September 29, 2005
Interface [s] Montréal
[Immersion and Virtual Reality]
[Immersion and Virtual Reality] Beyond reality and interactive reality experience--From aerospace to surgery, and in all things game related, the simulators and immersion environments developed to serve humankind are indispensable tools that significantly improve human knowledge and enhance our reality experience.
Speakers: Yves Gonthier - Canadian Space Agency; Jean-Claude Artonne - Immervision; Jocelyn Faubert - Université de Montréal, École d’optométrie; Carl-Éric Aubin - École Polytechnique de Montréal, Dép. génie mécanique & CHU Sainte-Justine; Luc Courchesne - Université de Montréal et Ideaction.
TUESDAY, 4th October 2005 Interface [s] Montréal :: [Immersion and Virtual Reality]; 5:30pm - $30 at the door - package deals available.
[Yves Gonthier] Canadian Space Agency: A Real-Time Simulator for 3D Mental Image Reconstruction On-Board the International Space Station--The operations of manned and unmanned space vehicles and their associated supporting docking and robotics systems require significant crew training both on ground and on orbit. A number of psychological and physiological factors are known to affect the crew on-board performance. Therefore, skills degrade over time and the frequency, depth of proficiency and refresher training need to be studied. Currently a new experiment is designed in order to study the 3D mental image reconstruction for tasks involving the operation of all robotic components of the Mobile Servicing System of the International Space Station. The long-term goal of this research project is to gather data to study skill degradation and recovery of psychomotor and cognitive skills. This data will be analyzed to help define metrics that could be used to assess the level of readiness of an operator to perform complex tasks.
To study performance degradation and skill recovery, a highly efficient simulator is required in order to ensure on-orbit real time simulation and fast feedback to the operator. In this project, the challenge is the real-time simulation of Canadarm2 and Dextre while performing graphics rendering of the worksite environment using just a single computer, in particular a P4 1.8Ghz IBM ThinkPad. The simulator relies on the modeling technology from SGDL to generate highly realistic images. For the graphics rendering of the models, the SGDL models are transformed into an approximate polygonal representation. This minimizes the computational load on the CPU and optimizes the rendering rate by using graphics card hardware acceleration. At the same time, a collision detection algorithm is applied to the exact SGDL model to monitor any collision event.
It is planned that the experiment will be launched on the space station in April 2006.
[Jean-Claude Artonne] Immervision: Panoramic technologies in everyday applications--During the last ten years computer and optical sciences have evolved to open possibilities and create opportunities for new applications. Thanks to these technological advances today we can experience a new “Immersive” dimension.
With today’s panoramic imaging technologies we can digitalise and visualise in real-time a whole 360 degrees environment. Hosting a panoramic videoconference from your mobile phone, keeping an eye on every room of your house, preventing transportation accidents thanks to 360 degrees dynamic analysis, caring for your loved ones from distance and virtually immerging yourself inside the human body will soon all be panoramic imaging technology’s applications as common as today’s ultrasound, radar, telephone and many other technologies developed during the past 50 years.
A new 360 degrees technology invented and patented by Jean-Claude Artonne and developed by ImmerVision meet the quality, flexibility and performance required by today’s rich multimedia applications and most rigorous security and aerospace applications. It is a combination of both hardware and software that run on today’s video camera and computer technology from the smallest pocket PC to the most powerful system. The hardware includes the new panomorph lenses with increasable resolution on specific areas combined with software based on advance imaging algorithms.
[Jocelyn Faubert] Université de Montréal, département optométrique, Chair NSERC-Essilor on presbytia and visual perception: Understanding human behavior with immersive virtual environments--Full-immersive displays such as the CAVE system have been originally developed for visualization and industrial uses. Using such an environment for the study of human performance involves a number of challenges, as it was not originally designed for such a purpose. For several years now our laboratory has adapted the CAVE technology to help us understand human behavior. We are interested in determining the effect of age-related changes on perception, posture and visual-motor control in ecological environments. In particular, we try to understand how prebyopes cope with visual deformations that are induced by corrective lenses. Presbyopia is an age-related change that affects our capacity to focus at near. The first signs usually appear in the 40s and almost 100% of individuals in the 50s are presbyopic. Our initial results are extremely promising and demonstrate that a full-immersive environment is a very powerful tool for assessing human performance but this is a technology that still requires enormous resources in both initial cost and maintenance and may not be generally accessible in the near future.
[Carl-Éric Aubin] École Polytechnique de Montréal, Dép. génie mécanique & CHU Sainte-Justine: Surgical Simulator for the Virtual Prototyping of the Surgical Instrumentation of the Scoliotic Spine--Prof. Carl-Eric Aubin Ph.D., ing.; Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, département génie mécanique & CHU Sainte-Justine; Collaborateurs : Profs. H. Labelle, B. Ozell, F. Cheriet.
[Luc Courchesne] Université de Montréal and Ideaction: Panoscope 360°--Enter the Panoscope 360° to be fully immersed in a 3D world. A 3-axis joystick placed at the center of the viewing platform will let you and your friends (up to 8) fly through the space as in dreams. This single channel immersive display uses a PC and a custom designed hemispheric projector above your head to project in real time a rendering of your entire horizon onto the hemispheric screen."
Posted by jo at September 29, 2005 09:47 AM
