Hrvoje Benko Virtual Environments / CSC 498
Daniel Goldshlack
Project 2 Proposal
Executive Summary
This project will implement the World-In-Miniature (WIM) technique discussed in class to facilitate movement through a full-scale virtual environment. The user can perform this movement either via gaze-directed movement in the full-scale environment, or relocation of a “voodoo doll” representation of himself in the WIM.
The idea put forth in the paper from class will be extended beyond a single room, and a WIM will be used that can represent an entire building or world for the user to manipulate.
The following picture is taken from the paper, and is a good representation of what we hope to achieve:
Topic
We propose to design and implement a World-In-Miniature (WIM) interface in SVE as it is described in an article by R. Pausch, T. Burnette, D. Brockway and M. Weiblen entitled "Navigation and Locomotion in Virtual Worlds via Flight into Hand-held Miniatures," as handed out and discussed in class.
The WIM is a hand-held miniature graphical representation of the virtual environment similar to a map cube. When the user manipulates an object in the WIM, the object is simultaneously updated in the surrounding, full-scale virtual environment. When the user moves an iconic representation of himself, he moves (flies) in the virtual environment. This is useful because it gives the user a manipulable god’s eye view in addition to the surrounding immersive view.
The WIM will not only be a representation of a single room or area, as in the paper’s example, but will extend to a floor or even an entire building. We plan on having several scales of the miniature to facilitate interaction at a desired level of granularity.
Project Details
There will be two possible ways of navigating in the virtual environment. The first form of movement is gaze directed in the full-scale virtual environment that the user is immersed in. Second is movement of the user’s “voodoo doll” around the WIM. The latter will be the most proficient form of transport when the model includes more than one room, as the representation of the user can be moved much further and in a shorter amount of time than the user can move in the full scale virtual environment.
The WIM will be able to be rotated about the vertical axis to provide more than one view of the current environment but to disallow the rotation to put the model in an orientation that is useless to the user.
We will probably need several buttons, necessitating the use of a mouse, as we will need a way to signal a change in the detail of the WIM and select items within the WIM for more detail. A stylus will be used to signal interaction with objects represented therein, such as the user; interaction in this way will only be allowed with objects specified as movable. The different scales of the WIM will also include an “off” mode, where it will not be shown and the user can only interact with the virtual environment directly.
When the model encompasses many rooms, the easiest way to facilitate movement through the world is by using the second method described in the paper, that of having the WIM scale up to become the full-scale virtual environment and creating a new WIM for subsequent interactions. As a default, the orientation of the new WIM will be reset to a default orientation that matches the user’s view in the full-scale virtual environment; if the movement is within the same room or area, the WIM orientation will not be reset.
We would like to implement the world model as a conglomerate of smaller models, making the process of having multiple WIM views more manageable. We will have to experiment to see if this is possible, and if not, utilize front-face removal on the world model to view the interior.
Stage 1: a small world (room) for interaction and movement is created.
Stage 2: a world-in-miniature is created and object selection is allowed.
Stage 3: manipulation of the “voodoo doll” instigates movement and zoom in/out effects for movement are created.
Stage 4: multiple rooms/floors created in the world.
Stage 5: movement between rooms/floors is allowed.
Bonus
Stage: If the rest of the project
proceeds well, and we have time to include more, we will try to include
multiple WIMs in the same environment.
This could be used to represent widely separated areas of the same
environment or even two entirely different environments.
Background Material
Information on the research paper for the basis of this project:
Randy Pausch, Tommy Burnette, Dan Brockway and Michael E. Weiblen,
"Navigation and Locomotion in Virtual Worlds via Flight into Hand-held
Miniatures," Proceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Conference on Computer
Graphics (SIGGRAPH '95), Aug., 1995,
Additional material:
R. Stoakley, M. Conway, R. Pausch, “Virtual Reality on a WIM: Interactive Worlds in Miniature,” Proceeding of the ACM SIGCHI Human Factors in Computer Systems Conference, May, 1995, pp. 265-272. http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/stoakley95virtual.html
Resources Needed
We will need the use of the computer in the graduate lab once we have progressed along far enough to test the interaction aspect. Also, we will need the use of the head-mounted display, two trackers, a stylus, and mouse that are attached to that system. In software, we will need to use the SVE package, Microsoft Visual Studio, and possibly the Lightwave modeling software.
Mid-Project Deliverable – Wednesday,
April 4th, 2001
The mid-project deliverable will comprise of a single WIM working in a single room with movement and interaction. A short progress report will be handed in, along with a demonstration of the actual environment in the lab.