Enabling Large-Scale Multi-User Immersive Virtual Reality Simulations

在过去的二十年里，学者、商界领袖和公众对用于沉浸式虚拟环境的实时交互式3D计算机图形产生了极大的兴趣，在这种环境中，用户戴着头戴式显示器，他/她的动作被传感器跟踪。作为一种与计算机生成的环境进行交互的自然手段，这项技术提供了巨大的希望。然而，到目前为止，沉浸式虚拟环境很难容纳多个用户，因为缺乏可用空间，而且当多个用户在同一区域行走时，每个人都被头戴式显示器蒙上眼睛时，存在固有的碰撞风险。PI和他的团队在俄亥俄州牛津市的迈阿密大学校园里创建了一个名为HIVE（巨大沉浸式虚拟环境）的独特系统。这是世界上最大的室内沉浸式虚拟环境，为1000平方米的体育馆提供精确、无线、不受束缚的用户跟踪。此外，该团队还开发了有效的软件算法，可以在不知不觉中将用户引导到HIVE的中心，远离其墙壁，这种能力可以用来引导多个用户围绕彼此，以防止碰撞。尽管取得了这些进步，HIVE的功能需要在三个方面进一步增强以支持多用户：HIVE目前只有两个可穿戴渲染系统；要实现多用户应用，还需要几个。HIVE的光学位置跟踪系统设计用于更小的跟踪体积，并且需要升级以支持强大的多用户模拟。将需要大量的努力来增强HIVE现有的软件基础，包括可以支持多个用户的碰撞预测算法等功能。这笔资金将为HIVE现有的硬件和软件基础设施提供这些增强功能，这将对其在研究、教育、数据可视化和培训方面的效用产生直接影响。更广泛的影响：增强的基础设施将使计算机科学研究能够：(a)开发、评估和比较3D用户界面；(b)开发碰撞检测和多用户重定向行走算法；(c)探讨在便携式虚拟环境中使用惯性传感器进行位置跟踪；(d)为协作计算环境开发工具。由这笔资金支持的其他行为研究将旨在提高我们对人类如何学习和记忆大空间的理解，以及对与计算机模拟共处的用户的社会动态的理解。改善的基础设施也将对使用HIVE的教育工作者产生巨大影响，使：(a)几名学生和一名教师同时参与教育模拟；(b)学生实践项目的新机会，特别是那些涉及与行业客户合作开发现实世界的产品、服务和互动媒体的项目；(c)重要文化空间的数字化保存和展示。

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.