UCL Dive Page

Quicklinks:

Information for UCL Dive users NEWCompiling DIVE from Visual Studio 7.1 IDE.
Information on DIVE/Spelunk (CAVE/HMD support)
Information on record and replay demo
Information on collision demo

Stop Press DIVE blockie avatar escaped. Last seen outside on Gower St

Dive Activities |Immersive Dive | Downloads & Resources

Dive Activities

UCL has been using SICS's DIVE (www.sics.se/dive) system for about 6 years now. Most of our experimental work is carried out with applications build with DIVE. UCL has been responsible for extensions to DIVE to support large-scale rendering and immersive virtual environments.

General note. Throughout these pages, we refer to various versions of DIVE, 3.2, 3.3x, 3.3x4, etc. Note that 3.3x is the last official release of DIVE from SICS. They are now working on DIVE versions 4 and 5. All of our immersive work and demos support a fork of DIVE at 3.3x, and thus they are labelled 3.3x1, through (as of July 2002) 3.3x5. These are UCL versions only. Except in exceptional circumstances, only 3.3x3 and 3.3x5 have ever been released into the "wild". Binaries of 3.3x5 which now has a flexible infrastructure for tracking and vehicle plugins is available below. I can only supply binaries, contact SICS if you want a source code licence. If you already have such a licence, I am happy to share my code modifications and plugin source.

Application Gallery

The following applications are all coded on the "standard" DIVE application DIVA. That is, they all use the Tcl scripting interface and occasionally one or more DIVE plugins.

Immersive Map Sketching - demo ready
Virtual Model of London - demo ready
Information Visualisation - demo ready
WhoDo Group Collaboration Game - demo ready
Virtual Pit Demo - demo ready
Virtual Director Tool/World in Minature - demo ready
Immersive Modelling - demo done
Public Speaking/Paranoia Demos - demo done
Agoraphobia Demo - demo underway

Dive Extensions

We also have used DIVE as a base library for applications that do not utilise the standard DIVE infrastructure. Since SICS have allowed us source code access, we have also made some major extensions to certain modules. However such module extensions are often experimental and are not folded back into the main source tree.

Immersive extension (see below)
BSP shadows rendering to Dive
Large-scale navigation through large models Described in Steed98
Port Virtual Treadmill to Dive Described in Steed99
Dive Renderer Plugin that supports the following techniques
- Continuous Level of Detail Support
- Probabalistic Object Culling Algorithm described in Slater99

Immersive Dive

There have been three generations of immersion support:

UCL extended Dive3.2 to work with our collection of trackers (Isotrak, Fastrak and Logitech) and to drive our HMD and shutter glasses. Many of these extensions made it into the Dive3.3x distribution. This refers to UCL DIVE versions prior to 3.3x (not available)
Preliminary work on CAVElib and VRPN support (3.3x3&3.3x4).
Integrated tracking/vehicle infrastructure (3.3x5).

The current stable version, 3.3x5, is available on request to UCL.

HowTo Guides on immersive extensions can be found here:

DIVE on IPTs - see also the paper Steed01
Using DIVE with VRPN - see also the report Mortensen01
Obsolete guides. These may be useful if you are building a HMD system, pending the completion of the new guide.
- UCL Dive3.2 Immersive Guide - this includes details of how to configure the graphics on an SGI to support HMD.
- UCL HMD Hardware Guide this is simply as an example of the immersive extensions. It reflects our use of custom

Resources

Downloads

3.3x5

For every platform you need the dive3.3x5-data.tgz package.

Then you need one or more of the platform specific packages:

default cavelib version in 2.7. We can generate Linux and Solaris versions as well.

Online Worlds

If you have set up DIVE, then you can browse straight to the following worlds:

Central UCL world - including links to the worlds below
Curios Room - some useful tutorial objects.
Office - which was used in an MSc project on presence.
WhoDo Game - multi-user murder mystery game loosly based around Cluedo(Clue in the US).

Compiling DIVE

We have some local instructions for builing DIVE 3.3x* on SGI and WinNT/2000 that you might find useful.

Dive3.2 C Examples

If you have the library distribution of Dive3.2 you might want to look at the following example code.

Boids - a Dive C procedure for animating flocks. (Useful for testing your network bandwith - 30 boids at 10Hz is approximately ISDN bandwidth).
Body - an extension to 3.2 or 3.3x diva that creates an animated personal avatar based upon some fake inverse kinematics.

Dive3.3x Plugins

We have written the following plugins that are available on request:

The quakekeys plugin became part of the core 3.3x distribution
Face animation plugin
Humanoid animation plugin
Spline-based quaterion interpolation plugin

Dive Tutorials

Some locally written tutorials that will be of general interest.

Record and Replay - how to record DIVE sessions and then play them back.
Overview of Building Dive Worlds - an introduction to the mechanisms of Dive aimed at people with experience of other VR toolkits.
Annotated Dive Examples - we have a number of annotated examples of Dive code that we have used for teaching purposes.
- Clock - annotation of one of the examples from the Dive distribution.
- Patience - example of a less than simple Dive object scripted in DIVE/TCL.
- Central World - building your own Dive world and an introduction to the macros mechanisms.
- Boids - another more interesting example of a Dive process.

Other

Much of the code mentioned above may be available, please contact the authors. In some cases you might have to wait until it makes into to the Dive core distribution.

