TVR 3101
VIRTUAL REALITY
TOPIC: APPLICATION OF VIRTUAL REALITY
By
ADIBAH BINTI MOHD NAJIB 98100466
ENDANG ELLYANA ISKANDAR 98100745
NOOR ADINAH OMAR 98100371
NORAIN DALILAH BINTI MOHD RASHID 98100444
KARTIKA MURNI BINTI ABDUL MAJID 98100424
SHAM AZURA AHMAD 98100453
FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
MULTIMEDIA UNIVERSITY
Virtual Reality For Entertainment
When we say entertainment, we are not referring to video games only. There are
many virtual reality applications on entertainment. Some of them are:
1. Virtual Theme Park
There are 9 virtual theme parks that exist in this world. One of them is The
"Tamago Teikoku", located at Namco Wonder Egg, Tokyo. It is the most
equipped theme park because it has 40 VR units, compared to the other 8
theme parks. It has 3 platforms modelled by Galaxian 3 and Hornet 1 Flight
Simulator. It was founded on 1992. The Galaxian 3 model is a large-scale,
motion-based and interactive 360-degree surround "theater". It has Semiinteractive game with 6 players shooting at targets moving on top of a
prerender computer generated background.
The Pleasure Island is located at Orlando, Florida. The size of the centre is
800sf and it was available for public since November 1993. This park is sort
of a VR test bed to evaluate VR technology. It has 3 VR units with 3 platforms
that are modelled by CyberTron, Virtual Glider and Black Mariah.For
example, the CyberTron, is based on a human size Gyroscope (anti gravity full
body motion system) and a Silicon Graphic Computer. The motion platform
units can be networked so that one player can "see" and interact with the
other(s) in the Virtual World. A maximum of 4 units may be networked.
DisneyQuest in Orlando, Florida is a family entertainment place with
10,000m² facilities. However this place is still under construction, not all of
the facilities are available for public. The facility will have four different
zones that make extensive use of VR techniques in different contexts.
2. LBE (Location Based Entertainment)
There are about 40 LBE exist world widely. One of them that are equipped
with the highest VR units is Virtual World Entertainment (VWE), Las Vegas.
It has one platform that uses VR POD 2.5 and 3.0 models. POD is like a booth
usually available in shopping mall game arcade. Sometimes it is shape like a
cockpit with joystick and visual screen for the user to interact. The software
used at VWE is BattleMech. There are two screens, mounted one above the
other. The top screen is about 19" and is the main display screen, which
displays the "world" as seen right out the front of the BattleMech.
3. VR Café / Bar
CyberMind's Virtua Cafe, Miami Beach is a type of café that has VR
facilities. It uses 2 platforms with 1000CS and Virtual Odyssey models. These
models are stand-alone POD.
4. VR Bar / Restaurant / Club
A new style to attract people is by using VR technology in the restaurant.
One example is this entertainment type is MARS Restaurant and Club,
Vancouver. This café provides 2 VR units that are equipped with 2000SU
model. You can have your dinner and also VR experience at the same time; of
course the meals and beverage are not virtual.
5. VR Internet Café
One example of this entertainment type is Cybersmith, Cambridge that
provides 1 VR units. It uses 2000SU model that is a stand-alone POD type.
Cybersmith have possibly over 40 computer workstations of various kinds. In
addition to WWW access, they have CD-ROMs, Sega, Nintendo Atari and
3DO games, Virtual Reality simulators and Face Morphing. The coffee is
meant to be decent as well.
6. Virtual Museum
The recognized VR museum in the world is The Virtual Brewery, located
in Tokyo, equipped with 12 VR units. Basically, the idea is to bring people
through the history of Sapporo and the art of beer brewing. The virtual tour
starts in front of the old Sapporo factory, and then the user is drawn inside and
taken through the processes of brewing, fermentation, filtration and bottling.
The whole experience lasts about 5 minutes and it attracted more than 70,000
people during its first three weeks of operation.
7. VR Retail Shop
This is another alternative of marketing and selling techniques whereby
user can shop virtually. They can view and experience the sample product
before they can buy it. One example of the shop is Jurassic Park store located
in Santa Monica. The concept is the standing user can view all the retails using
specific devices.
8. Sports Simulation
The MagBall is a basketball simulator. The game is like the real game,
with cheering crowd, opponent players, scoreboard and virtual coach. Other
sports simulation are Cyber Pong, Virtual Dart, Black Serve, Virtual Tennis,
Virtual Hoops and etc.
9. Flying Simulation
The Bandit Cockpit is a POD based, with window on the world. The
player will be in standing position and controls Rudder pedals, H-F-18 Hornet,
M -Mig 29, E-F-15 Eagle. However, it is also compatible with computer such
as PC Compatible and Tellurian IG. There is another simulation called The
Flight Simulation, manufactured by Air Combat School. The difference is just
that Flight Simulation has projector as the display.
