18:24 
VR Applications
The great Khufu show is coming back and it’s here to stay!
Friday 22 Feb. at La Géode, Jean-Pierre Houdin will be presenting his theory about the construction of the great Khufu (Kheops in french) pyramid.
Then the show will occur on the last tuesday of each month.
See this post for some backstage stories and photos!
See you there !
- The Khufu team, after the first show! -
12:08 VR Applications, VR Devices, VR Displays
Happy new year ! Let it be full of happiness and success, virtual and real =)
Lately I’ve been reading articles by some so-called journalists saying VR was one of the biggest technology flops in the last 20 years. If you’re reading this blog, you know they have missed a big part of hystory.
So I’ve decided to write a series of article about the state of VR, what can be done, what are the applications and the current hardware. Hopefully those ‘journalists’ will learn to do some research before writing such crappy articles.
VR is not yet mainstream, but it sure is already a success!
Read The state of Virtual Reality now.
The full article will probably be published on VResources when I’m done with it so that the community can improve on it.
11:43 Uncategorized
- Training
- Scientific, medical and research
[25 Nov 2008: Added link to Dr Rizzo interview on therapies in Medical section]
[07 Oct 2008: Added excerpts from Ford article in Design/Prototyping section]
[28 Aug 2008: Added link the Everyday object prototyping article]
[4 Aug 2008: Added link to Miners traning and Agoraphobia treatment articles]
[23 Jul 2008: Added Sivic, VR Learning Mastic Videos in Training section]
[1 Apr 2008: Added paranoia study article link]
[25 Mar 2008: Added phobia treatment article link]
[29 Jan 2008: Added autistic children therapy, Audi link, Panoramic Quake3 video]
[17 Jan 2008: Added a link to Dentists training]
[13 Jan 2008: Added a CaveUnrealTournament Video]
[11 Jan 2008: Added the gambling addiction link]
Car, aircraft, boat, tractors, household appliances manufacturers, and even factory planners are using VR to prototype their products. They can create interactive virtual prototypes for far less money and time than a real prototype.
© PSA Peugeot Citroën Mediatheque.
This has a lot of advantages. Products or work environments are tested in VR, potentially with the end user, and problems are identified early in the design process. Once these virtual prototypes are built, all the actors, engineers, designers, ergonomists, marketing and end users, can communicate around the project in a more efficient and sexy way than traditional forms like paper or movies.
“The number of expensive, physical models and prototypes can be radically reduced by CAVE, and this ultimately saves a lot of time and money”, says Andreas Enslin, Miele’s senior designer. (…)
“CAVE creates a quite different form of communication and cooperation. Marketers, designers and engineers can now deal with one issue simultaneously. Regardless of what comes up with me as a designer or engineer, I am able to immediately try it and see if it works. As everyone is seeing the same thing, those people who are not directly involved in the process of development and construction can also immediately see the consequences and effects of decisions.“ (…)
The speed gained is also expected to increase the willingness to experiment, Miele’s senior designer believes. “In this respect, our innovative strength will also increase. It has become much easier to try out something crazy in between.”
From the article : “Carmaker embraces VR“, New Zealand Herald :
“We can understand it from a person’s perspectives, rather than what analytical tools tell us,” says Elizabeth Baron, an advanced visualisation technical specialist who carried out Ford’s virtual reality programme. (…)
Four years ago, the carmaker would have spent four to 10 weeks building prototypes each time engineers wanted to experience a different beltline height, Schiavone said.
But the Programmable Vehicle Model at the Immersive Virtual Reality - or iVR - lab can simulate the change at the touch of a button.”
More infos : Everyday object prototyping, Mercedes and VR, PSA Peugeot Citroën VR Center, Renault and VR, VR Cave for Jaguar and Land Rover, Ford researchers get virtual, It’s a Virtual World at Audi design.
VR is also used for marketing and pre-sales: potential clients can now test the product before it’s even finished, and be implied in the choice of configurations. For example you can take a walk in your future plane, and interactively place seats where you want. Even better, the system will make sure your decisions comply with security norms.
(c) University of Gronigen
(c) Virtools
Procter&Gamble and Kimberly Clark are using VR to create, in every detail, virtual stores to conduct marketing studies about product packaging, store layout and displays. With eye-tracking technologies, they can see precisely what aspect of their configuration influences your shopping experience and purchasing decisions.
More info : Virtual reality takes shopper to another world, Kimberly-Clark uses VR.
One of the most fascinating aspects of VR is its ability to train people. A lot of companies and administrations are using VR to train their staff to complicated and/or dangerous procedures.
VR allows you to really perform the gestures, thus what you learn in the virtual environment is directly applicable to real life situations. Pilots get their flight certifications for some planes without ever flying this particular plane!