DIVE blockie avatar seen on Gower St

DIVE System Papers from UCL

V. Vinayagamoorthy, M. Garau, A. Steed, and M. Slater, "An Eye Gaze Model for Dyadic Interaction in an Immersive Virtual Environment: Practice and Experience ", Computer Graphics Forum, 23(1), pp1-11, Eurographics Association.
Oliveira, M., Mortensen, J., Jordan, J., Steed, A., Slater, M., "Considerations in the Design of Virtual Environment Systems: A Case Study", Proceedings 2nd International Conference on Application and Development of Computer Games, Hong Kong, January, 2003. [ PDF ]
Oliveira, M., Mortensen, J., Jordan, J., Steed, A., Slater, M., "The Pitfalls in System Design for Distributed Virtual Environments: A Case Study", Proceedings International Workshop on Immersive Telepresence, Juan Les Pin, December, 2002. [ PDF ]
Mortensen, J., Vinayagamoorthy, V., Slater, M., Steed, A., Lok, B. and Whitton, M. C., "Collaboration in Tele-Immersive Environments", Eighth Eurographics Workshop on Virtual Environments, Barcelona, May 2002, p93-101 [ PDF (1.6M) ]
Steed, A., Mortensen, J., Frecon E. (2001) Spelunking: Experiences using the DIVE System on CAVE-like Platforms. Immersive Projection Technologies and Virtual Environments 2001, ed. Frohlicj B., Deisinger, J., Bullinger, H.- J., pp. 153-164, Springer-Verlag/Wien. [ PDF (150K) ]
Frecon, E., Smith, G., Steed, A., Stenius, M., Stahl, O. (2001) An Overview of the COVEN Platform, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 10(1), February 2001, pp. 109-127 , MIT Press, ISSN 1054-7460
Greenhalgh, C., Bullock, A., Frecon, E., Lloyd, D., Steed, A. (2001) Making Networked Virtual Environments Work, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 10(2), April 2001, pp. 142-159 , MIT Press, ISSN 1054-7460.
A.Steed and E.Frecon, "Building and Supporting a Large-Scale Collaborative Virtual Environment", Proceedings of 6th UKVRSIG, University of Salford, 13th - 15th September 1999, p59-69. This paper won the best paper prize. [ PDF ]
A.Steed, E.Frecon, D. Pemberton and G. Smith, "The London Travel Demonstrator", Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, December 20-22nd 1999, pp. 50-57, ACM Press, ISBN 1-58113-141-0. [PDF (350K)]

DIVE Application Papers from UCL

I. Heldal, A. Steed, M. Spante, R. Schroeder, S. Bengtsson, M. Partanan, "Successes and Failures in Co-Present Situations", forthcoming in Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2004, MIT Press.
V. Vinayagamoorthy, M. Garau, A. Steed, and M. Slater, "An Eye Gaze Model for Dyadic Interaction in an Immersive Virtual Environment: Practice and Experience ", Computer Graphics Forum, 23(1), pp1-11, Eurographics Association.
Laura K. James, Chien-yu Lin, Anthony Steed, Mel Slater, "Social Anxiety in Virtual Environments: A Pilot Study", CyberPsychology and Behaviour 6(3), pp 237-243 (also presented at Cybertherapy 2003).
Heldal, I. , Brathe, L., Schroeder, R., Steed, A. "Interaction Fragments Influencing Collaboration in Distributed Virtual Environments", accepted for publication in Schroeder, R., Axelsson, A.S. (ed.) Avatars at Work and Play: Collaboration and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments, 2004, London, Springer-Verlag.
Steed A., Spante, M., Schroeder R., Heldal I., Axelsson A-S, "Strangers and Friends in Caves: An Exploratory Study of Collaboration in Networked IPT Systems for Extended Periods of Time", ACM SIGGRAPH 2003 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, 27 - 30 April 2003 Monterey, California.
Spante, M., Heldal, I., Steed, A., Axelsson, A.-S., Schroeder, R., "Strangers and Friends in Networked Immersive Environments: Virtual Spaces for Future Living", HOIT 2003: The Networked Home and the Home of the Future.
Steed, A., Schroeder, R., Axelsson, A.-S., Nilsson, A., Heldal, I., Wideström, J., Abelin, Å. (2001) Solving a 3D Cube Puzzle in a Collaborative Virtual Environment: As Good as Really Being There Together? To be presented at SIGGRAPH 2001.
Schroeder, R., Steed, A., Axelsson, A-S, Heldal, I, Abelin, A., Widestrom, J., Nilsson, A., Slater, M. (2001) Collaborating in Networked Immersive Spaces: As Good as Being There Together?, Computers & Graphics, Special Issue on Mixed Realities - Beyond Conventions, 25(5), October 2001.
M. Slater, J. Howell, A. Steed, D-P. Pertaub, M. Garau, S. Springel (2000) Acting in Virtual Reality, ACM Collaborative Virtual Environments, CVE'2000.

DIVE System and Application Papers from Elsewhere

Frecon, E., DIVE: communication architecture and programming model, IEEE Communications Magazine, 42(4), Apr 2004, p34-40.
Gracanin, D. Yunxian Zhou DaSilva, L.A., Quality of service for networked virtual environments, IEEE Communications Magazine, 42(4), Apr 2004, p42-48.
D. Roberts, R. Wolff, O. Otto, A. Steed, "Constructing a Gazebo: Supporting Team Work in a Tightly Coupled, Distributed Task in Virtual Reality", Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 16(6), 644 - 657, MIT Press.
Wolff, R., Roberts, D., and Otto, O, A study of event traffic during the shared manipulation of objects within collaborative virtual environments, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, 13(3), 251-262.

Any local queries about Dive should go to

Anthony Steed, A.Steed@cs.ucl.ac.uk