HCC: Medium: Collaborative Research: Low Cost, Portable, Multi-User, Immersive Virtual Environment Systems for Education and Training in Worlds of Unlimited Size

近年来，身临其境的实时交互3D计算机环境(虚拟现实或VR)已经成为研发、培训、医疗保健、商业、通信和教育的宝贵工具，也成为娱乐的媒介。然而，一般来说，使用目前的VR系统需要前往专门的设施，在那里已经以高昂的费用预先安装了复杂的基础设施。此外，尽管允许用户团队通过以自然方式行走、转身和环视来同时探索模拟环境的完全沉浸式系统特别有用，因为它们通过多感官刺激提供了增加的真实感，但是当前的VR设施通常一次仅支持一个用户，该用户通过人工接口或任意且笨拙的动作隐喻(例如，跑步机或原地行走)来受限地探索虚拟世界。因此，对于大多数人来说，虚拟现实的好处是相对难以获得的，而且与他们的承诺相去甚远。在迈阿密大学和海军研究生院的这项合作中，PI将进行研究，目标是开发一种完全便携的创新型沉浸式VR系统，允许多个用户同时沉浸，并且可以在任何大型室内或室外区域使用，如体育馆或停车场。用户将能够在虚拟世界中自然行走数英里，而永远不会意识到跟踪空间的物理限制或其他用户的位置。一个能够让单个用户沉浸其中的系统的成本将比目前的系统低一个数量级。为此，PI将利用两种新兴技术：重定向行走，这是一种潜移默化地引导用户远离墙壁等障碍物的算法，PI先前已经展示了这种算法，在给定足够大的物理区域的情况下，可以使用户以自然方式在无限大的虚拟世界中导航，而不会遇到现实世界的边界和障碍；以及自含式惯性位置跟踪，先前的研究表明，它可以用于准确监控和跟踪用户在空间中的视点位置和方向，而不需要预先安装永久基础设施。此外，PI将集成到新的VR技术超声波测绘和定位中，这是机器人中常用的一种技术，可以提供绝对位置的估计。更广泛的影响：通过创造便携且相对便宜的VR系统，这项研究将迈出重要的一步，让比以往更广泛的人可以使用VR技术，为教育工作者或研究人员选择的任何人群提供第一手接触尖端科学技术概念和模型的机会。特别是，这项工作将使任何年级的学生能够通过在计算机模拟和模型中行走来体验计算机模拟和模型，而不是通过阅读或作为外部观察者来查看它们。重定向步行和自给式惯性位置跟踪的结合将在计算机和行为科学领域提供丰富的研究潜力。通过惯性传感器和周期性位置定位实现相对位置跟踪，实例化了一种在生物学上可信的导航模型，并可以平行研究人类和其他动物如何在环境中找到自己的路。

In recent years immersive real-time interactive 3D computer environments (virtual reality or VR) have become an invaluable tool for research and development, training, healthcare, commerce, communication, and education, as well as a medium for entertainment. Yet, in general, the use of current VR systems requires travel to specialized facilities in which a sophisticated infrastructure has been pre-installed at great expense. Furthermore, although fully immersive systems that allow teams of users to concurrently explore a simulated environment by walking, turning, and looking around in a natural manner are particularly useful because they provide increased realism through multisensory stimulation, current VR facilities often support only one user at a time who is constrained to explore the virtual world by means of an artificial interface or a movement metaphor that is arbitrary and awkward (e.g., treadmills or walking in place). For most people, the benefits of VR are thus relatively inaccessible and fall quite short of their promise. In this collaborative effort between Miami University and the Naval Postgraduate School, the PIs will conduct research whose goal is to develop an innovative immersive VR system that is completely portable, that will allow multiple users to be immersed simultaneously, and that can be used in any large indoor or outdoor area such as a gymnasium or parking lot. Users will be able to walk naturally for miles in a virtual world without ever becoming aware of the physical limits of the tracking space or the locations of other users. A system capable of immersing a single user will cost an order of magnitude less than current systems. To these ends the PIs will exploit two emerging techniques: redirected walking, an algorithm that imperceptibly steers users away from obstacles such as walls and which the PIs have previously shown can, given a physical area of sufficient size, enable users to navigate through a virtual world of unlimited size in a natural manner without encountering real-world boundaries and obstacles; and self contained inertial position tracking, which prior research has shown can be used to accurately monitor and track the position and orientation of the user's viewpoint in space without the need for pre-installed permanent infrastructure. In addition, the PIs will integrate into the new VR technology ultrasonic mapping and positioning, a technique commonly used in robotics to provide estimates of absolute position. Broader Impacts: By creating VR systems that are portable and relatively inexpensive, this research will take significant steps toward making VR technology available to a much broader range of people than has heretofore been possible, providing first-hand exposure to cutting-edge concepts and models in science and technology to any population that educators or researchers chose. In particular, the work will enable students at any grade level to experience computer simulations and models by walking within them, instead of by reading about them or by viewing them as an outside observer. The synthesis of redirected walking and self-contained inertial position tracking will offer rich research potential in the computer and behavioral sciences. Implementing relative position tracking through inertial sensors and periodic position fixes instantiates a biologically plausible model of navigation and can parallel research on how humans and other animals find their way through environments.