Virtual reality has moved beyond the gaming world and into the business world.
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock, through its Virtual Reality Center, is offering virtual reality as a tool that lets businesses display their projects before breaking ground in the real world. "Imagine as an architect you could show a building to your client even before you start building it," said M. Eduard Tudoreanu, manager of the VRC. "We hope to draw businesses into this type of technology."
The VRC, in existence for six years, has served primarily as a teaching tool for students in the engineering department, but now the Donaghey College of Engineering & Information Technology is letting the business community walk through the center’s doors – virtual and real.
Local entities such as Southwest Power Pool, a nonprofit that manages the transmission of electricity, and Central Arkansas Water and companies in the construction industry have used the VRC.
"Southwest Power Pool relies on visualization to manage the power grid, and the construction industry can get a clear view of the projects in the virtual world before they build in the actual world," Tudoreanu said.
Completing a virtual reality model typically takes Tudoreanu about a half-day, but the time needed depends on the model’s complexity and images supplied. The center hasn’t been charging to make models, but, Tudoreanu said, if it were, the starting price would be $1,000.
The ‘Real’ World
To step into the virtual world, a visitor enters a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, or CAVE, and dons a special pair of glasses, called shutter glasses, to see the 3-D graphics. The shutter glasses cost about $900.
The university has two CAVEs. The one in the VRC joins two side screens to a floor screen. The other CAVE, in the development lab, consists of a screen on a wall. Students use the lab to develop their software programs to be tested in the VRC.
A CAVE consists of three main components: projection equipment, stereo image capabilities and an interactive device. Tudoreanu said the projection equipment typically is arranged to surround the visitor, with the projectors displaying images on two to six screens.
"Projection equipment needs to be bright and some sort of high-end projector. Typically, mirrors are used to conserve space. The computers creating the images are linked together such that the stereo works seamlessly on multiple screens," Tudoreanu said.
The presentation of stereo images, an image that looks slightly different to each eye, helps create the virtual world. A CAVE can feature either "active" or "passive" stereo. Tudoreanu said active stereo requires one projector per wall, while passive needs two.
When visitors walk into the Virtual Reality Center’s CAVE, which uses active stereo, computers rapidly generate an image frame by frame, one for each of the user’s eyes. The shutter glasses and the projectors are synchronized so that each eye sees only the correct image.
"The switching of the images happens so fast that we don’t recognize it," Tudoreanu said. "In the real world, if I cover one eye. I see a different side of whatever I am looking at. The computer knows this and redraws the image. It is like a game. We see about 15 frames per second. This is typically a higher-quality method but requires a higher frame rate from the projector and computer."
The development lab uses passive stereo to create a virtual model. Two projectors display images on the same location. The glasses worn by users separate each image for each eye through the polarization of light. One lens is polarized differently than is the other lens, and the image displayed by one projector also is polarized differently than is the image from the second projector.
Visitors to CAVEs, equipped with shutter glasses and an interactive or "tracker" device, can move around freely. The computer responds to the tracker’s movement, letting a CAVE visitor see objects from different angles and walk around or, virtually, through them. "Because of the tracker, your brain believes you are actually in this place," Tudoreanu said.
An interactive device also can be attached to the visitor’s hand, allowing him or her to pick up virtual objects and move them as if in the real world.
Tudoreanu said versions of virtual reality are already available to the public.
"It is kind of like a [Nintendo] Wii," Tudoreanu said. "Wii is a consumer-version of the tracker. Virtual Reality Center is just another user interface. We will continue to find other business applications."
One of 12 in Country
The Virtual Reality Center at UALR is one of 12 such systems in the nation. The system cost about $1 million and was funded using state money and private donations. During its six years, more than $100,000 has been spent upgrading and maintaining the system.
"Most universities don’t have a virtual reality center," said Mary Good, dean of the Donaghey College of Engineering & Information Technology. "Simulation is the way engineering is going in the future."
The university’s EIT College opened in 1999 and includes the departments of applied science, computer science, construction management, information science and systems engineering.
Tudoreanu came to UALR in 2002 after working as a research assistant at Washington University in St. Louis. He teaches human-computer interaction, information visualization and software engineering courses in the information science and systems engineering departments, as well as other subjects.
"My favorite aspect of my job is to see students mature and become professionals," Tudoreanu said.
The Virtual Reality Center is often incorporated into his classes.
"I regularly perform evaluations and comparisons of various interfaces for the CAVE and for regular desktops in the human-computer interaction course. Students have a chance to work with something beyond the typical mouse and keyboard," Tudoreanu said.
In the software engineering course, students are shown how to approach all the details that a software-based project entails – for example, how to break down a big project into smaller, more manageable components and then how to put the pieces back together into a functional tool.
"Students have to put together a tool that allows people in the CAVE to completely control a whole virtual world literally at their fingertips, without requiring more than an arm’s-length of virtual or real movement," Tudoreanu said. "I provide the pieces of software that deal with computer graphics details, and the students build a whole tool using those pieces and their own code. They have to take a systems approach and consider all the user and technical aspects of the CAVE."
In addition to incorporating virtual reality into his classes, Tudoreanu also works with his colleagues by adding the technology to their classes.
"So far, I have worked with people teaching computer graphics, such as the one used in gaming. In introduction to information science, students have had a chance to actually see various aspects of information, and I have used [the Virtual Reality Center] in geology courses for virtual field trips into the mountains," Tudoreanu said.
College students gain practical experience by using the VRC because it forces them to break out of conventional patterns.
"I believe that having a chance to deal with cutting-edge technology gives students a clear advantage because the technology tends to evolve very fast and in unexpected directions," Tudoreanu said. "Engineers and information science professionals need to become used to breaking out of normalcy. Furthermore, the cutting-edge nature of the VRC forces the student to handle more details, which if ignored are clear to see – literally."
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