Enabling Large-Scale Multi-User Immersive Virtual Reality Simulations

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In the last two decades there has been a great deal of interest among scholars, business leaders, and the general public in real-time interactive 3D computer graphics for inmersive virtual environments, in which the user wears a head-mounted display and his/her movements are tracked by sensors. This technology offers great promise as a natural means of interacting with computer-generated environments. To date, however, immersive virtual environments have had difficulty accommodating multiple users, due both to a lack of available space and because of the inherent risk of collision when multiple users, each effectively blindfolded by a head mounted display, walk in the same area. The PI and his team have created a unique system called the HIVE (for Huge Immersive Virtual Environment) on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. This is the world's largest indoor immersive virtual environment by a factor of four, offering precise, wireless, untethered tracking of users in a 1000 m2 gymnasium. Additionally, the team has developed effective software algorithms that imperceptibly steer users towards the HIVE's center and away from its walls, a capability that can be leveraged to steer multiple users around each other to prevent collisions. Despite these advances, there are three ways in which the HIVE's capabilities need to be further enhanced to support multiple users:1. The HIVE currently possesses only two wearable rendering systems; several more are needed to pursue multi-user applications.2. The HIVE's optical position tracking system was designed for much smaller tracking volumes, and needs to be upgraded to support robust multi-user simulations.3. Substantial effort will be required to enhance the HIVE's existing software base to include functionality such as collision prediction algorithms that can support multiple users.This is funding to provide these enhancements to the HIVE's existing hardware and software infrastructure, which will have an immediate effect on its utility for research, education, data visualization, and training.Broader Impacts: The enhanced infrastructure will enable research in computer science that: (a) develops, evaluates, and compares 3D user interfaces; (b) develops algorithms for collision detection and multi-user redirected walking; (c) explores the use of inertial sensors for position tracking in portable virtual environments; and (d) develops tools for collaborative computing environments. Additional behavioral research enabled by this funding will aim to improve our understanding of how humans learn and remember large spaces, and of the social dynamics of users who cohabit a computer simulation. The improved infrastructure will also have a dramatic impact on educators who use the HIVE, by enabling: (a) several students and an instructor to be simultaneously involved in educational simulations; (b) new opportunities for hands-on student projects, particularly those that involve partnerships with industry clients to develop real-world products, services, and interactive media; and (c) the digital preservation and demonstration of culturally important spaces.