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EVA Invited, more detail	"" [INVITED]

Hayashi, Jun-ichiro Japan more detail

"Construction of a wide area collaboration by joining public ATM networks and CATV networks" We propose a wide area collaboration that organically joins CATV and ATM networks which have spread over a large area. CATV is a local network that offers broadcast services and high speed network services. An ATM network is a network that is high speed, covers a large area and has multimedia capabilities. This type of network is being used for the next generation Internet. A collaboration between end users could be developed by not only physically connecting CATV and wide area ATM, but also by combining the multimedia telecommunication abilities of ATM, the end user oriented broadcast services and high speed network services. Our experiment proposes an architecture for this wide area collaboration as well as constructed an architecture between local CATV and a wide area ATM network made of Gifu Highway and Japan Gigabit Network. In addition, we report about: 1) Experiment to distribute local video contents using multicast. 2) Experiment to distribute contents using a wide area VOD. 3) Report about the possibility of a collaboration using an experimental real time information board that joins SMTP-CATV broadcast interfaces.

Ishida, Akira Japan more detail

"A method for multicast real time relay using ATM networks" In the effort to bring about an advanced information-based society, municipalities in Japan have been developing the infrastructure for information networks both nationally and locally. The Telecommunications Advancement Organization of Japan (TAO), for instance, operates and maintains the Japan Gigabit Network (JGN), a next-generation high-speed information network with 45 national access points. In addition, Gifu Prefecture, with the aim to "stimulate regional exchange," "advance welfare," and "promote regional industries," has advanced the development of the Gifu Highway, a fiber optic network stretching across the entire prefecture.In this experiment, we made a live broadcast using an ATM multicast over these experimental wide-area networks. At the same time, we also broadcast the feed over multiple cable TV networks.In this paper, we report the details of this real time relay, which used a 9 junction (1 4-way junction, 2 3-way junctions), 40 Mbps CBR-PVC multicast tree to send a video transmission to 14 locations across the country.

Kawai, Takashi Japan more detail

"Stereoscopic 3-D Images and Open Learning" In this research project, we held some educational events under the name "3-D Class for Children" in which stereoscopic 3-D images were applied to open leaning. We selected the anaglyph stereoscopic system as a simple method to produce and present the 3-D images. The objective of the achive an understanding of binocular disparity by experiencing it. A total of about 700 elementary school students paricipated in the events. Furthermore, we are looking into implementing open learing using stereoscopic 3-D images over a network.

Ohno, Naonori Japan more detail

"Development of a Distributed Database System for Network Engineering" Recently, the product development shifts rapidly from the mass production to the job shop type or the multi-itemed variable one and there is mounting requirement to reuse digital data for the product developments at high speed and efficiently. This project proposes a network engineering system based on distributed databases. The purpose of this system is to store, manage and reuse the engineering data in common for the co-operation of small and medium enterprises. In this report, in order to realise the system, a prototype of the distributed database is developed and tested. As the result of performance tests to the prototype system and a no-distributed one, it confirmed that the performance of the prototype keep the performance as compared with the non-distributed one.

Usui, Masakazu Japan more detail

"Development of an A/V Telecommunication System with Dynamic Path Selection Mechanism" With the expansion of the Internet, it is becoming more and more common to have multiple physical paths between two sites. In general, communication between two sites uses a path along a route determined at the IP level. However, traffic along each link does not occur along paths reflective of the real-time communication environment. This is a disadvantage for sound and image-laden applications in which transmission quality poses a problem.

Cavazza, Marc UK more detail	"Synchronous Path Planning for Multi-agent Co-ordination" This paper introduces the use of synchronised path planning to co-ordinate groups of autonomous agents in virtual environments. The method is based on a synchronised version of epsilon-A*. This approach enables to co-ordinate groups of actors taking different paths and thus complements previously described flocking algorithms.

Cavazza, Marc UK more detail

"Interactive Storytelling in Virtual Environments: Building the "Holodeck"" In this paper, we introduce an ongoing research project, which aims at developing an immersive storytelling environment. In such a system, which is inspired from the “Holodeck” device, human users will be able to interact with artificial actors through speech, while sharing the same physical environment. Once on the set, the users will be able to participate in story generation by influencing virtual actors or altering the common environment. An essential aspect is that user involvement will not have to be permanent, and that the users will be allowed to leave the set to watch the story unfold in their absence and to return at a later stage. We discuss some fundamental AI problems with which the implementation will be faced and relate them to narrative theories and models of storytelling. More specifically, we describe how users can interfere with the virtual actor’s plans to influence story generation in terms of interaction modalities.

Codognet, Philippe France more detail

"Animating Virtual Creatures by Constraint-based Adaptive Search" Our aim is to design a high-level language for describing behaviors for autonomous agents in virtual worlds, together with an efficient run-time algorithm to implement those behaviors. Virtual worlds are becoming increasingly popular due to the definition of standard formats for describing 3D scenes on the web (e.g. VRML97, Java3D and the future X3D). Nevertheless, most of these shared virtual worlds suffer from an important drawback, namely they are not lively or interactive enough and provide only a minimal degree of “liveliness” due to the lack of autonomous creatures that inhabit such worlds. We will therefore consider in this paper the problem of “populating” such worlds with virtual agents representing life-like creatures which could autonomously navigate and react to their changing environment, and also possibly interact with users. For this purpose, we need to design a language in which such behaviors can be stated, and this language should be both simple, declarative and powerful in order to make it possible to express a great variety of operations. The basis of this declarative language is the notion of constraint, which can be used to represent goals that the agents are trying to achieve. The agent thus maintains a set of goal constraints and we define a simple but effective action selection mechanism that will select at each time-step the best action in order to reduce the discrepancy between his current state and the overall satisfaction of the goals. Thus, it is worth noticing that behaviors are stated in an implicit way (by giving a set of constraint goals) and not in an explicit way (e.g. by giving a precise trajectory), which makes it possible to reactively adapt the agent behavior to a changing real-time environment. As a first application of this framework, we have considered agents with simple reactive behaviors or limited planning capabilities inspired from research in the field of Artificial Life and robotics [8] [9]. We consider the problem of navigation of such autonomous creatures as an optimization problem an propose to use an algorithm based on local search techniques, called adaptive search, to efficiently obtain optimal or near-optimal trajectories. More generally, our framework can be used as a motivation architecture for such virtual creatures, by considering variables for denoting internal states (e.g. energy, thirst, etc) and goal constraints for defining internal needs (e.g. the energy should stay above a certain level), routine behaviors (if the energy falls below some level, go for food), or external desired properties (e.g. stay away from predators).

Verna, Didier France more detail

"URBI ET ORBI: Unusual Design and Implementation Choices for Distributed Virtual Environments" This paper describes "Urbi et Orbi", a distributed virtual environment (DVE) project that is being conducted in the Research and Development Laboratory at Epita. Our ultimate goal is to provide support for large scale multi-user virtual worlds on end-user machines. The incremental development of this project led us to take unusual design and implementation decisions that we propose to relate in this paper. Firstly, a general overview of the project is given, along with the initial requirements we wanted to meet. Then, we go on with a description of the system's architecture. Lastly, we describe and justify the unusual choices we have made in the project's internals. Urbi et Orbi is a virtual environment system: it provides users with a virtual world in which they can interact with objects or other members. Urbi et Orbi is designed to be a large scale distributed system: a potentially large number of participants could exist around the world, no-one having a complete control over the virtual world at any time: the virtual world components are distributed across the machines. Another important characteristic of Urbi et Orbi is that contrary to many other DVE systems, we wanted rich semantics and high-level descriptions of the world components. In particular, we didn't want to reduce the objects descriptions to their 3D aspect only, but provide conceptual relations between them (e.g. a forest is a set of trees, a house has an "inside" etc). As our initial requirements are in contradiction with traditional network communication design (notably because of bandwidth limitation and information dispatching latency), much care has been given to the design of Urbi et Orbi. For instance it avoids the traditional client/server approach, prefers group communication over the traditional unicast or broadcast techniques, and has a very specific information structuration. Urbi et Orbi is composed of three modules, each one running in a separate thread (network limitations are thus compensated by an asynchronous approach): the heart of system is called MMk (the Matrix Micro-kernel). This is where the world management takes place. A second module handles network communication and a third one handles the scene rendering. Both of these modules are connected to the MMk and exchange information with it. Each participant has its own MMk running. In addition to the usual graphical interaction with the world (such as what occurs in VRML browsers), shell-like terminals can be connected to the MMk and allow for textual interaction with the DVE. Any kind of action is virtually possible, ranging from the user's avatar movement, up to new object creation and insertion into the world. In order to provide this level of interactivity, a specific language has been designed: the Goal language. Goal is a scripting language that features an object-oriented approach and provides the necessary primitives to handle group communication. It eases the writing of objects descriptions and hides the complexity of distribution from the programmer, who does not have to care for implementation details. The internals of Urbi et Orbi have already been subject to a design/redesign phase: the first prototype was written in Java, used VRML for object description and an object request broker (ORB) for network aspects. This initial version was disappointing: using Java and VRML turned out to be a major performance loss, and VRML was too 3D biased to allow for easy high-level object description, even with plugged-in languages like JavaScript, as proposed in the Living Worlds specification. The prototype was then rewritten with other tools, rather unusual for this type of application: Objective Caml was used as the main implementation language, and network communication was delegated to Ensemble, a library for group communication. Ensemble offers a flexible set of protocols for network communication, and eases the task of optimizing the bandwidth usage (e.g. insecure multicast for unimportant data, and secure, more bandwidth consuming protocols for critical information). Objective Caml is a functional programming language. In particular, it is faster and has a better garbage collector than Java, provides either full compilation, bytecode or interpretation, and strong typing and object oriented features that enforces good quality design over the programmer. It is additionally easily interfaced with other languages, like C++ in which the OpenGL renderer is written. Ensemble is also written on Objectve Caml, which was another argument in its favor. In its current state, the Urbi et Orbi project has proven that non standard tools can be of a great help in the design and implementation of DVEs. Comparing the two versions of the prototype has also demonstrated that with such tools, one can obtain even better performances than with fashionable languages such as Java or VRML. Lastly, several problems have been put under evidence thanks to the prototype, notably in the field of information structuration. A rewrite of the system, possibly by using languages dedicated to distributed systems, such as Erlang, is currently under study.