10. Game Arcade
Many game arcades have embedded VR technology in their place. For
example, the Trocadero Center, London with 10 VR units. The software used
is Project Dragoon, a type of Shoot-em-up game. Players will sit in a theatre
and control the joystick. Another game is Mercury. Player will sit in
motorcycle position that has Dual differential twist grip controls for the rider,
complete with fire switch, speed toggle control and auxiliary button.
Prepared by Adibah Mohd Najib (98100466) and Sham Azura Ahmad
(98100453)
Virtual Reality For Education
There have been specific proposals for ways of using VR, including: visiting inaccessible
places or historical scenes (Newby, 1993); manipulating simulations of the real world,
without the danger, expense or time consumption of doing the real thing (Pantelidis,
1993); exploring places and things more effectively because of alterations in scale and
time (Stuart & Thomas, 1991); and, learning algebra in a virtual world where the
behaviour of objects demonstrate the axioms of algebra (Winn & Bricken, 1992).
In simple words it is certain that using virtual reality (VR) to enhance the learning
process have becoming the recent idea in the education. Now it seems that the interest of
embedding in schools, colleges and universities are growing rapidly. This is based on the
increasing numbers of teachers in the U.S.A., Europe and elsewhere are embracing this
new medium and exploring ways of using it to enhance learning in schools.
Underlying such proposals for using VR in education is a number of assumptions about
its benefits that are either unique to VR, or less evident in other media. Three
assumptions in particular are prominent, and they focus on VR's positive impacts on
spatial thinking, interest level, and individual learning. If these assumptions are
warranted, VR will be a powerful tool, which deserves prominent coverage in teacher
training. As we can see today VR are use to create an environment almost similar to the
classroom, laboratory and library.
In not-too-distant future VR has such strong potential for classrooms, that it will
inevitably become a common tool. A typical virtual classroom usually is a password
protected, web-based virtual classroom system that includes a variety of discussion
groups, live chat, areas for the teacher to post the syllabus and other handouts and
notices, a module for organizing online assignments, a grades module, and a unique,
web-based email system open only to students in the class.
Its growing popularity in entertainment, and expansion on the World Wide Web, coupled
with the increase in home access to computer networks, indicates that students will soon
be much more familiar with VR than their teachers. Most students find working with VR
is fun. It is certain VR's unique character offers very interesting possibilities for school
students.
The simplest way that students could use VR for learning is to explore scenes that
someone has created. For example, a picture that shows a 15th century English
farmhouse. Students can easily learn how to use the mouse to go round to the front door
and enter the house. They can then explore the inside freely, examining the furniture,
going upstairs and so on.
Virtual library is a large repository of data that contains information or links to other
websites that will lead to certain information. It is also known as World Wide Web
virtual library. It may also functions as a search engine. Some of the virtual library
displays a table of content where the viewer can browse in all the topics and choose
whichever topic they like. It is like going to the library and search for a book, which we
want to look for, but by implementing VR it is even better. Using the keyword all the
required link that discuss on the topics will be given. The user just has to choose one
URL adress and click on it.
WWW Virtual Library - Archaeology hosted by the Archaeological Research Institute at
Arizona State University is one of an example of a virtual library. Accessing it is like
going to a museum, except that this is a virtual museum. We can access archeological
information from the region all over the world. We can choose to view our subject areas
such as archeometry, botanical, education materials etc; schools, journals, and news. A
search engine is also provided. Apart form English, we also can view the materials in six
other different languages that are Catalan, Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Virtual lab is another area that uses VR environment. With Internet access, it is now
possible to offer students "virtual laboratories" via the WWW or CD-ROM. Experimentoriented problems can be offered without the overhead incurred when maintaining a full
laboratory. The objective of the course and the virtual laboratory is to introduce students
to experimentation, problem solving, data gathering, and scientific interpretation early in
their careers.
One example of the virtual lab is the one that have been produced at Buffalo's
Virtual Reality Laboratory. The students and faculty here are pioneering the use
of VR technology in areas such as surgery, remote robotic control, volcanic
simulation and factory design. The faculty involved in our projects pool their
expertise from fields as diverse as mathematics, geology, mechanical engineering,
aerospace engineering and medical sciences. The tools welded by our talented
teams include head-mounted displays, magnetic proximity sensors, instrumented
gloves, driving simulators, SGI Onyx2 and Indigo computers. With their unique
experience, industry partners and computational resources, the lab is answering
the technological challenges of today with VR solutions.
As we can see it is concluded that, by using VR in education is a good step in
approaching more interesting and fun way in learning. The way of learning is not dull
anymore and more interactive, convinient and flexible.
Prepared by Kartika Murni Binti Abdul Majid (98100424) and Norain Dalilah Binti
Abdul Rashid (98100444)
Virtual Reality For Military
For years, virtual reality was considered the ultimate in entertainment. This technology
empowered people who would now be able to "move" in a video game not just from one
side of the screen to the other, but they would be able to look all around in a new and
fascinating virtual environment.