It also allows you to to test different scenarios instantly, review errors in slow motion and from different viewpoints, restart as many times as needed. Learning in such a simulator is a lot more efficient, and people are much more willing to take the training; the trainee is active in the simulator and acting alone as he would in real life, when before he was passive with other trainees, watching the teacher do the procedure or looking at photos on a CD.
Fiacre, Simurat (c) D’Angelo SNCF
A recent article in the Nature magazine even suggests that VR medical training should be mandatory : “This approach has great potential to allow inexperienced physicians to acquire meaningful new procedural skills…without jeopardizing patient safety in the process”.
More info : Miner training, Haptik Implant (Dentists training, [FR]) First responders train with gaming technology, Scène de crime en 3D pour futurs policiers (Crime scene [fr]).
Education : Teaching about Antique Rome in VR, Cyber-Anatomy.
One of the oldest applications of VR, along with flight simulators, is data visualization. Mainly used in the oil and gas industry to study geological data and find new energy sources.
VR allows the architects, engineers and clients to design a building, to valorize a project by showing it to a large audience, convince all actors, and do the maintainance of building. It also allows citizens to visualize and give their opinion about a project in their neighborhood.
(c) CSTB
More info : CSTB VR equipment
VR is particularly suited to study the human being. It allows the manipulation of a reality that is close enough to ours and conduct research on cognition, perception and psychology, that would not be practical or ethical to perform in real life (see the Virtual reprise of Milgram’s obedience experiments). Moreover you can reproduce the exact same environment conditions indefinitely.
(c) Centre de Réalité Virtuelle de la Méditérranée
Virtual Reality for therapeutical needs is a field that is also rapidly developping. Better therapies through VR are studied for speech therapy, physical therapy (video), some therapy for autistic children, motor rehabilitation after a stroke, even smoking, gambling, drugs and alcohol addictions ! And new areas are being explored everyday.
(c) GLEANER/STEPHEN MACGILLIVRAY PHO
It is also a very good tool to treat phobias in a controlled environment through exposure therapy. The subject can be immersed in a virtual world on a high bridge to treat fear of heights, or in a room with virtual spiders, or in the middle of a war to treat post-traumatic syndrome disorder (Agoraphobia, Virtual therapy video, “Medecine meets VR“, PTSD for 9/11, “Virtual Reality used to fight phobias“, “Paranoia Study“).
See also:
- Intrepid : University of Manchester’s project “ for the clinical treatment of phobic and situational « anxiety» “.
- University of Groningen VR Lab therapy researches
- VRPhobia
- Elhit
Despite what you may think, VR games seem to have practically disappeared. I haven’t seen any recent commercial attraction. The best VR games so far seem to be done by enthusiasts: Cave Quake 3 by Paul Rajlich, Cave Unreal Tournament by Jeffrey Jacobson, and Atrium Experience by Alexandre Bouchet and Lionel Dominjon. (Oh and Atrium will be shipped with Virtools/VR Library 2.5 
© Paul Rajlich
© Jeffrey Jacobson
Cave UT in the SAS3
© Alexandre Bouchet, Lionel Dominjon
Panoramic Quak3 (c) PanoramaScreen
18:14 Game, VR Applications, Virtual Reality
Did you know that in 1995 Nintendo released a portable VR console, called the Virtual Boy ? With a monochrome stereoscopic HMD with a 384×224 resolution, it was priced at 180$ and reportedly Nintendo sold 700′000 units. The failure of the system had them discontinue the project one year later.
A bit sooner, Sega also tried to release a VR console [and wikipedia here] in 1994, with LCD screens and inertial trackers:
The Sega VR console combined full color LCD screens and stereo sound. Weight was distrusted evenly, and the device was reported to be comfortable. Also, unlike the Virtual Boy, it was truly portable, not requiring a cumbersome tripod for enjoyable game play.
(…)
Due to limited resources, strategic planning, the complete and utter failure of Nintendo’s Virtual Boy, underwhelming graphics and performance, as well as motion sickness, Sega was wise in not bringing this cliché console to the market.
The company claimed the project was stopped because the VR was so real users would move while wearing the headset and injure themselves.
Hum. Lol.. =)
[update : here’s a video of the ad]
16:49 Game, VR Applications
Alex Bouchet sent me this video of him playing Jeffrey Jacobson’s Cave Unreal Tournament :
Alex says it’s a bit buggy (synchronisation problems), and the navigation is not very natural yet, but the immersion awesome.
Can I come play with your Cave? :p
13:17 Augmented Reality, VR Applications, VR Devices, VR Displays, Virtual Reality
The newly formed AFRV [ French Association for VR/AR and 3D interaction ] is publishing some informal statistics about the state of VR in France in its “Journal de l’AFRV” (available to members). These stats are for general information purpose only and shouldn’t be regarded as official statistics.
The most interesting figures are :
- ~500 people are working in VR/AR; Researchers/Teachers (51%), PhD candidates (34%), engineers & technicians (14%).
- The majority of research is done about VR only, much less about AR only (often VR+AR).