Verna, Didier France more detail

"Action Recognition: How Intelligent Virtual Environments Can Ease Human-Machine Interaction" This paper describes a research that has been conducted in the field of cognitive assistance to human-machine interaction in virtual environments. Current virtual reality systems must establish a compromise between efficiency and usability: joysticks or trackballs, although they are easy to use, prevent the user from acting in a natural manner. On the other hand, exoskeletons and force-feedback arms can provide good immersive feelings, but these however are cumbersome devices. In order to find a solution to this sort of dilemma, two approaches are possible: the first, rather applicative, approach would be to improve the quality of human-machine interaction by making interfaces more user-friendly. The second, rather theoretical, approach would be to assist the person in his work by diminishing his workload and thereby reducing the quantity of interaction necessary. Our work deals with the idea of assistance and is therefore of relevance to the second approach mentioned above. We analyze the idea of assisting the human being within a virtual reality context, and we particularly show the benefit of such a concept of action recognition as a possible source of intelligent assistance. The idea behind this is to design a system which, bearing in mind the actions performed by the operator at present and the current state of the environment, attempts to determine the global operation that the operator is in the process of executing, and eventually takes control of the same process in order to complete it automatically. In a first step, we propose a cognitive knowledge representation model used to describe the actions an operator may undertake. Actions are represented in the form of oriented trees. The leaves are taken from a finite set of low-level terminal actions which depend on the particular system being used. A simple node and branch typing mechanism provides a powerful way to describe relations between sub-components of any action, such as precedence or order, time-to-live, required sub-goals etc. In a second step, we establish a set of criteria that allow the action recognition engine to evaluate the probability of a particular action which it knows, to be the one actually undertaken by the operator. We also put forward a set of algorithms which may be used to compute these criteria in real time. The action recognition engine actually tries to perform a matching between the actions it knows and what the user is currently doing. If the matching with a particular action is sufficiently high (superior to what we call the "likeliness threshold"), the automatic completion mechanism is triggered. The proposed knowledge representation model is very simple (its formal description takes only a few lines) and completely generic: only the terminal actions may vary from system to system. It also has no particular knowledge of the scene, apart from what is strictly relevant in the current context. That makes the system fast, not resource consuming and very reactive. Moreover, knowledge acquisition is dynamic: non terminal actions are described in a Lisp dialect for which an interpreter is embedded in the action recognition engine (written in C and C++). Thanks to the level of genericity of our system, we demonstrate that whereas it was not originally designed in this end, the system can be extended to such features as action simulation and action execution with error tracking, all of this at a very low cost. The proposed action recognition mechanism, in addition to its simulation, execution and error tracking capabilities, is implemented in a computer demonstrator, known as the ToASt system. The ToAST system clearly demonstrates that one can reach a high level of interactivity, even with very simple peripherals such as joysticks, provided that interaction is conducted through an intelligent virtual environment. Many industrial applications can benefit from these ideas, notably in the fields of assistance to handicapped persons and computer-aided tele-operation systems.

Fisher, Scott S. Japan more detail	"Keynote Address" Keynote Addresss to be supplied

Stone, Robert UK more detail

"Virtual Reality: A New Dawn" The new Millennium marks the beginning of a second revolution in human interaction – a revolution whose predecessor was some 20 years in the making and involved a fantastic journey from low earth orbit, deep-sea oil fields and nuclear facilities to the innermost workings of the human body. There have been some false starts on the way, but one element has remained constant throughout the human user. Removing humans from hazardous and safety critical worlds, whilst supporting their activities in executing remote tasks as if they were still present, stimulated the evolution of a human-centred endeavor in the 1980s often referred to cautiously as Virtual Reality. Allow the human to interface intuitively with a virtual world for rehearsal purposes and then use those same VR interface elements to control real machines performing real remote tasks. Important initiatives in this field of telepresence began to emerge in the US and UK from 1985 onwards but were rapidly overshadowed by the appearance of outlandish immersive VR technologies and even more outlandish personalities on the world technology stage, many advocating the imminent birth of the “all-purpose 21st Century human-computer interface”. Over the closing decade of the 20th century, the outlandish contingent drifted into obscurity as location-based games systems lost the battle to domestic PCs and the preoccupation with “technology push” began to collapse in the face of market pull and, importantly, the needs of the human user. It’s only quite recently that the true potential of VR has been realized and technology has evolved to enable developers to move away from delivering visually stunning but commercially sterile and expensive “one-off VR demos”. The historical barriers to adopting VR for competitive advantage have gone. Today we have incredible graphics processing power on accessible PCs at affordable prices. Just as important is the fact that we have a more aware business community. Most important of all, we can now demonstrate categorically the pay-back benefits to user organizations. Pay-back in the form of reduced costs for training and design processes, reusability of VR across the breadth and depth of an organisation, improvements in the performance and motivation of the human user and faster skills transfer from the virtual to the real. The new revolution promises to take us on even more fantastic voyages over the coming decade, from microsurgery to nano-engineering, from world heritage to the future of education and Internet communication. We are most definitely in the right place at the right time.

Alhalabi, M. Osama Japan more detail

"Effect of Haptic Properties on Human performance in Haptic Virtual Environment" This paper investigates the effects of the haptic properties, namely spring, damper and friction on the task performance in virtual environment. A set of experiments designed to explore the influence of pure spring model, pure damper model and the spring-damper model on the task performance time and on the perceptual of haptic hard surfaces. Moreover, how does each model affects the user’s task completion time in virtual world and what kind of perception produced by each model is described. The friction role in enhancing the performance is examined.

Arai, Noboru Japan more detail

"Constraint-based Problem Solving in CAD/CAM Process Planning" In this paper, we address a constraint-based problem solving for a process planning problem. In particular, we focus on the constraint specification method and constraint-based solving mechanism for CAD/CAM production systems of auto-mobile engines. In the process planning of the productions, the number of effective and usable constraints, which are imposed by the objects to be designed, users' requests for productions, procedural order among applied constraints, available equipments, etc., is too largre combinationally. Thus, it is not easy to find out appropriate solutions effectively. This drawback enforces planners to take jobs of trials-and-errors. The traditional process planning support systems have been designed/developed to compute various kinds of constraints algorithmically. Under the supporting environment, even the expert planners adapted heuristically to find out solutions selectively and arrange the production process successively. However, they could not describe the dependencies among compoundly related constraints smartly. In addition, it was very difficult in the traditional systems to add, delete and change these constraints effectively. Our objective is to develop a constraint-based process planning system which makes it possible to add, delete and change various kinds of constraints easily and also specify the dependencies among compoundly interrelated constraints declaratively. Our idea is to make use of the heuristic knowledge about the priorities for conflicted constraints, which expert planners apply commonly in their pratical work. Thus, it is important to model the pratical behaviors of expert planners. The first step for our objective is to collect constraints from expert planners and then analyze them in accordance with their use orders and utilization cases. And, the second step is to design and compose the representation structure of constraints as well as the usually applicable domain knowledge. Finally, the prototype system based on this constraint-base structure is implemented. As a result of analyzing constraints and investigating constraint utilization means, the constraints can be classified into two different classes on the basis of the usage priorities. The first constraints are usable to select candidates of solutions globally; and the second ones are effective to identify the optimal solution. With respect to this categorization of constraints, our prototype system of process planning for producing engines of auto-mobiles are composed of two search modules. Of course, these two modules are sequentially applied according to two distinguished constraints. Our paper discusses a mechanism of constraint-based process planning for producing engines of auto-mobiles and makes clear the framework of constraint-based problem solving: in particular, characterization, representation, and utilization means. In addition to these fundamental investigation, the prototype system, implemented in Prolog language, is shown in order to make the ability explicit. Our framework is sufficiently applicable to other problems such as the parts-layout problem, job-scheduling problem, and so on.

Ban, Yoshihiro Japan more detail

"An Optical See-through Mixed Reality Display with a Realtime Rangefinder and Active Pattern Light Source" Mixed RealityiMR) conjuncts the real world with a virtual world created by a computer. Optical superimposing has been a promising MR displaying technology so that it does not degrade the quality of the user's view. Unfortunately, optical see-through displays can not represent correct occlusion phenomenon; a CG object can not occlude a real object, but overlaps on the real one translucently. In this paper an architecture of an optical see-through MR display, which solves the above problem, is proposed. It can represent correct occlusion phenomenon among the real and virtual objects. Two types of new prerequisite elements, a realtime rangefinder and an active pattern light source with a video projector, are involved into the display. The dynamic active pattern light projection illuminates only not occluded portions of the real object in darkroom, according to the interference among 3D models of the virtual object and real one which is acquired by the rangefinder. Therefore, the occluded portions of the real object is not visible due to no illumination; the CG object occludes the real object approximately. A prototype display based on the architecture shows us interesting interactions between the virtual world and the real world including user's hand operations.

Berry, Robert Japan more detail

"CHANGING THE NAME OF THE GAME: How Gaming Technology is Driving the Virtual Reality Industry" Our previous research (Virtual Florida Everglades, VRND: Notre-Dame) had demonstrated that complex virtual reality simulations no longer required supercomputing to achieve high frame rates, breathtaking visuals, and high levels of interactivity. We will demonstrate how applying cutting edge 3D gaming technology as a base for creating simulations can be an inexpensive and surprisingly rewarding endeavor for everything from architectural walkthroughs to networked Virtual World Heritage reconstructions. We will be presenting some examples of our past work, as well as some recent prototypes and technology demos which will show the extent of what is possible on a regular PC with a little effort and dedication. We will also comment on the reciprocal contributions from this research and how the VR industry is influencing the gaming technology not just in theory, but in application, and will show footage of groundbreaking video game titles which are implementing this today.

Calderon, Carlos P. Japan more detail

"Evaluation of VR applications" This paper is concerned with the evaluation of VR applications using the construction domain as an example. The investigation has developed a new experimental methodology and an enabling tool “ASSET to (1)determine the effectiveness of different representations of buildings –2D drawings and 3D Real-Time models- and to (2) assess the solutions proposed by the design team –architects and engineers. A first VR model of a building has been produced as a vehicle for evaluating the methodology and ASSET. A first cycle of the research has been completed; the first experiment has been carried out, the data has been collected and analysed and, the results have been produced.

