Virtual Environments for Structural Health Monitoring

BackgroundIt is crucial to use innovative tools to gain clinical reasoning skills through experiential learning in pharmacy education, and one of the most effective tools used in this is virtual reality. However, the lack of research that empirically demonstrates the instructional principles of virtual environment design, especially in the clinical setting, has resulted in a significant gap in the current literature.AimIn this study, it was aimed to determine the instructional design principles of a virtual environment for the clinical pharmacy.MethodThe study was conducted as a design‐based research. The data of the study related to three components of the developed virtual reality environment in pharmacy education (VRPE). These components, scenario development interface‐scenario development interface, virtual environment, and scenario, were collected through interviews, observation, document review, and a system usability scale. Instructional design principles for the VRPE were determined through analysis of the collected data.ResultsThe prominent instructional design principles of the VRPE were revealed as immersion, interaction, diversity, flow, aesthetics‐ergonomic‐universal design, informing, and retest availability. The significance of the study was the adoption of a holistic perspective in the design of a virtual reality environment for pharmacy education. In addition, one of the most critical features of the study was eliminating the expertise barrier in virtual environment design. Thus, it was concluded that the VRPE is an extraordinary tool that can be used for pharmacy education to promote experiential learning.

The effects of the presence of others during a rowing exercise in a virtual reality environment

Virtual reality environments are increasingly being used for upper limb rehabilitation in poststroke patients. Our goal was to determine if arm reaching movements made in a 2-D video-capture virtual reality environment are similar to those made in a comparable physical environment. We compared arm and trunk kinematics for reaches made with the right, dominant arm to three targets (14 trials per target) in both environments by 16 adults with right poststroke hemiparesis and by eight healthy age-matched controls. Movement kinematics were recorded with a three-camera optoelectronic system at 100 samples/s. Reaching movements made by both control and stroke subjects were affected by viewing the targets in the video-capture 2-D virtual environment. Movements were slower, shorter, less straight, less accurate and involved smaller ranges of shoulder and elbow joint excursions for target reaches in the virtual environment compared to the physical environment in all subjects. Thus, there was a decrease in the overall movement quality for movements made in the 2-D virtual environment. This suggests that 2-D video-capture virtual reality environments should be used with caution when the goal of the rehabilitation program is to improve the quality of movement patterns of the upper limb.

Pain and discomfort are perceptible during many medical procedures. In the past, drugs have been the conventional means to alleviate pain, but in many instances, medications by themselves do not provide optimal results. Current advances are being made to control pain by integrating both the science of pain medications and the science of the human mind. Various psychological techniques, including distraction by virtual reality environments and the playing of video games, are being employed to treat pain. In virtual reality environments, an image is provided for the patient in a realistic, immersive manner devoid of distractions. This technology allows users to interact at many levels with the virtual environment, using many of their senses, and encourages them to become immersed in the virtual world they are experiencing. When immersion is high, much of the user's attention is focused on the virtual environment, leaving little attention left to focus on other things, such as pain. In this way virtual reality provides an effective medium for reproducing and/or enhancing the distractive qualities of guided imagery for the majority of the population who cannot visualize successfully.

Thinning trainer based on forest-growth model, virtual reality and computer-aided virtual environment

This paper describes the development of a virtual reality environment which facilitates the design of spherical four-bar mechanisms. The virtual environment allows the user to naturally interact with the input data and specify the design parameters while operating in a three-dimensional environment. We see this development as a logical extension of existing graphics-based spatial design software. The need for a three-dimensional design space is driven by the difficulty in specifying design inputs and constraints for a spatial problem using a two-dimensional interface. In addition, once the mechanism has been created, the virtual environment provides the opportunity for the user to visually verify that the mechanism will perform the desired three-dimensional motion.

The virtual reality Walking Corsi Test

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in developing force feedback interfaces that allow people to access information presented in 3D virtual reality environments (VEs). One of the major application fields is medicine. Several cases exist where standard medical treatment cannot be applied to patients for several reasons, such as distance from hospital, lack of specialized doctor, and lack of medical equipment. The use of haptic‐enabled virtual environments provides an alternative solution in a variety of such cases, thus enabling assessment and treatment of patients. Furthermore, haptic‐enabled virtual environments provide a nonhazardous means of treatment for several disorders like phobia treatment, where the patient has to be exposed to the phobia object. Training of disabled people, like the visually impaired, is another important application of haptic‐enabled VEs. This chapter presents an extended description of haptic virtual environments and the major methodologies and techniques used in medical applications. Further, it demonstrates indicatively a number of applications in order to illustrate the applicability of VEs in several areas of medical treatment and training.