- There is an important number of groups that use VR without doing research about these technologies (18/39), which represent 100/460 people.
- The research is done, by decreasing order, in the medical field, product conception, transportation, education, human studies, scientific data exploration, architecture, sport, game, archelogy, art, geoscience, energy, military, domotic.
- No group is doing fundamental research on VR/AR. It seems to always be applied research.
- The equipment is, by decreasing order, tracking devices, feedback/haptics devices, stereoscopic display, big screen (<10m²), data glove (no haptics), HMD, 3d sound, immersive room (>10m²), speech recognition, CAVE or approaching (6!), workbench, tactile feedback, treadmill …
If you add all the VR students that come out of schools every year, that makes a lot of VR enthousiasts in France
21:48 VR Applications, VR Displays
The first public presentation of the Khufu experience on the 24th May 2007 went extremely well. The show received a lot of praise. Lots of questions were asked at the end, and Jean-Pierre Houdin happily answered them all.
For those of you who missed it, the Khufu experience is back tuesday 19th june 2007 at LaGeode. Click here to book, the seats are selling fast!Here’s a gallery of photos I took during the all the preparation and shows.
Right click > View Image to get full view of the following samples :
- Fabien Barati (Emissive) and David Nahon (Virtools) -
- Jean-Pierre Houdin answering questions at the end of the show -
- Laurent Dondey (La Géode), Mehdi Tayoubi (Dassault Systèmes), Jean-Pierre Houdin (Egyptologist) and Fabien Barati (Emissive) -
- Fabien facing his world -
- This is not in the show, but I like this picture! -
And for your eyes only, a dark video of what you can expect at the end of the show. A great ride, where pilot Fabien Barati (co-owner of Emissive,with Emmanuel Guerriero, the company that made the application) leads the audience at full speed across the scene with an incredible dexterity. Sensations are guaranteed.
Of course it’s so much better on the real screen with the stereoscopy !!
15:47 VR Applications
As said by Olivier, you can now book a seat for the first public Kheops event at La Géode in Paris, on Thursday, 24 mai at 20h00. The theory of Jean-Pierre Houdin on the construction of the Kheops/Khufu pyramid explained on the biggest VR screen !
Don’t miss it !!
11:17 Game, VR Applications, VR Devices, VR Displays, Virtual Reality, Virtual Reality DIY
These three great days have been very intense; holding the booth, meeting people, attending conferences, trying hardware and applications, being a jury member for the student competition. First things first, here are some pictures I took there. I should have taken more of the show..
There was not much new hardware, especially hardly any new expensive hardware. The novelty came from the use of existing hardware and better software. It seems that VR is at last being democratized; people create customized and cheap input devices, use webcams, recycle hardware not meant for VR etc.
Read on for more..
8:50 VR Applications
Here’s an interesting article from Nature about the advantages on using VR for surgery training, but also for procedures standardisation :
Virtual surgery could soon be a realityVirtual reality (VR) simulators should be used to teach doctors new skills, a leading cardiologist has advised, in the April edition of Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine.
“This approach has great potential to allow inexperienced physicians to acquire meaningful new procedural skills…without jeopardizing patient safety in the process,” writes Christopher Cates, Director of Vascular Intervention at the Emory Hospitals in Atlanta.
Dr. Cates believes that VR could one day become a mandatory component of procedural training for physicians. Recently returned from an international conference in Rio de Janeiro, where he and others conducted a symposium on the use of VR training, he described the current technology as “very impressive”.
“With a simulator you can measure every minute movement in the virtual anatomy. You can see whether the person’s scraping or pushing too hard as he’s turning the catheter, and whether he’s doing the sequence in the exact right order.”
As well as so-called ‘mission rehearsal’, in which doctors can practice procedures on a reconstruction of an actual patient’s anatomy, VR technology also provides the potential to rate surgical skill on a real scale.
“A lot of doctors talk a good game—they are knowledgeable but they can’t technically implement the procedure very well,” said Dr. Cates. This VR simulation can actually measure the performance of a physician. In future, to be certified for a procedure, you could have to spend a certain amount of time on a simulator to prove that you are proficient in the technique.
“There is also real potential to create a worldwide training standard, where it doesn’t matter if you’re in Beijing, Sidney or Kuala Lumpur—the doctor is the same quality and has been trained by the same system,” he added.
VR simulation training has already begun for carotid stenting—a procedure to increase blood flow in the carotid arteries, which supply the head and neck. Three major symposia have already taken place in the US. The first group completed the final tier of the program towards the end of last year, all achieving proficiency that was comparable with the experts.
If the program continues to be successful, other procedures could soon be rehearsed in a similar fashion.
“In my opinion, this will forever change the way we train for medical procedures,” concluded Dr. Cates.
Author contact:
Christopher Cates (Emory Hospitals, Atlanta, Georgia)
Tel: +1 404 712 5990; Email: christopher.cates@emoryhealthcare.org