Chen, Qingzhang China more detail

"Design and Implementation of an Interactive Multimedia German-Chinese Language Training System" Due to the breathtaking economic and political changes both in Europe and in China, information exchange at all levels is of greater significance than ever before. This information exchange, however, is often handicapped by the language barrier between Europeans and the Chinese. It is no easy job to remove this barrier as they belong to completely different language families. Moreover, this difficulty is aggravated by the lack of enough qualified teachers of foreign languages (except those of English and Japanese, perhaps) and the lack of adequate language-environments in which to practice them. The modern multimedia technology shows a way out of this embarrassing situation. By simulating an experienced teacher who interacts with the students by means of sounds, texts, pictures, animations and movies, a multimedia language-training system can provide students with a living environment to learn foreign languages more effectively and efficiently. The main objective of this project, is, therefore, to develop such a system to help the Chinese to learn European languages, and in this first endeavour, German. The project began in April 1997 and has been financed by the federal Government of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and the University of Applied Sciences in L¨¹beck (FHL). The realisation of the system is a joint-effort of the FHL and the Zhejiang University of Technology (ZUT) in China. To make the system useful to a wide range of users, it was decided that the contents taught in this course should not be dedicated to engineers or natural scientists. Many efforts have been devoted to making the text and exercises interactive, vivid and versatile. In addition, efforts are made to convey a true language-feeling to the learner through the lessons

Choi, Jeongdan Korea more detail

"VRML 2.0 PerfToolkit for large-scaled Virtual Environments Authoring" As immerse virtual environment (VE) applications become more complex, the speed of rendering is vitally important. In particular, designers need both understand the users requirements to maximize VE utilization and simplifies the development of complex applications such as visual simulation, interactive entertainment, and architectural-walk through. So, this paper describes an immersed virtual-space authoring toolkits to help developing the VE applications. We refer to PerfToolkit for supporting high-performance VE applications based on VRML2.0. PerfToolkit is composed of event handler for user interactions with VR hardware, and 3D authoring software modules such as key-frame animator, tree viewer, navigator and manipulator. And also, we implement the portal to texture method for a real-time navigation of the large-scaled VE. It is useful to support the complex VE with multiple partitions such as a shopping mall on the Internet.

Dawood, Nash UK more detail

"The Virtual Construction Site (VIRCON): A Decision Support System for Construction Planning" The research proposed here is the subject of a substantial research grant from EPSRC (IMI/CMP) and aims to develop a prototype application for evaluation, visualisation and optimisation of construction schedules within a virtual realty interface, called The Virtual Construction Site (VIRCON). The building block of construction planning methodology is the task. The array of tasks provides the work breakdown structure; the temporal sequencing of tasks is the core of CPA; and the resourcing of tasks provides the input costs of the works. However, what is usually ignored in current methodologies is the fact that task execution occupies space on site, and spaces occupied by one task are often not available either for the execution of other tasks, or the movement of resources between different task execution space. Spatial domain is critical to construction projects and at present the spatial dimension is treated intuitively by experienced planners. VR techniques offer considerable potential for visualising and analysing the spatial and temporal distribution of tasks to inform the decision making process. In this context, the ultimate aim of the project is to provide a desktop strategic decision support tool which will allow planners to trade off the temporal sequencing of task with their spatial distribution. The result would be a more robust and rehearsed project schedule. The paper outlines progress to-date and future developments of the VIRCON project.

DeLeon, Victor USA more detail

"CHANGING THE NAME OF THE GAME: How Gaming Technology is Driving the Virtual Reality Industry" Our previous research (Virtual Florida Everglades, VRND: Notre-Dame) had demonstrated that complex virtual reality simulations no longer required supercomputing to achieve high frame rates, breathtaking visuals, and high levels of interactivity. We will demonstrate how applying cutting edge 3D gaming technology as a base for creating simulations can be an inexpensive and surprisingly rewarding endeavor for everything from architectural walkthroughs to networked Virtual World Heritage reconstructions. We will be presenting some examples of our past work, as well as some recent prototypes and technology demos which will show the extent of what is possible on a regular PC with a little effort and dedication. We will also comment on the reciprocal contributions from this research and how the VR industry is influencing the gaming technology not just in theory, but in application, and will show footage of groundbreaking video game titles which are implementing this today.

Fernandes, Antonio Portugal more detail

"Exploring Alternative Devices for Blind Users" The ability to take advantage of the information society is becoming a must for everyone. Computer literacy is becoming more and more important for individuals as well as corporations. Therefore no efforts must be spared to integrate everyone in this new and exciting development. If for non-disabled persons this can be a challenge, for certain types of disabilities the effort of adaptation is huge. In this paper we focus on blind users. We review the current alternatives for blind users, and explore a new approach, the PalmPCs. A small application for WindowsCE is presented in which the interface was specifically designed for blind users.

Fujii, Katsutoshi Japan more detail

"User Interfacing Device for Immersive 6-screens Display "COSMOS"" The immersive 6-screens display "COSMOS" displays full-sized virtual world with virtual reality technology. The users can behave in COSMOS as if they were there. The goal of this study is to develop intuitive interaction method between users and virtual world displayed on COSMOS. This paper describes matching the virtual world coordinate system with user's intuitive coordinate system displayed in COSMOS coordinate system, and also introduces a trial controller "Tentoumushi" for pointing 3D vector in virtual world by inclining user's hand and moving along the vector by revolving a knob. The result of experiment for comparing Tentoumushi with the past controller for COSMOS, Tentoumushi needs less effort than the past controller.

Hareesh, P.V. Japan more detail

"Evacuation Simulation: Visualisation Using Virtual Humans in a Distributed multi-user Immersive VR System" These paper aims at introducing a VR based evacuation simulation visualisation system of crowd. Crowd simulation is realised using virtual humans with off line simulation data. The design strategy and the integration of the evacuation simulation to spherical screen VR experiencing system is presented. The paper concludes by demonstrating the potential use of distributed VR and virtual humans to analyse and visualise a panic situation in the real world. The results also emphasise the fact that the system is highly effective for performance-based evaluation where the user can evaluate intuitively by viewing and experiencing the panic situation interactively. Knowing ahead of time what to do before, during and after an emergency is invaluable as accidents occur when we least expect them! The field of Safety Research is an active research area where researchers have been trying many different methods to analyse and understand a panic situation in the real world in a better way. It is known from the literature that the recent developments also include developing evacuation tools to meet the challenging demands of performance based safety codes. By focussing a typical emergency situation like Fire/Smoke in a huge building/city, the relevance of such safety tools could be very evident in the following cases. a) Urban design and planning is a complex task and to reach an optimal design by considering the potential safety of the design is even more complex. b) Once designed, the safety department has to validate the system. In need of testing and validating more and more designs in less time to reach an optimal solution that is free of high cost and potential danger associated with human evacuation. c) A system for the residents of the building/city and for the security people to train themselves and to get prepared for the emergency situation etc. Based on the proverb “Seeing is Believing”, the best way to realise and analyse a panic situation is by creating it in the real world with real people and monitor! The potential danger is very clear from the above statement. The next best way is to realise such situation in a virtual world in a most effective way. Technology revolution in computers helped many researchers come out with evacuation models and visualisation. Concurrent advances in visualisation and computational capabilities have spurred the creation and use of realistic three-dimensional virtual environments. We are no more in an age where model visualisation is done using geometric primitives and graphs. Using the existing VR and Virtual Human technology a total immersive virtual world filled with virtual humans is very much possible so that people could feel and visualise typical emergency situation in a most intuitive way. The aim of this paper is to introduce such a developed experimental system where the user could view and analyse the panic situation in REAL SCALE and REAL TIME, thus preserving necessary geo-spatial relationship crucial for intuitive analysis. www.mew.co.jp (ps) This study is being conducted by the Laboratories of Image Information Science and Technology as part of the “Human Media R&D” project, for the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation, under the ministry of International Trade and Industry’s Industrial Technology Development and Organisation System.

Hausman, Bogumil Sweden more detail

"Emotional Gaming" The purpose of this paper is to look at the emotional fabric of computer games, to define what emotional values they promote, and why we become emotionally and intellectually absorbed in certain games. To illustrate emotional content, we use a large spectrum of notions, from philosophy to shamanism, from emotional intelligence to rites. Based upon our analysis of certain successful games, we propose a new game, The Rite of Eliza, with richer emotional content.

Hishida, Takaaki Japan more detail

"Fractal Image Coding and Comparison with Other Methods" In recent years, research into speeding up fractal image coding has received much attention. In our research, we conducted tests on four coding methods that aim to speed up coding time by reducing the number of search blocks while minimizing degradation in the reproduced images. In addition, we compared these methods with JPEG and other forms of image compression.

Horie, Takao Japan more detail

"Collaboration with Two Remote Robot Arms by Direct Instruction Using Stereo Vision and HapticMaster" Abstract. This paper proposes a system that helps an operator control a manipulator using a direct Tele-guidance method that allows him to grasp with a data glove and teach the real manipulator to assemble/disassemble mechanical parts. The direct Tele-guidance is realized by calculating joint angles from the position and orientation of the end effector, which are specified with his data glove. Task environment are captured from two pan tilt TV cameras which are controlled according to his head movement, and he can see the stereoscopic image of it through an HMD. When deciding the end effector has approached to an object to be grasped, or a part grasped has come up to a target object, he has only to use a haptic device to continue his operation. The device transmits to him the force and torque values added to the force torque sensor attached to the end effector. This information allows him to intuitively recognize the state of the effector together with the visual information and makes it possible to precisely control it

Imai, Tomohiko Japan more detail

"A Study on Transmission of Image Information in Networked Robotics" At the research field of networked robotics, image information is available very important information that an operator confirms a working environment. However, an image information can't be transmitted as being stable because the transmission delay varies with a state of network load. Therefore, it is a difficult that an operator confirms a working environment, and the operationality falls off. Accordingly, we propose the method modifying the fall of the operationality. The image information quantity is adjusted by changing an image quality of portion that is especially not important to work usefully on the basis of the result that is decided on a state of network load. The validity of proposed method is demonstrated by experiments.

Iseki, Hiroshi Japan more detail

"Visualization of medical information using virtual reality technology-Intelligent operating theater in the 21st century" Information technology, visualization, manipulation are the directions which future neurosurgery aims. These are correspondent so to speak to advanced eye ( visualization ) and hand ( manipulation ) of the surgeon and advanced brain ( information technology ). [Minimally invasive surgery system] In the surgery, minimally invasive surgery becomes the mainstream, and surgical navigation technology that supports surgical procedures in the narrow operative field is taken seriously. Augmented reality, which is the generic technology, is a real-time integrated information system that supports surgical procedures at the accuracy that is objectively fixed without depending on experience and intuition. [Advanced hand (HUMAN) of the surgeon] The minute manipulator is held by 2 devices of about 1mm diameters which passes through the inside of 3 channels, it is held, and it is possible to apply on the tension, and the organization held by laser knives which passed the 1 channel of the remainder, etc. is cut off. In addition, the ability that there is and can remove no lesion of about one Cube cm deficiency and excess is required. Operator manipulates the minute manipulator according to the visual information (stereoscopic vision and especially sensation of approach) from control box by the wire. [Advanced eye (HivisCAS) of the surgeon] The high-definition television stereo video microscopy system is a real-time integrated information system with the monitor displayed for the small liquid crystal monitor as stereoscopic image by photographing by microscope and high-definition television camera. It is possible that the stereo video microscopy separates the working distance to 60cm, since the display monitor has separated from the microscope. It can be applied to not mere neurosurgery operation microscope and but surgery of the field of other macroscopic operation and as an internal virtual reality clairvoyance system.