Over the years, virtual reality has broken through the entertainment realm into the
commercial sector and is currently used in areas once thought impossible. Presently,
virtual reality is used in the medical field, the science field and even the manufacturing
industry.
The automobile industry as well as the military have reaped the benefits of virtual reality
and have begun using it to create virtual environments that are more cost efficient, more
practical and just as easy to use or easier, than their physical counterparts. In the military
training and operations, applications of virtual reality are divided into three categories.
They are simulation of reality, extension of human senses through telepresence, and as an
information enhancer through augmented reality.
i) As military simulations
One of the earliest uses of simulators in a military environment was the flight trainer,
which was built, in the late 1920’s and 1930’s. These trainers looked like sawed-off
coffins mounted on a pedestal, and were used to teach instrument flying. The sensation
produced are quite similar like flying the instruments at night whereby the virtual
environment would provide darkness inside the trainer cockpit, realistic readings on the
instrument panel and motion of the trainer on the pedestal.
To move beyond the instrument flying domain, simulator designers needed a way to
produce a view of the outside world. When television and video cameras became
available in 1950’s, simulator designers used the video camera as if it were flying over a
scale model of the terrain around an airport. The resulting image was sent to a television
monitor placed in front of the pilot in the simulator. The pilot could control the
movement of the camera over the terrain board by moving the control stick and throttle.
As a result, the pilot could receive visual feedback both inside and outside the cockpit.
The logical extension of the video camera/television monitor approach was to use
multiple monitors to simulate the entire field of view from the airplane cockpit. This
method is still in use for transport aircraft simulators, where the field of view needs to be
only about 180 degrees horizontally and 60 degrees vertically. For fighter aircraft
simulators, the field of view must be at least 180 degrees horizontally and vertically. For
these applications, the simulator consists of a cockpit placed at the center of a domed
room, and the virtual images are projected onto the inside surface of the dome. These
types of simulators have proven to be very effective training aids by themselves, and the
newest innovation is a project called SIMNET to electronically connect two or more
simulators to produce a distributed simulation environment. [McCarty, 1993] Distributed
simulations can be used not only for training, but also to develop and test new combat
strategy and tactics. A major development in this area is an IEEE data protocol standard
for distributed interactive simulations. [IEEE, 1993] This standard allows the distributed
simulation to include not only aircraft, but also land-based vehicles and ships. Another
recent development is the use of head-mounted displays (HMDs) to decrease the cost of
wide field of view simulations. [McCarty, 1993]
ii) Telepresence for military missions
Two rather obvious reasons have driven the military to explore and utilize telepresence in
their operations, which are to reduce exposure to hazards and to increase stealth.
Many aspects of combat operations are very hazardous, and they become even more risky
if the combatant seeks to improve his performance. Main examples of this principle are
firing weapons and performing reconnaissance. To perform either of these tasks well
takes time, and this is usually time when the combatant is exposed to hostile fire. Smart
weapons and remotely- piloted vehicles (RPVs) were developed to address this problem.
Some smart weapons are autonomous and self-directed, while others are remotely
controlled after they are launched. This allows the shooter and weapon controller to
launch the weapon and immediately seek cover, thus decreasing his exposure to return
fire. In the case of RPVs, the person who controls the vehicle not only has the advantage
of being in a safer place, but the RPV can be made smaller than a vehicle that would
carry a man, thus making it more difficult for the enemy to detect.
iii) Military information enhancement
In a dynamic combat environment, it is imperative to supply the pilot or tank commander
with as much of the necessary information as possible while reducing the amount of
distracting information. This goal led the Air Force to develop the head-up display
(HUD), which optically combines critical information (altitude, airspeed, heading) with
an unobstructed view through the forward windscreen of a fighter aircraft. With the
HUD, the pilot never has to look down at his instruments. When the HUD is coupled with
the aircraft's radar and other sensors, a synthetic image of an enemy aircraft can be
displayed on the HUD to show the pilot where that aircraft is, even though the pilot may
not be able to see the actual aircraft with his unaided eyes. This combination of real and
virtual views of the outside world can be extended to nighttime operations. Using an
infrared camera mounted in the nose of the aircraft, an enhanced view of the terrain ahead
of the aircraft can be projected on the HUD. The effect is for the pilot to have a 'daylight'
window through which he has both a real and an enhanced view of the nighttime terrain
and sky.
In some cases, the pilot may need to focus totally on the virtual information and
completely exclude the actual view. Work in this area has been pioneered by Thomas
Furness III and others at Wright Laboratories, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
This work, dubbed the Super Cockpit, involved not only a virtual view of the outside
world, but also of the cockpit itself, where the pilot would select and manipulate virtual
controls using hand gestures. [Furness, 1986]
Prepared by Endang Ellyana Iskandar (98100745) and Noor Adinah Omar (98100371).