaching and learning through 3D virtual worlds

What are educators‟ motivations for using virtual worlds with their students? Are they using them to support the teaching of professions and if this is the case, do they introduce virtual worlds into the curriculum to develop and/or expand students' professional learning networks? Are they using virtual worlds to transform their teaching and learning? In  recognition of the exciting opportunities that virtual worlds present for higher education, the DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group was formed. It is made up of Australian university academics who are investigating the role that virtual worlds will play in the future of education and actively implementing the technology within their own teaching practice and  curricula. This paper presents a typology for teaching and learning in 3D virtual worlds and applies the typology to a series of case studies based on the ways in which academics and their institutions are exploiting the power of virtual worlds for diverse purposes ranging from business scenarios and virtual excursions to role-play, experimentation and language development. The case studies offer insight into the ways in which institutions are transforming their teaching for an unknown future through innovative teaching and learning in virtual worlds. The paper demonstrates how virtual worlds enable low cost alternatives to existing pedagogies as well as creating opportunities for rich, immersive and authentic activities that would otherwise not be feasible or maybe not even be possible. Through the use of virtual worlds, teaching and learning can be transformed to cater for an unknown future.

Responding to the widening participation agenda through improved access to and within 3D virtual learning environments

The Australian Government's widening participation agenda - also referred to as the social inclusion agenda - considers equity through the triple focus of access, participation and outcomes. These foci are catalysts for re-examining teaching and learning approaches in formal education. This article considers this national refocus and the possibilities for addressing access and equity issues through and within threedimensional virtual learning environments (3DVLEs). The findings of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)-funded project that investigated the potential of an accessible 3DVLE for increasing access and participation of students with disabilities are reported, and strategies for improving outcomes (i.e. retention, success and completion) proposed. The article also highlights some of the remaining challenges with regard to the goal of improving outcomes for under-represented learner groups. The final section of the article identifies areas for further research.

Rhetoric and reality: critical perspectives on education in a 3D virtual world

The emergence of any new educational technology is often accompanied by inflated expectations about its potential for transforming pedagogical practice and improving student learning outcomes. A critique of the rhetoric accompanying the evolution of 3D virtual world education reveals a similar pattern, with the initial hype based more on rhetoric than research demonstrating the extent to which rhetoric matches reality. Addressed are the perceived gaps in the literature through a critique of the rhetoric evident throughout the evolution of the application of virtual worlds in education and the reality based on the reported experiences of experts in the field of educational technology, who are all members of the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Worlds Working Group. The experiences reported highlight a range of effective virtual world collaborative and communicative teaching experiences conducted in members' institutions. Perspectives vary from those whose reality is the actuation of the initial rhetoric in the early years of virtual world education, to those whose reality is fraught with challenges that belie the rhetoric. Although there are concerns over institutional resistance, restrictions, and outdated processes on the one-hand, and excitement over the rapid emergence of innovation on the other, the prevailing reality seems to be that virtual world education is both persistent and sustainable. Explored are critical perspectives on the rhetoric and reality on the educational uptake and use of virtual worlds in higher education, providing an overview of the current and future directions for learning in virtual worlds.

A facility for the integration of live and virtual environments in realtime

This paper describes a research facility which has been established to explore the integration of live and virtual environments in real-time. The facility combines digital ontput from both live and electronic sources such as video, animatinos and 3D virtual environments and enables the monitoring and control of the interaction between live actors and the digital enviromnents. This provides a research environment in which the interaction between participants in the design and construction process and 3D virtual buildings can be investigated. This will lead to the enhancement of decision making and planning in the design and construction process.

From lung images to lung models : a review

Automated 3D lung modeling involves analyzing 2D lung images and reconstructing a realistic 3D model of the lung. This paper presents a review of the existing works on automatic formation of 3D lung models from 2D lung images. A common framework for 3D lung modeling is proposed. It consists of eight components: image acquisition, image pre-processing, image segmentation, boundary creation, image recognition, image registration, 3D surface reconstruction, and 3D rendering and visualization. The algorithms used by the existing systems to implement these components are also reviewed.

Grasping virtual objects with multi-point haptics

The majority of commercially available haptic devices offer a single point of haptic interaction. These devices are limited when it is desirable to grasp with multiple fingers in applications including virtual training, telesurgery and telemanipulation. Multipoint haptic devices serve to facilitate a greater range of interactions. This paper presents a gripper attachment to enable multi-point haptic grasping in virtual environments. The approach employs two Phantom Omni haptic devices to independently render forces to the user's thumb and other fingers. Compared with more complex approaches to multi-point haptics, this approach provides a number of advantages including low-cost, reliability and ease of programming. The ability of the integrated multi-point haptic platform to interact within a CHAI 3D virtual environment is also presented.

Prospective memory in a virtual environment: beneficial effects of cue saliency

Prospective Memory (PM) research focuses on how the cognitive system successfully encodes and retains an intention, before retrieving it at a particular future time or in response to a particular future event. Previous work using 2D text stimuli has shown that increasing the saliency of the retrieval cue can improve performance. In this work, we investigated the effect of increased cue saliency in a more ecologically valid 3D virtual environment. The findings indicate that increased perceptual saliency of the cue does benefit PM in a dynamic and visually rich environment but that the impact of cue saliency does not interact with attentional load.

Virtual worlds in Australian and New Zealand higher education: Remembering the past, understanding the present and imagining the future

3D virtual reality, including the current generation of multi-user virtual worlds, has had a long history of use in education and training, and it experienced a surge of renewed interest with the advent of Second Life in 2003. What followed shortly after were several years marked by considerable hype around the use of virtual worlds for teaching, learning and research in higher education. For the moment, uptake of the technology seems to have plateaued, with academics either maintaining the status quo and continuing to use virtual worlds as they have previously done or choosing to opt out altogether. This paper presents a brief review of the use of virtual worlds in the Australian and New Zealand higher education sector in the past and reports on its use in the sector at the present time, based on input from members of the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Worlds Working Group. It then adopts a forward-looking perspective amid the current climate of uncertainty, musing on future directions and offering suggestions for potential new applications in light of recent technological developments and innovations in the area.

The best of all worlds: Immersive interfaces for art education in virtual and real world teaching and learning environments

A narrative interpretative research methodology was used to investigate collaboration between higher education students and an art educator with the aim of establishing a community of learners. Located, Cloud based and graphically built 3D virtual, socially networked, e-learning environments were used to encourage synchronous and asynchronous student participation in authentic learning and collaborative art practice. Discussion focuses on art educator observations, student visual journal entries, their virtual exhibition of artworks on Deakin Art Education Island in Second Life and student evaluations of the unit Navigating the Visual World. It was concluded that immersion in an e-technology rich blended learning environment resulted in the establishment of an effective e-learning community of art.

Depth estimation using multi-wavelet analysis based stereo vision approach

The problem of dimensional defects in aluminum die- casting is widespread throughout the foundry industry and their detection is of paramount importance in maintaining product quality. Due to the unpredictable factory environment and metallic, with highly reflective, nature of aluminum die-castings, it is extremely hard to estimate true dimensionality of the die-casting, autonomously. In this work, we propose a novel robust 3D reconstruction algorithm capable of reconstructing dimensionally accurate 3D depth models of the aluminum die-castings. The developed system is very simple and cost effective as it consists of only a stereo cameras pair and a simple fluorescent light. The developed system is capable of estimating surface depths within the tolerance of 1.5 mm. Moreover, the system is invariant to illuminative variations and orientation of the objects in the input image space, which makes the developed system highly robust. Due to its hardware simplicity and robustness, it can be implemented in different factory environments without a significant change in the setup.