Kenichi, Matsunami Japan more detail

"Application of 3-Degree Freedom Hydraulic Motion Base to Evoke Physiological Otolith Vestibulo-Collic Reflex EMGs with Short Latency in Human Subjects." Abstract. A 3-degree oil-actuated motion bed was used to evoke vestibulo-collic reflex, particularly otolith-collic one, in human subjects. This technique was rather a by-product in the course of the development of our control system of tele-robotics using virtual realty and computer (1). However, we believe it worth demonstrating at the present VSMM 2000 in Gifu, because there has been only few experiments have been conducted on otolith-collic reflex with human subjects. This is mainly due to the lack of appropriate apparatus to move a human subject in the vertical direction with satisfactorily smooth movements. A human subject was asked to sit relaxed in a chair anchored to a motion base, whose complete smooth movement was realized by oil actuated pressure transmission system and by a program executed by computer. Transient ascent or descent movement was induced for the motion base with acceleration of 0.4G in the moving distance of 20 cm. Ten trials of ascent and descent were repeated in each session and three session were repeated for each subject. Physiological signals of horizontal and vertical eye movements, electromyelograph (EMG) of sternocleidomastoideus (SCM) and trapezius (TRZ) muscles were recorded. The transient ascent or descent movement evoked short latency EMG responses, particularly in the SCM muscles. The latency were 24.0  1.7 msec (mean  S.E.) in the ascent and 44.1  3.1 msec (mean  S.E.) in the descent. The results clearly demonstrated the usefulness of application of an oil-actuated motion bed with the sophisticate computer and virtual reality technology to the field of physiology.

Koizumi, Keisuke Japan more detail	"A Dynamic Multimedia Information Retrieval System by Utilizing Jini/Java" The aim of this research is to utilize Jini technology in the construction of a dynamic information retrieval system for shared multimedia data, such as images, sounds, and Java applets, and to develop a unified interconnected system for different types of SQL databases.

Kosaka, Ken Japan more detail

"Similar-Scenes Retrieval in Video Databases Based on Probability Model" In this paper, we propose a method for searching similar scenes in video databases based on the probability model. This method provides users with facilities which can compose queries for searching user-intentioned scenes easily. In this method, the action which users have to do is to specify a typical scene in video, and then some scenes which are similar to the specified scene are retrieved. The similarity between scenes is calculated using the quantity of information.

Kovacs, Szilveszter Japan more detail

"Behaviour based techniques in user adaptive Kansei technology" Abstract: Application of behaviour-based control structures in Kansei technology gives a simple way for handling user adaptivity in emotion-based systems. One view of behaviour-based control systems is a kind of strategy reconfiguration – an intelligent adaptation of the system to the actual situation, by discrete switching to the most appropriate strategy, or a kind of fusion of the strategies appeared to be the most appropriate ones in an actual situation. Considering the actual user to be the actual situation, and the existing user models to be the different strategies, gives a clear connection between the user adaptability of the emotion-based systems and the situation adaptability of the behaviour-based control systems. Having more user models, the application of behaviour-based control structures can add user adaptivity to existing emotion-based systems simply by fusing the existing human opinions in the function of the approximated similarity of the actual user opinions to the existing models. For introducing a possible application area of the proposed structure, a user adaptive emotion-based (Kansei) furniture selection system application is introduced in this paper.

Krzanik, Lech Finland more detail

"E-service Evolution with Continuous Virtual Modeling Support" E-services are important software products operating in distributed, cross-organisational environments. A number of recent studies indicate the role of virtual models in product development and operation. There is relatively little experience regarding application of this methodology to e-services. Even less is known about applications to e-service evolution. In this paper we demonstrate a prototype environment in which virtual models are systematically applied, in an integrated way, according to established standards, to e-service evolution.

Kudomi, Shigeki Japan more detail

"Development of a Hydraulic Force Display of Parallel Link Type" In this study, we deal with a bilateral master-slave system for tele-robotics composed of electro-hydraulic servo-systems. In a teleoperated master-slave system, the master has to play two roles, firstly as a reference input device to the slave and secondly as a force display device. In order to produce a force display composed of hydraulic servo-systems, we must solve a problem called back-drivability, in which an actuator in a hydraulic servo-system cannot be operated freely by manual means. As a practical solution to this problem, we propose a driving method of actuator that uses a force sensor attached to the actuator. As a consequence of this proposition, we developed a force display of hydraulic parallel link type with six-DOF. The function of the force display was investigated experimentally and its availability was confirmed.

Kuroda, Tomohiro Japan more detail

"Automatic Generation of VRML Avatar Inheriting Userfs Figure" The importance of the avatar increases in the current rapid growth of networked cyberspaces. The anonymousness of avatar communication may derive vicious behaviours in the cyberspaces. This paper presents an automatic generation method of an avatar, which holds visual ID, that is personal figure. The proposed method applies userfs personal figure taken from a few photos on a given basic avatar, which follows VRML H-ANIM 2.0 standard. The series of generated avatars holds same basic appearance and personality at the same time.

Kwon, Tae-Wook Korea more detail

"A New Navigation Method in 3D VE" This paper focuses on the navigation in the virtual environment, one of the major interfaces for the interactivity between human and virtual environments in virtual reality circumstances and worlds. It proposes a new navigation method: 2D Map-Based Navigation, which prevents user's spatial loss in 3D Virtual Environments and provides a very simple, natural and user-centered navigation method in the virtual environment. 2D Map-Based Navigation is composed of three major processes, Constant Velocity Navigation, Collision Detection and Avoidance, and Path Adjustment. 2D Map-Based Navigation can reduce the user's difficulties and improve the user's sense of presence and reality in the virtual environment. Through the experimental study it has been proven that the 2D Map-Based Navigation is a very natural, straightforward, and useful navigation interface in the virtual environment.

Kyomori, Ken-ichi Japan more detail

"Virtual models of the molding process of wood compressed by the high-pressure steam technique -Towards the development of an aid-system for designing and manufacturing-" We investigated a designing and manufacturing aid-system for the gcompressive-molding of wood under the high-pressure steam techniqueh. This system is constructed from a reproducible virtual simulation model that utilizes theoretical formulas for wood characteristics, equations derived from dynamics, and empirical formulas based on experiments. The overall simulation of this process is difficult, because the structure of wood is so complex that its properties under high-pressure steam conditions are difficult to predict. As the structure of wood is very complex, we used simplified models and tried to investigate the modelling of the three stages (softening, compressing and fixation) in the compressive molding process. This paper describes the concept of the virtual modelling of the compressive molding process.

Lee, JiHyung South Korea more detail

"A Virtual Drama Authoring System using Real-time Character Animation" Computer graphics is advanced day by day, and computer animation with 3D virtual character becomes usual. As this character animation is especially focused on humanoid and has fascinating factor, it is used in the variety of fields. To make a virtual character move realistically, motion capturing technique is introduced recently and has a great influence. Virtual reality techniques spread far and wide on Internet, and there are many contents in which virtual characters appear. The desire to change the existing contents is occurred. Therefore, it is necessary to make contents with character animation rapidly. But it takes long time to authoring contents with virtual character. Although motion capture technique helps the improvement of quality in contents, it couldn't reduce the authoring time, because the most of motion capturing systems are separated from the authoring animation. In this paper, we propose an authoring system with motion device, which is used to make a content called virtual drama. As we want to make the virtual drama as quick as possible, we integrate the variety of tracking devices (magnetic motion capture device, facial Tracker, data Glove and joystick) to acquire the data simultaneously and implement the software that could animate the virtual character using data from these devices in real-time. It enables to support real-time feed back and shows the way to reduce the time and efforts in authoring virtual drama.

Masuda, Naoya Japan more detail

"The Style Discrimination method from Oil Painting based on the 3D range data" We conducted an experiment about kansei,@which is sensibility of each person. Our goal was to extract an artist's style from the oil painting. A style is determined by color, skill and other key elements. Our methods paid particular attention to the characteristics of touch, one of the skills. We supposed that a touch could be determined with in the local mean curvature and the Gaussian curvature extracted from the range image of the oil painting. In this paper we proposed a style discrimination method using these curvatures.

Mine, Yukinobu Japan more detail

"Simulation of Smart Office by virtual environment and PDA" When we develop application that controls various devices connected by the network such as Information Appliances, an environment for testing it is needed. We developed a framework for easy development of virtual devices that simulates the real device correctly, and developed environment that feeds back behavior of virtual devices that made by our framework to the VRML virtual space. By use of this environment, testing of device control applications in the virtual space is realised. In this paper, we propose the unified method for virtualize devices and control them in a virtual space. Finally, we virtualize robots, blinds, and lighting, and develop the application software that controls them by PDAs.

Nakagawa, Masato Japan more detail

"An Application of Superresolution Techniques to Accurately Reconstruct Objects from Partial Shapes" We developed a system which enables us to reconstruct the complete shape of an object from its partial shapes while keeping their accuracy. In this system, we used a Moire' based range finder as the measuring unit. The range finder is made of different parts: a pattern projector, a CCD camera, and an accelerometer. The CCD has both uniform and accurate pixels as well as the function to convert the 3D space into a 2D image instantly. And because the Moire' based range finder doesn't have any actuator parts in it as found in the light section method, we can decrease the measuring errors to a minimum. In the data processing part, applying these characteristics and superresolution techniques to the extraction of a static object of known shape and size from a measured result, we succeeded to calculate the characteristic values with higher resolution than the CCD. This leads to the recontruction of the complete shape of the objects from their partial shapes with an accuracy of 0.1mm. This was accomplished by calculating the correlation of these characteristic values among different shapes. At the same time, this system has an advantage that comes from the portability of the range finder. Despite the fact that this system guarantees an accuracy of 0.1mm, it is portable, light, and small. It is not only effective in decreasing the immeasurable area, but it is also effective in solving the problem of only being able to measure small areas found in most accurate range finders.

Nakao, Megumi Japan more detail

"ActiveHeart: 4D Visible and Palpable Simulation Environment for Beating Heart" This work focuses on visualization and palpation of in vivo beating heart and provides a real time 3D virtual simulation environment. Using this environment, anyone can see and touch the beats as a real heart. As a heart dataset is generally given as time series of volume data, it is important how to describe its dynamic motion and how to provide its user interface graphically and haptically. This simulation environment is performed by an integrated system with force feedback device and graphical user interface. In a graphic part, using rendering hardware, this system supports real time volume rendering and several functions such as rotating, cutting plane and so on. In a haptic part, haptic expression is performed by two-step method (static expression and dynamic expression), and its algorithm consists of collision detection and active force generation by space mapping approach. As a result, this system for in vivo organization can realize a kind of real time simulation and analysis environment for medical training and surgery.

