Current
Research
(our past research can be found
here)
There are two primary research
thrusts we are
currently investigating:
- Benefits of Immersion
- 3D Interaction Techniques.
Details of individual research projects can be viewed below.
|
|
||
 |
The rapMenu maps intuitive hand postures and gestures to a radial menu layout at two levels of granularity: the user rolls her hand to alter the wrist orientation, which makes a group of menu items selectable; then she touches her thumb to a particular finger (forming a pinch gesture) to select a specific item in that group. People: Tao Ni, Ryan McMahan, Doug Bowman |
|
|
|
||
 |
Body-based navigation for World of Warcraft People: Mara Silva, Doug Bowman |
|
|
|
||
 |
Supporting
Memorization in Immersive VR People: Eric Ragan, Doug Bowman |
|
|
|
||
|
Scaled manipulation techniques People: Curtis Wilkes, Doug Bowman |
||
 |
The Effects of Avatar Animation on Spatial Judgements and Incidental Detail Memorization People: Eric Ragan, Curtis Wilkes, Doug BowmanThis is an investigation of how the inclusion of realistically locomoting virtual characters affects the understanding of a virtual environment. Preliminary work has tested the effects of avatar inclusion on egocentric and exocentric distance perceptions and incidental retention of scene details. |
|
|
|
||
 |
The Virtual Environment applications to improve mining health and safety traning project by the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research is funded by the Nation Institute for Occupantional Safety and Health (NIOSH) and aims to investigate technologies and intervention strategies for reducing injuries and fatalities from powered-haulage equipment in the mining industry through improved worker training using virtual environments. People: Ryan McMahan, Doug Bowman |
|
|
|
||
 |
Interaction with multi-displays and large displays Research in large displays has dramatically increased as multiple monitor configurations have become popular. With this increase, research in 3D interaction techniques (3DITs) has been initiated with hopes of affording greater movement and access to distal information. Unfortunately, most 3DI techniques do not provide the precision necessary for working with large high-resolution displays. In this research, we are evaluating the problems with most 3DITs for high-resolution displays and attempting to design two high-precision techniques based on ray-casting -- Zoom for Enhancing Large Display Acuity (ZELDA) and Absolute and Relative Mapping (ARM) Ray-casting. People: Tao Ni, Regis Kopper, Ryan McMahan, Mara Silva, Doug Bowman |
|
|
|
||
 |
Contextualized videos: 3D visualization interfaces for building security surveillance Contextualized videos refer to interface designs that combine videos with a model of 3D environment, or more generally with the context information that cannot be easily derived from the videos to improve video understanding. We explore and evaluate visualization and interaction designs to support multi-video understanding inside complex buildings. People: Yi Wang, Doug Bowman |
|
|
|
||
 |
A large number of immersive virtual environments (IVEs) have been prototyped in research labs, but only a few have been commercially adopted. One of the major reasons for this phenomenon is that industries perceive immersive technologies to have a very high cost relative to their benefit. We want to demonstrate that immersive technologies have attractive cost-benefit ratios by separating the components of immersion and determining the benefits of each component. People: Ryan McMahan, Doug Bowman |
|
|
|
||
Questions or Comments about this webpage? Contact: webmaster