Analysis of a Moon outpost for Mars enabling technologies through a Virtual Reality environment

In this paper the authors review the design of a self-build general-purpose Virtual Reality environment, which presents all relevant features of a full-size CAVE-like system, yet at a fraction of the financial and space requirements. Further, the application of this system to the development of a virtual museum is presented. The objects in the museum are models, reconstructed via photogrammetry from a set of pictures. For this process cost-free software is used. The presentation of the 3D models in the Virtual Environment is done using BlenderCAVE, a multi-screen extension of the Blender game engine. The main contributions of this paper are the discussion of the design choices for a small and low-budget but feature-rich virtual reality environment and the application of the system for cultural heritage. In this area tools for creation of 3D models and their presentation in a VR environment are presented.KeywordsVirtual RealityCAVE-like systemCultural Heritage

ABSTRACTHandcrafting has been used for purposes ranging from learning and entertainment to stress relief. However, clay art and handicrafts require specialized space and physical materials. In this paper, we propose a virtual figure model crafting system that is developed to allow users to directly experience the figure model crafting process using a head-mounted, display-based, virtual reality environment. In the proposed system, users can freely generate the shape of a figure and decorate its exterior. In order to provide realistic crafting user experiences, we leverage motion grammar-based gestural input with Leap Motion and consider the support of multiple difficulty levels for user engagement. The preliminary user study results confirm that the proposed system provides immersive and interactive crafting experiences in a virtual environment.

The coordination process plays a vital role in construction projects during the design phase when interferences and clashes between design systems are identified to reduce the risk of costly reworks. Despite the fact that coordination has been studied commonly in BIM research, limited research has explored the impact of virtual reality (VR) to understand how it can enhance the process. This research study examined the effectiveness of coordination processes in a building renovation project following an innovative approach based on virtual environments (3D-BIM VR) compared to the conventional approach (2D CAD). This research uses the Cyclotron Charette Test method to analyse both approaches in terms of accuracy, speed, and usability. Fifteen participants from engineering backgrounds participated in the prototype testing divided into two experiments. The first experiment involved visually identifying clashes from multiple 2D CAD drawings, while the second involved visually identifying clashes from 3D-BIM-based VR models. The results showed that the virtual reality environment not only helped uncover clashes quickly but also made it more accurate and helpful. A further finding from this research indicates that motion sickness hinders users’’ participation in VR environments. Finally, future research pathways are discussed to improve the coordination process using VR technology

This chapter examines virtual environments which usually represent computer simulated environments, otherwise called virtual worlds or virtual reality and its application in physical therapy. Virtual environments present computer-generated three-dimensional (3D) representation of a physical presence of places in the real world as well as in the imaginary world. Users mainly interact with virtual environments using virtual reality headsets. Many of the current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences display either on a computer screens or through other stereoscopic displays. Applications of virtual environments are mainly focused on artificial reality that projects users into a 3D space generated by the computer with some sort of tracking devices which may be the virtual reality headsets worn or another 3D tracking device attached to the body of the user such as the electromagnetic tracker system. Research in virtual environments has made significant impact in the entertainment industry and in the training field such as the flight simulator (Stern, 1995).

The needs for three-dimensional (3D) visualization and navigation within 3D-GIS environment are growing and expanding rapidly in a variety of fields. In a steady shift from traditional two-dimensional (2D) GIS toward 3D-GIS, a great amount of accurate 3D data sets (e.g. city models) have become necessary to be produced in a short period of time and provided widely on the market. This requires a number of specific issues to be investigated, e.g. 3D routing accuracy, appropriate means to visualize 3D spatial analysis, tools to effortlessly explore and navigate through large models in real time, with the correct texture and geometry. There had been a lot of study on 3D landscapes, urban and city models. The rapid advancement in science and technology had opened wide options for a change and development of current methods and concepts. Virtual Reality (VR) is one of those developments, which gives the sense of feel in virtual environment. It enables users to visualize, make query and exploring 3D data. Such system can, not only help laymen, who often have trouble in understanding or interpreting complex data, but they also can help experts in decision making. The objective of this paper is to discuss some initial requirements of the proposed solution towards 3D-GIS. Eventually, this paper will serve as a starting point for a more challenging research idea. The focus of this research is to investigate and implementing 3D navigation techniques and solutions for 3D-GIS. Investigation on the support of navigation in real world environment will be carried out. This will include a research on the benefits of using 3D network model (non-planar graph) compared to 2D, how to use visual landmarks in route descriptions and using 3D geometry to get more accurate routing (in buildings, or in narrow street, etc). And as for implementation, a GUI provides the users with means (e.g. fill-out forms) to specify SQL queries interact and visualize 3D outcomes in virtual reality environment. This has opened up the ability to distribute and navigate accurately in 3D virtual worlds. The initial study on Klang Valley will go through data conversion processes from different formats like Laser, VRML, CAD and Shape 3D in a first person view environment using a developed system using VRML, JAVA and .Net compiler. The dataset structure will be in the form of various 2D, 2.5D and 3D array of height fields.

Participants (99) experienced Virtual Reality Environment (VRE) exposure in a virtual airplane, and completed a presence questionnaire. Twenty seven participants avoided viewing the virtual window, and reported lower levels of presence. Significantly more window avoiders were Arab females than any other group. Thus Arab women behaved differently in the VRE, which in turn influenced their ability to experience the VRE as real and vivid.