Nakayama, Kanji Japan more detail

"On a Better Hand Model of Virtual Teaching for Multi-Fingered Robots" A virtual robot teaching consisting of the human demonstration and the motion-intention analysis in virtual reality (VR) environment has been proposed previously by our group to establish the technology of the automatic programming for multi-fingered robots. In the VR environment, the virtual hand generated by the computer graphics moves with the motion of the human hand. The model of the virtual hand displayed to the human should be selected carefully to make the teaching efficiently. Two models of the virtual hand are examined to choose a better model for virtual teaching of multi-fingered robots; one is a human-hand model and the other a robot-hand model. The experimental results of the pick-and-place task show that the human hand model is better than the robot-hand model as the virtual hand model from points of less teaching time and stable manipulation of virtual objects.

Nariman, Dahlan Japan more detail

"Collaborative and Interactive Urban Planning Simulation System" Urban development is one of the most controversial issues today. The main reason is that community members cannot participate in urban planning processes. Therefore, a simulation system for urban designer and community members to collaboratively make and evaluate a new plan is required. Two common methods used in the urban planning are static and animated photomontage techniques. The static photomontage is composed of the 3D model captured from a specific angle and the photo of real environment where the designed facility will be constructed. This method cannot change viewpoint and scale of the environment because it is the same as a 2D picture. On the other hand, the animated photomontage is composed of the animated 3D model and the video images of the real environment. While this technique also allows all participants to walkthrough a predefined trajectory, they cannot move their viewpoint freely nor can interact with objects in real time. The virtual reality technology is a potential solution for these problems. We are developing a collaborative urban planning system. In this system, a stereoscopic arch screen is used as an output device to give the participants a feeling as if they are present in a virtual environment. A 3D model of Oita city with 98,440 polygons is used in the prototype system. To efficiently manages such large-scale virtual environment created by a large number of objects, an interaction technique, the so-called multi-viewpoint representation, was proposed [1]. This technique minimizes the participantsf actions in editing the environment, decreasing the time to complete each task [2]. However, to make it more useful for urban planning simulation, additional functions specific to the urban simulation are required as follows: 1) flexible objects selection and formation to effectively design specific district, 2) interactive manipulation of selected objects, and 3) realistic viewing and dynamic viewpoint movement in the environment. To solve the first item, four selection modes are supported, that is a single object selection, grouped objects selection, selection by using objectsf characteristics like height, width and colour, and combination of these modes. For the second item, we introduce gesture interface to intuitively manipulate volume and height of buildings, width of streets, and roadside trees. For the third item, we realize them using multi-viewpoint representation technique. By implementation of these improvements, most appropriate cityscape can be effectively explored. Figure 1 and 2 show the operational environment and the interaction concept of the system, respectively. The user interacts with both a large- and a small-scale models. Interactions between these models are performed bidirectionally. The urban designer communicates with participants to design and evaluate the environment together. The final paper describe this implementation and some experimental results.

Nishino, Hiroaki Japan more detail

"A Digital Prototyping System for Designing Novel 3D Geometries" We propose a new approach to easily creating 3D geometric models. A technique called interactive evolutionary computation (IEC) is introduced to accelerate userfs invention and inspiration of new shapes. The proposed IEC-based design system generates aesthetically pleasing shapes through the simulation of natural evolutionary processes. The user is responsible for specifying his/her subjective preference to each shape generated by the IEC. The system allows even beginners with little knowledge and experiences of the 3D modeling to acquire innovative shapes. It also provides skilled experts with an advanced geometric modeling interface based on the implicit surface method. The experts can directly modify the internal parameters of the 3D models to make them more elaborate ones. The result of a preliminary experiment is presented to show the potencial of the proposed modeling method.

Ohkura, Michiko Japan more detail

"Data mining combining data walkthrough" Data mining is a method to discover unknown and useful knowledge from large amount of data, and various discovering methods have been proposed including methods using machine learning algorithms. In this study, a new method is proposed in which data mining procedure is accomplished by the walkthrough of a business expert in the artificial space of pre-processed data. The features of this new method are coupling of visualization and analytical procedure in data mining process, using artificial data space in which the business expert can enter, and using the knowledge of the business expert as the heuristics of the data mining algorithm. The artificial data space is generated by the techniques in virtual reality.

Oshiro, Osamu Japan more detail

"3D brain vessel visualization on an immersive projection system" This paper describes 3D (three dimensional) visualization of a brain blood vessel on IPS (immersive projection system). MRA (magnetic resonance angiography) images were obtained, blood vessels were extracted from MRA images and a 3D image of blood vessels in a human brain was reconstructed. The 3D image allows us to understand the distribution of blood vessels and are thought to be available for diagnosis and treatment of a brain.

Qian, Jingping China more detail

"Architectural Usage of Virtual Reality" The application of VR on architectural design changed the conventional method of design and thinking to some extents. Designers can conceive and edit their design in the virtual space with the actual size of the structure, and experience the result of their design at real-time, thus the rationality of the design can be judged more visually, so the probable mistakes of design has been greatly reduced.

Ryoo, SeungTaek Korea more detail

"Real-time Walkthrough of Virtual Space using Environment Map" This paper introduces a real-time walkthrough of virtual space using an environment map. With this method, we can remove the popping effect problem and eliminate the holes created by the warping method and LDIs method applied to solve the above problem. This method also does not require any extra cost for creating a new image from a different viewpoint as it defines the images needed in the preprocess phase into an environment map, making it suitable for real-time walkthrough of virtual space

Saha, Amiya Baran India more detail

"Interaction-Design-Template based Multimedia Content Creation: RACHNA Experience" To generate sustainable employment through a vocation of affordable creation of interactive multimedia content in a “service-oriented” fashion, template-based authoring (in contrast to commonly prevalent “hand-crafted” alternative) of multimedia content; along with the re-usage of tested components from Internet-accessible repository(ies) or (from selected portions from past creations) becomes the two most significant enabling elements. Creation of one such “interaction-design template” (named: RACHNA) is the main focus of this paper. After identifying some of the key contributions that such an Interaction Design Template can be expected to make in the multimedia content creation process, desirable characteristics of such a template have been enumerated. Metaphors have been identified as the anchoring concepts behind such an Interaction Design Templates. Finally, some theoretical analysis of functioning of the template RACHNA from the point of view of Formal Languages have been sketched out in this paper in an intuitive manner.

Son, HoJun Korea more detail

"A parallel display system and its usage for distributed image mosaics" We have developed a parallel display system for processing, rendering and displaying high-resolution images. The parallel display system, called the PARADIGM (PARAllel Displays for Image and Graphics Manipulation), is consisted of 27 PC cluster with 100MB network bandwidth and 96 TFT LCDs. The system is also equipped with two cameras, two modems, and internet connection for further interactivity. While the potential usages of the system are numerous, we chose the image mosaic generation as the first application. This was because the image mosaic is simple to implement, takes the full advantage of parallelism, and reveals a compelling visual effect. In the image mosaic, a master image is subdivided into many cell images and they are matched against the tile images stored in the image DB. The distributed version of image mosaic takes the full adventage of the parallelism, processing and displaying the mosaic images in near real-time.

Sudoh, Katsuhito Japan more detail

"Modeling a String from Observing the Real Object" In this paper, we propose a method for finding appropriate parameters of a model for flexible object from observation of a real object by a camera. As the objects to be modeled, string-like objects are considered. The method employs a one-dimensional mass-spring model and minimize the energy function that represents the difference of the model from each observed shape as well as the sum of all the forces applied to each node of the model. Through the energy minimization, the parameters of the model are modified so that the model can reproduce all the observed shape in its steady state accurately.

Sugiyama, Masaharu Japan more detail

"A Human Perceptive Based Robust Watermarking Method against Cropping" Recently there has been an explosion in the use of digital imaging. Digital images are distributed widely in the Internet world, but they are not protected enough against copying and forging. One way to protect the intellectual property right of the digital contents such as images and music is to embed a watermark into them. In this paper we propose a new watermarking method. This method is robust to cropping because it embeds wavelet coefficients instead of brightness values of the original image. In addition, this takes the human perception property into consideration and so has strong invisibility.

Sumiya, Hideyasu Japan more detail

"Walking guide tactile interface for the visually impaired using plural self-calibrating sensors" For the easier and non stress free walk achievement for the visually impaired , we have studied about the depth to tactile sensory conversion with point-stimulating tactile device. This paper treats with the performance improvement of walking guide system using plural distributed point stimulating device on limbs and forehead aiming at the rough place, e.g. stairs. For the sake of compensation against the humanfs quite low tactile sensing resolution, 2 step self-calibrated signal conversion method are discussed in this paper.

Sutherland, John UK more detail

"Towards a software engineering methodology for video games development: object orientation as an approach for specification analysis" Video games are currently well specified, poorly developed and yet written by excellent programmers. Using an object-oriented approach to deconstruct the game specification document can quickly and safely identify the component parts in a video game. These components can then be used as the basis for solution program design. This causes little disruption to the development process, bringing in software engineering based control approaches. An overall methodology is proposed and the OO analysis approach proved from examination of 18 existing games and the development of a two-level game from scratch.

Suzuki, Motofumi Japan more detail

"Personalized Retrieval from Material Color Databases for 3D Polygonal Models" There has been considerable demand for the development of virtual spaces. When virtual spaces such as virtual cities or virtual offices are created, the material colors of 3D models in these spaces are greatly influence the appearance, so designers of virtual spaces must use proper material colors. Material colors of 3D models can be specified with ambient color, diffuse color, specular color, emissive color, shininess and transparency. These values can be changed interactively by using graphical user interface based material editors, and the user can see the effects of those changes. Once the desired material colors have been created, users want to store them into a personalized material color database. Since users often use subjective terms to describe material colors, it would be useful if the user could retrieve material colors by using subjective terms such as eromanticf and ewarmf. Since commercially available material color databases contain huge amounts of data, we cannot manually describe subjective terms to each color, but need computerized indexing techniques. We have analyzed the correlation between subjective terms and databases of material colors by using statistical methods so that retrieval can meet each userfs preference model. The statistical methods include principal component analysis and multiple regression analysis. We have developed a subjective term indexing technique to retrieve material colors from a database for 3D models by using the results of these statistical analyses. The technique enables users to retrieve material colors by subjective terms reflecting usersf personal preferences. We have also developed visualization tools to see how users are using subjective terms to describe material colors.

Tani, Kazuo Japan more detail

"Evocation of behaviors for disassembly by the affordance of mechanical products" The concept of affordance is applied to an industrial case and used to build the autonomy of a robot. We consider a task for a robot to disassemble mechanical products. The robot is given a set of behaviors for disassembly and performs that behavior evoked by the product. We have made a hypothesis that disassembly can be achieved in this manner. Simulations and simple experiments are started to demonstrate this hypothesis.

Thouvenin, Mouttapa France more detail

"Interactive navigation for scientific visualization of microscopy images" Using real images obtained from several microscopy techniques, we offer a journey into the matter. A first collection of eleven movies has been made on mineral topics (concrete, wood, ceramic,...) giving the sensation of a dive in one direction, (zoom). Then a second collection has been realized for biological structures, adding a lateral displacement to the unidirectional zoom.The movies give an idea of the microscopic structures inside the macroscopic one.

Tsuruoka, Shinji Japan more detail

"Face Location for Tele-Education Using Subregion Color Histograms" In the tele-education, the transmitting the image sequence of taking the face and/or the hand of a lecturer, characters and figures on the blackboard from a single static view has used widely for the low production cost of contents. The transmitted image sequence isn't attractive for viewer, and the automatic camera working system for the face and/or hand of a lecturer is desired. We are constructing the automatic camera working system for tele-education using an active video camera with pan, tilt and zooming system. We present a method to locate the face of a lectuer or a student in an input color image automatically for tele-education. The method extracts color histogram in each subregion (subregion color histograms) in a reference image such as the face of a lecturer or a student, and can locate robustly the position of the same face in an input image even if the orientation of the face is changed. The computational effort of the method is less than the correlation method for the image intensity, and independent of the size of a reference area.

Tucker, Ashley UK more detail

"The Role of Virtual Reality and Computer Graphics in the Visualisation of Waste Management Facilities" Around twenty five million tonnes of domestic waste are generated annually in the UK, and a large proportion of this is disposed to landfill sites. Landfills can be used positively to restore derelict land and disused mineral workings for return to agriculture, recreational or other after use. However unless the highest standards of management are adopted, sites can have a significant environmental impact and can become a source of pollution and environmental hazard for years to come. With competition for available land becoming stronger, ever tightening legislation and frequently, strong public opposition, the siting and planning of new sites is one of the most vital and often controversial stages in the development of waste management facilities. Currently many operators utilise and rely on artistic impressions, technical drawings, and photomontages to communicate their proposals. However, modern technology, and the ever increasing power of the desktop computer gives us the potential to use computer graphics and virtual reality to aid planners in modelling the proposed site, before, during and after development. AIMS Research, at the University of Nottingham, utilises a number of commercial and proprietary software packages to aid the creation of digital three-dimensional (3D) models. These computer models are constructed using real world data, and as such the accurate models can then be further processed and manipulated using 3D modelling techniques. This opens up the opportunity for the user to interact with the site in 3D, or what is sometimes known as 4D (four dimensions), when time is also involved, and visualise data that is traditionally represented in text or diagrammatic form. These computer models and multimedia visualisations can be used to clearly illustrate design flaws, environmental problems and potential pollution impacts before construction begins, during operations, or to present to a public inquiry. Distribution of the 3D landfill information can be accomplished using many forms of multimedia, including CD-ROM and across the Internet. This allows consultation and feedback to be made with interested parties, both nationally and internationally. Introducing a variety of techniques, this paper will discuss the stages leading towards the completion of a computer based visualisation system, and the advantages to planning, design and modelling applications, associated with such a system.

Ushiama, Taketoshi Japan more detail

"Design and Implementation of a Video Database System Supporting Semantic Contents-Based Scene Retrieval" This paper describes the design and implementation of a video database system that demonstrates our research on video data modelling, and semantic content-based video retrieval. This system is designed based on Event-Activity Model, which allows end-users to compose scenes dynamically according to their interests.

Wagner, Michael USA more detail

"3D-Ecommerce: Fact or Fiction" Very recently, the use of lightweight virtual reality applications for assisting e-commerce has become increasingly popular. However, it is still unclear how and if these applications add value to an e-commerce solution. In this position paper we are going to look at the current state of art of virtual reality on the Internet. We further discuss to what extend 3d technologies have the potential to add value to e-commerce applications in product visualization, marketing and advertising.

Wang, Jiaxin China more detail

"Design of Locomotion Interface on a Virtual Plane" The design of a kind of locomotion interfaces is presented in this paper. Users can walk on the device with limited size, and get the sensation of walking on an infinite plane. It looks like the treadmill, but it can give users the sensation of walking on a 2D plane. After the related works, the structure of the locomotion interface is presented first. Then the control principle of the device is given. Final, the system, the software and the conclusion of this interface are shown.

Yamada, Hironao Japan more detail

"Tele-operated Construction Robot Using Virtual Reality (CG Presentation of Virtual Robot for Increasing Working Efficiency)" In this study, we deal with a tele-robotics system for a construction machine. The system consists of a servo-controlled construction robot, two joysticks for controlling the robot from a remote place, and a 3-degrees-of- freedom motion base. The operator of the robot sits on the motion base and controls the robot bilaterally from a remote place. The role of the motion base is to realistically simulate the motion of the construction robot. As a tool for assisting the operator, a stereo video graphic of the operation field is projected on a screen. If in addition to the video graphics, computer graphics (CG) of the robot were presented to the operator, the working efficiency would be expected to increase. For this purpose, a CG of a virtual robot was created, and its effectiveness for a task involving carrying an object was tested in this study. As a result of the experiment, it was clarified that working time was shortened effectively even for amateur operators. Thus, the usefulness of the developed CG system was confirmed.

Yamaguchi, Toru Japan more detail

"A Tele- Education Supporting System Using the Movement Recognition of a Lecturer" Recently, tele-education systems are starting to be introduced in the field of a lot of education facilities. In that situation, it is desired to make the learning environment more comfortable by supporting these tele-education systems using the computer. In this paper, we propose one method to make a tele-education systems without a cameraman. In our method, it is generated the scene of lecture automatically by controlling an active camera using an information of images. At first, the region of the lecturer is extracted from the input image, and it gets a lecturerfs silhouette. Next, the segmentation of the lecturerfs body is based on the form of the silhouette. For example, the silhouette has a head region, a body region and arm regions. Our system segments these regions, and it recognizes the lecturerfs motion. This system finds the interesting parts for audience, and it is based on the result of the lecturer's motion and the object (characters and figures) on the black board. The active camera is controlled and chases the lecturer with these series of image processing in real time. We experimented to take scenes of the class automatically for a short time. And, we show that our system can generate the scene of class using the movement recognition of a lecturer.

Yamanashi, Tomofumi Japan more detail

"Multi-layers/Multi-phases Model Adaptable to Integrated GIS" In this paper, we propose the pyramidal information model for GIS. This information model consists of multi-layers/multi-phases with a view to growing up the functionality. Also, it associates three functions to manage map data effectually: inheritance function, overlay function and generalization function. Our idea for composing our pyramidal information model is to introduce various concepts of object orientation in order to manage various geographic information effectively and compose various types of application-dependent maps smartly: identity among objects, complex object, etc.

Addison, Alonzo USA more detail

"Beyond Virtual Heritage: Applying New Media Technology in Real Time to Real World Problems of Heritage and Sustainable Development in the Loire and Kilmartin Valleys" Virtual Heritage has shown great promise in helping professionals and the public understand and interact with landmarks of their culture. In recent years enormous strides have been made in quality of documentation, visual realism, and historic interpretation. Yet the cost and time involved in producing today's virtual voyages remain prohibitive for the majority of the world's heritage site custodians. Two recent projects undertaken by the Center for Design Visualization at the University of California illustrate the potential of low cost, rapid deployment heritage teams for on-site, real time virtual heritage production. In cooperation with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and regional governmental authorities in France, during a ten-day period in July 2000 an international team of students, teachers, and professionals converged on Loire Valley to document, interpret and produce a usable working prototype virtual heritage internet portal. The multi-national, volunteer team of new media professionals, architects, planners, industrial designers, graphic artists, videographers, biologists, geologists, conservationists, and heritage site managers utilized low cost, readily accessible tools from laptop computers, to digital still and video cameras and even kites to create a working prototype web interface to the 745 square kilometers of the nominated 'Val de Loire' World Heritage Site. In August 2000, a second team landed in Scotland's Kilmartin Valley to precisely document in 3D a portion of the standing stones, rock art, and ancient cairns dotting one of the UK's richest prehistoric landscape. For three short days, a team from UC Berkeley, West Virginia University, and Cyra Technologies worked from dawn to dusk alongside professionals from the Kilmartin House Trust and sponsors from the ARCH Foundation to rapidly digitize, photograph, and videotape this rich landscape. On the final day, a roomful of heritage professionals and archaeologists gathered to virtually voyage through some of the millions of millimeter accuracy scanned 3D coordinates in the immersive 'Reality Center' at Glasgow's Strathclyde University. Virtual Heritage has great promise for helping us understand, appreciate, and protect our past. These examples illustrate that with today's tools, dedicated people, and a bit of organization, it is possible to now work in near-real-time, on-site, with a 'rapid deployment' force, to produce rich, accurate, and useful new media content.

Baogang, Wei China more detail

"Interactive Image Segmentation Using Multiple Color Spaces And Its Application in Ancient Art Preservation" This paper presents the perceptual color space and its advantage in segmenting the color image interactively. The strangeness of HIS color space is analyzed through experiment. A region growing algorithm and a region merging algorithm are proposed. The region growing uses multiple color spaces and multiple homogeneity criterions. HSL and RGB color spaces is chosen. The homogeneity criterions are relative to seed point, expansive point, and growing region respectively. The region merging only uses color information and considers the size of fragmentary region. The interactive image segmentation technique has been used in the image processing of Dunhuang mural.

Bogomazova, Tatyana Russia more detail	"Virtuality In Russian Museums On The Web: In Search Of Adequate Way Of Representation Of Cultural Heritage Information" Virtual reality techniques in museums in general and on museum web sites in particular form a special problem of museum information representation. It is closely connected with three kinds of knowledge acquisition: enduring, collaborative and personal

Britton, Benjamin Japan more detail

"From Lascaux to the Moon" From Lascaux to the Moon Benjamin J. Britton 2910 Scioto Street #1402, Cincinnati, Ohio 45219 Abstract. Science objectively seeks natural truth, while society idealistically yearns for progress. Art expresses the souls of its makers, while audiences seek connections with human culture. Together Art and Science are being combined to express cultural reality as we makers of virtual heritage projects attune ourselves to our time in this world. Cultural reality is the true subject of virtual heritage, the nature of which transcends both Science and Art, constituting a further discipline, a new approach to thinking commensurate with the sensibilities of twenty-first century humanity. Virtual heritage projects are a manifestation of our cultural reality, and such projects serve as a force bringing people together in communities, stimulating creative efforts in Science and Art, reflecting humanity’s knowledge, beliefs and values. In this paper, the author traces the forms of three cultural heritage projects made in virtual reality, and, in the process, illuminates some characteristics of this new discipline to describe aspects of and issues raised by the creative synthesis of Science and Art, a natural resurgence arising from humankind’s continuing need to understand itself and to care for itself and the universe it inhabits.

Cappellini, Vito Italy more detail

"MPEG-4 Video Data Protection For Multimedia Fruition" The increasing availability of multimedia contents and the rapid development of communication networks have determined new ways to distribute information content. In this scenario the MPEG-4 standard is revealing very attractive for a wide variety of multimedia applications. In most of them a copy protection system allowing to control the distribution of multimedia data is required. A new technology useful for copyright protection is watermarking: a digital code (watermark), indicating the copyright owner, is directly embedded into the video signal. A digital video watermarking system for MPEG-4 video has to be designed so that the complexity of the standard and the diversity of its applications have to be considered. In particular, the possibility of the MPEG-4 standard to directly access objects within a video sequence introduces a new constraint to the watermarking process: even if a video object is transferred from a sequence to another, the copyright data of the single object has to be correctly detected. Moreover, to make the watermarking system robust against format conversions, the code has to be inserted before compression. The method proposed in this paper satisfies the previous requirements by relying on an image watermarking algorithm which embeds the code in the Discrete Wavelet Transform of each frame.

Cremer, James USA more detail

""This Old Digital City": Virtual Historical Cedar Rapids, Iowa circa 1900" This paper describes the creation of a 3D immersive interactive museum exhibit called “This Old Digital City” (TODC). TODC uses state-of-the-art real-time interactive virtual environment technology to immerse visitors in a 3D reconstruction of turn-of-the-20th-century Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Museum patrons sit in and operate a “time machine” to tour a twenty-five square block region of the city modeled in high resolution 3D graphics. As visitors tour the city, they are able to access multimedia content associated with buildings and other historically significant sites. We believe that TODC represents one of the first uses of high-end virtual environment technology as an interface to historical archives. The paper examines technical modelling and computation challenges, as well as historical and exhibit design challenges.

Davis, Ben USA more detail

"Clocking Imagination, Reason, and Memory" Thomas Jefferson had a secret principal for cataloging his books. He modified a version of Sir Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) organization of knowledge (Novum Organum, 1621) Jefferson divided his books into three categories: Works of imagination which he interpreted as fine arts, works of reason equated to philosophy, and works of memory which were histories. If we imagine every virtual heritage application as a kind of time-based library that represents aspects of imagination, reason, and memory then there be must clocks inherent in these systems that represent the ways different kinds of time effect these concepts. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall’s definitions of “monochronic” and “polychronic” time are useful in this context as a way of beginning a discussion of how users of virtual heritage systems might choose a time dimension in order to explore a model. This paper will explore this notion using examples from current virtual heritage models, Internet business models, works of digital art, and time machines.

Dodero, Gabriella Japan more detail	"Putting virtual heritage in the field: the PAST project" The paper briefly describes the objectives and technological issues of PAST, a project aimed at assisting visitors of archaeological sites in understanding cultural heritage. Pilot installations are being developed at three sites, Bibracte in France, Passo di Corvo in Italy and Toumba in Greece.

Flynn, Bernadette Australia more detail

"Mnajdra - a Maltese temple as game space" This presentation concerns the creation of a virtual heritage site as a game space for user exploration and interpretation. The heritage site Mnajdra is a Neolithic temple in South East Malta and one of the oldest Megalithic structures. The multimedia project - MEANDER uses Quick Time Virtual Reality, multimedia gameplay strategies and narrative structure to create an experience of a multi-faceted cosmology.

Gaitatzes, Athanasios Greece more detail

"Hellenic Cultural Heritage through Immersive Virtual Archaeology" Abstract. Virtual Reality is a novel and innovative technology which allows us, through its applications, to experience abstract concepts and ideas, visit spaces that are unreachable or no longer exist, and examine objects from diverse and unique points of view. Virtual archaeology refers to the use of 3D computer models of ancient buildings and artefacts visualised through immersive technologies. In this paper we explore issues involved in creating immersive cultural heritage projects enhancing our perspective and understanding of the environments in which our ancestors lived and worked.

Haval, Nikhilesh India more detail	"GUI for Archaeological Data referencing and archiving." This paper proposes development of a referencing interface for documentation of heritage structures using new technologies and methods. This is an attempt to gather all types of data (related to archaeology) under one huge database and provide a direct relationship between them.

Hebblewhite, Charles Australia more detail

"Contextual Scanning - 3D Environment Acquisition of Specular Surfaces in Limestone Caves" Three-dimensional environment acquisition of limestone caves is a difficult process. Caves can be spatially very complex, ecologically sensitive and may contain surfaces that are difficult to measure, being specularly reflective or transparent. This paper presents an algorithm called Contextual Scanning which is a partial solution to measuring specular surfaces, using a time-of-flight laser range finder and a camera. Images are recorded of each distance measurement and are then processed to extract information about the surface reflectance properties, allowing specular surface points to be calculated. Contextual scanning is used to measure the surface of Grove River, which passes through Abercrombie Caves, Australia.

Holmes, Ashley Japan more detail

""Bridging Adelaide 2001": photography and hyperimage, spanning paradigms" In describing a new genre for the Internet photo-documentary project, 'Bridging Adelaide 2001', this paper defines the term hyperimage. Contemporary image formats and representational techniques for the hypermedia are reviewed and a phenomenological model is used to illustrate the topical field. It is argued that the kinetic, synthetic and interactive qualities of currently evolving image media release documentary representation from the unitary analogical function, that was characteristic of photography, whilst retaining the aspect of adherence to the referent. The procedure for the photographic-to-digital, archival transition that this project has achieved is outlined. A cautiously optimistic interpretation of the 'Bridging Adelaide 2001' comparative, hyperimage documentary project is tendered. Improvements in the National Estate heritage of the River Valley of the Lower Torrens in South Australia, according to urban planning criteria for replacement of exotic with indigenous flora, are discernible. The paper concludes that current XML developments offer potential to combine the long term visual data of 'Bridging Adelaide 2001' with information such as sample data from water quality monitoring stations for a more holistic documentary.

Imura, Masataka Japan more detail

"Digital Archiving of Kamegata-Ishi (Turtle Shape Stone) using Heterogeneous Measurement Methods" Kamegata-Ishi (Turtle Shape Stone), which was excavated on January 11, 2000, in Asuka, Nara, Japan, has been attracting archaeological attention as the key to elucidate the culture of the Asuka era. This paper reports the trial of digital archive integrating heterogeneous measurement methods, which are a total station, a non-contact 3D digitizer and a stereo camera. The developed digital archive holds a detailed 3D shape and surface texture images of the stone.

Kanaya, Ichiroh Japan more detail

"Three-Dimensional Modeling of Dark and/or Fur-Like Objects" This paper describes a new passive method to digitize 3-D shapes of objects. By combining the passive stereo method and the shape-from-silhouette method with computer graphics technology, we developed an effective 3-D shape digitizing method that is easy to use and works reliably as the shape-from-silhouette method, and the more important feature of this method is the ability to cope with the objects having concave shapes that the shape-from-silhouette method could not. This method can be used to build 3-D models of relics that can be utilized in the application of the relic restoration with virtual reality technology.

Kenderdine, Sarah Australia more detail

"1000 years of the Olympic Games: treasures from ancient Greece. The digital reconstruction of Olympia, 3D Zeus and website." "Anyone who has experienced a wild winter storm in the Alpheios valley and seen the sky resplendent with blinding lightning, or who has been startled by a sudden mighty thunderclap on a stifling summer's day, will have no reason to doubt that this isolated part of the western Peloponnese is indeed the most important Sanctuary of Zeus, wielder of thunderbolts and father of the Gods." Klaus Herrmann, 1989. Abstract An exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney entitled 1000 Years of the Olympic Games: treasures from ancient Greece (July 18 – November 18, 2000), offers a unique opportunity to supplement the traditional experience of the visitor by the introduction of virtual reality components. The 54 rare antiquities, which travelled from Greece for the first time, is enhanced using a full-scale digital reconstruction of Ancient Olympia, and a 3D model of the statue of Zeus from Artemision (a national treasure on permanent display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens). The Exhibition is further supplemented by a website that took advantage of the latest delivery technologies to present both 3D images and high resolution “zoomable” images in a complex of historical, architectural archaeological, cultural and contemporary data about the site of Olympia. A team comprised of curators, archaeologists, surveyors and photographers traveled from Australia to capture the data sets in high resolution using laser scanning and digital photography. This paper addresses both the technical and curatorial aspects of creating this information complex. The reconstruction of Ancient Olympia produced a dimensionally and historically accurate model of the site as it would have appeared in approximately 200BC. Model detail was achieved through the use of archaeological plans produced by the German Archaeological Institute and this was supplemented with additional topographic and survey plans of the site. In addition surface textures were added to enhance the model in terms of both historical accuracy and aesthetics. The model was produced in stereo and with the use of polarisation the effect of three-dimensionality was achieved to immerse the viewer in the scene. The viewer is then given an interactive tour of the virtual site with 360° panoramas of the present day site (March 2000) as an optional overlay. The digital facsimile of the statue of Zeus was achieved using state-of-the-art 3D data capture techniques. The process of data capture utilised laser scanning to sub-millimetre accuracy enabling the statue to be displayed as an almost exact digital copy of the original. Surface textures were mapped using digital and conventional photography to compliment the spatial accuracy of the model. The model may be viewed with the use of shutter glasses, to achieve a high quality 3D effect. The objective, from a curatorial perspective, was to make the transition from the real objects to the virtual surrogate as seamless as possible for the visitor. The Exhibition is complemented by an extensive website that gives access to both these 3D models, and a wealth of object related information and photography. The website provides supplementary educational material, and resources for exploring the full glory of Ancient Olympia. This paper will demonstrate how the creation of surrogate metaphysical environments offer valuable educational and research opportunities explored through the processes of reconstruction. Such a project presents a unique referencing and archival method that combines complex data sources, extracted and re-created using recent technological advances.

Lambert, Sarah Australia more detail

""Sharkfeed: an online Australian cultural history"" The paper will discuss the development and outcomes of "Sharkfeed". Sharkfeed is an interactive internet installation that engages with locations and ideas associated with the kidnapping and murder of Sydney schoolboy Graeme Thorne in 1960s Australia. The Graeme Thorne Case was a key marker in Australia's cultural heritage. Using innovative thematic and programming techniques to render and enhance user experience of photographic, aural and written material in an on-line environment, "Sharkfeed" balances archival images and audio, contemporary imagery, and multiple textual sources. "Sharkfeed" transforms conventional cultural and artistic disciplines and practices of documentary, and historic-ficto criticism into the digital age. "Sharkfeed" will reside on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's website (ABC Online) from July 2000. "Sharkfeed" is a web Installation by: Sarah Lambert (producer, design and programming), John Grech (producer, image and text), and Matthew Leonard (sound and text.)

Lucet, Genevieve Mexico more detail

"The contribution of virtual reality to the knowledge on the architectonic space of the Mesoamerican site of Cacaxtla" Here are presented the contributions in the knowledge on Mesoamerican architecture obtained by the project of virtual reconstruction of the archaeological site of Cacaxtla (first millennium). These can be divided into two areas, those obtained by the methodology used during the development of the project and those that correspond to the final results, more specifically those obtained by the use of virtual reality as a revolutionary way to see a reconstructed space. A particular emphasis has been given to the second part. Even though the project was limited by a non-inversion virtual reality, the genesis of the images characteristic to this technique leads to a contribution that allows referring to scientific visualization phenomena of architecture..

McAtamney, Hugh Ireland more detail	"The National Gallery Of Ireland Virtual Gallery" In this abstract we outline the design decisions and thought processes involved in the production of the pilot 'National Gallery of Ireland - VR Gallery'. A database application that allows the national gallery to create virtual collections and vew them in VR

Miyazaki, Daisuke Japan more detail

"The Great Buddha Project: Modelling Cultural Heritage through Observation" This paper presents an overview of our efforts in modeling cultural heritage through observation. These efforts span three aspects: how to create geometric models of cultural heritage; how to create photometric models of cultural heritage; and how to integrate such virtual heritages with real scenes. For geometric model creation, we have developed a two-step method: simultaneous alignment and volumetric view merging. For photometric model creation, we have developed the eigen-texture rendering methods, which automatically create photorealistic models by observing the real objects. For the integration of virtual objects with real scenes, we have developed a method that renders virtual objects based on real illumination distribution. We have applied these component techniques to constructing a multimedia model of the great Buddha in Kamakura, and demonstrated their effectiveness.

Murata, Keishi Japan more detail

"A Color Management Approach for the Virtual Restoration of Lost Cultural Heritage Sites" In recent years, with the development of virtual reality (VR) technology, there has been an increasing trend to digitally preserve cultural heritage sites for future generations. However, one problem that exists in this endeavor is how to faithfully reproduce the colors and patterns used in the site's construction, since these may have deteriorated over time. With that, Gifu Prefecture and the Berlin-Adlershof Science and Technology Center (WISTA) began a collaborative research project into "A Color Management Approach for the Virtual Restoration of Lost Cultural Heritage Sites." In this paper, we will present the process of virtually restoring lost structures, the color management methods used to create more faithful reproductions, and their results.

Pilpré, Arnaud Japan more detail

"Virtual Mont Saint-Michel - Architectural Evolution of the Abbey through Thirteen Centuries using VR." Abstract: Mont Saint-Michel is a very famous site and whose well-known shape stands out against the sky and the sea. Thirteen centuries ago, atop what was once a naked wind-swept rock encircled by the sea, the Archangel Saint Michel ordered men to construct an oratory. Since then, reconstructions have followed in the wake of wars, disasters and political and religious upheaval… This article describes the history of the abbey, using an accurate 3D reconstruction and appropriate animation to show the evolution of its architecture and to help understand its past. Then it also presents the new challenges for future research.

Renaud, Vincent Canada more detail

"Sketch of a fortified city: A virtual recontistution of Quebec city's defense system around 1815" Virtual reconstitution of Quebec City's defense system around 1815 "Enhancing archaeological and historical data through computer graphics technologies" In the summer of 1999, GRAPH Architecture and Parcs Canada completed a multimedia production presenting part of Quebec city's defense system built around 1815. The heart of this show, a virtual reconstitution of the defense system of the Bastion St-Louis, is the result of archaeological, historical and artistic researches between its three main contributors : Parcs Canada, the City of Quebec and GRAPH Architecture inc. Our paper, presented in collaboration with Parcs Canada and the City of Quebec, will demonstrate the benefits of computer graphics technologies to enhence archaeological and historical data using the example of the multimedia production "Sketch of a fortified city". 1. Documentary research and archaeological diggings done by archaeologists from Parks Canada and City of Quebec lead to the creation of a rough digital model of the site. 2. Historians from Parks Canada then continued the investigation through iconographical and historical data to provide the information basis for the scenario of the multimedia production. 3. Finally, GRAPH Architecture merged the archaeological data of the first digital model with the iconographical insight of the historians to obtain a detailed and precise virtual environment of the defense system. The integration of this virtual reconstitution to a multimedia production has demonstrated the considerable value and potential of computer graphics technologies to enhance archaeological and historical research data.

Sanders, Donald USA more detail

""Museums and Virtual Reality: ambivalence, awareness, action"" Although museums with collections of art, architecture, and archaeological artifacts —those precious remains of our global cultural heritage—would seem to have a broad stake in captivating and educating visitors with innovative and informative displays, these museums generally lag behind other institutional users of virtual reality for the digital re-creation and evocation of past places and peoples. Virtual reality (VR) is no longer a fringe technology, yet museums have been ambivalent toward its use. Some of the reasons for this lack of enthusiasm will be discussed. Issues regarding the acceptability of computers in museum galleries, accessibility of the displays to all segments of the museum-going public, perceived conflicts with the primary mission of the museum as an institution, the credibility of virtual recreations, the long-term stability of the technology, and the impression that such exhibits are expensive have kept museum directors, curators, and exhibit designers from making more use of VR. This paper will explore some of these and other issues (why have museums been reluctant to pursue the inclusion of VR exhibits?), including the historical role of museums (is there a historical rationale for the current reluctance?). The paper will also suggest the means whereby virtual cultural heritage exhibits can successfully be integrated with artworks for the benefit of museums and the visiting public (accurate, inexpensive, and exciting VR exhibits can enhance the museum-goers experience, but can the VR industry provide such a combination?). The study and display of the past need not be constrained by the methods or technologies of the past.

Sugiyama, Kumiko Japan more detail

"A Study on On-Demand Exhibition for Digital Museum" With advancements in network broadband technologies, a new exhibition style is being possible for digital museums. Taking this into account, we have developed an On-Demand system which introduces the history of space development with 150 video clips. We experimented the system in a special exhibition g the Space Exhibition 2000h at the Nagoya Science Museum and during this special exhibition, approximately 50,000 visitors used this system. As a result to the experiment, it has become clear the importance of developing a system that organizes the video clips into a gstoryh or a grhythmh. This kind of system should also be flexible and responsive to each userfs interests. In addition, we propose a new style of digital museum by using XML and RDF so that people can use it by his own needs.

Terashima, Nobuyoshi Japan more detail

"An Experiment of Cultural Heritage Exchange through Internet" In accordance with the advancement of information technology, tele-education and on-line collaborations have emerged. However in these activities,a number of problems have been pointed out:such as time differences,language barriers and differences of cultural backgrounds. Time differences will be avoided by using avatars or computer agents.Language barriers will be overcome by adopting translation technologies.The most important issue is how to have mutual understanding beyond different cultural backgrounds. To achieve this,Waseda University of Japan,Victoria University of Wellington of New zealand,Global Virtual University of New Zealand and Queensland Open Learning Network of Australia are now conducting a joint research and experiments on how to develop a platform on which cultural exchange can be carried out. We call the platform the cultural heritage exchange system. In this research,we have developed a system which runs on the Intenet whereby participants at different locations,in reality their avatars,and any 3D objects of cultural heritage are brought together through communication networks to communicate, handle the objects by hand gestures and examine the objects stereoscopically by wearing shutter glasses. The system is based on HyperReality.HyperReality is a concept of merging physical reality and virtual reality through telecommunications. HyperReality introduces the concepts of HyperWorld and coaction fields.HyperWorld is a seamless world of the real and the virtual with one or more coaction fields. A coaction field is a 3D space where inhabitants,human beings or animals,real or virtual,at different locations,are brought together via communication networks,to work or play together as if they were gathered at the same place. One of the applications is HyperArtMuseum.Through HyperReality,people at different locations are brought in to a HyperArtMuseum on the networks and are able to enter the museum,walk through it,enjoy looking at works of art and listen to a guide that may be a computer agent.After developing the system,we have conducted a series of experiment by interconnecting Waseda University,Victoria University and Queensland Open Learning Network via the Internet.The purpose was to introduce 3D objects of Japanese artifacts,handle them at each site and examine them from all angles. In the experiment,a Japanese teacher whose avatar appears in the system explained about Japanese culture by showing the 3D objects and discussed via the system with students in New Zealand and Australia,in reality their avatars. The experiment was successful in proving that the system facilitates understanding of different cultures.

Van Scoy, Frances USA more detail

"Documentation of Virtualized Architecture: A Proposal" Addison and Gaiani use the term "virtualized architecture" to refer to the representation of architectural heritage using both actually existing conditions and theoretical interpretations. Unfortunately much information about the basis for a theoretical interpretation is not transmitted along with the model to the end user. The result is that a user may impropery use the model in future work. This paper suggests that an extension to the Dublin Core be used as a way of including metadata about virtualized architecture.

Watanabe, Yasuhiro Japan more detail

"Proposal of new method for generating surface model from slice images" The research of a relic excavated from remains has become popular.In late years the research of a relic restoration using CG is also examined. But a laser measurement device is mainly used for measuring shapes of fragments and can't measure uneven complicated shapes. So the X-ray computed tomography to make 3-dimensional measurement possible has begun to be used as a measurement device, but the model generation needs the hand of man still more. In this research, we propose a procedure to automatically recover surface models of fragments with complicated shapes from slice images measured with an X-ray computed tomography.@We have already reported a basic restoration system with MRI@[1], and models restored with the system are useful to visualization or simulation of relic restoration. Regrettably, the models are not enough precise for experts such as archeologists to make detailed investigation possible. Much more precise models are needed to match the aim of experts. To get a surface model, corresponding points of contours of two slice images must be found, but this is difficult without manual interposition of man. The surface model of a complicated shape is automatically formed by setting up a surface patch on each grid by interpolating intermediate points between the 2 corresponding contours. Further determination of the joining angle between two fragments became easy because re-construction of the thickness of each fragment is easily attained that is quite difficult to get using a laser measurement.