Project Suggestions for the Academic Year 2004/2005

General project areas:

• Immersive and non-immersive Virtual Reality Systems

• Virtual Environments - in particular on Presence, the perception of being in a virtual environment

• Interaction with the Virtual Environment – Human reaction in the VE

• Wireless devices

• Haptic Interfaces – physical contact with virtual object

Potential Projects and Experiments

• Experiments in the CAVE

• Experiments on Presence

• Wireless applications with sensor devices

PRE-REQUISITES:

• Good programming knowledge.

• Programming will be done using in C/C++ and Java.

• Could be required the learning of other specific libraries (i.e. for network, CAVE, haptic) as OpenGL, VRPN, CAVELib, VRJuggler.

• Could be required the use of different operative systems as Windows, SGI Irix or Linux.

• Regular attendance to supervision meetings is required and vital for the successful completion of the project.

The project might include the acquisition of new skills, i.e. 3D modelling, Research Methods for social scientists, statistics, etc.

LIST OF POSSIBLE PROJECT TOPICS:

A wearable device (by Bristol University) can be used to connect different sensors (accelerometer, physiological, environmental ...) with a main server, using wireless networking. The students have to develop applications and research in tracking or gesture recognition or data conditioning. Specific projects to be defined.

The Virtual-Reality Peripheral Network (VRPN) is a set of classes within a library and a set of servers that are designed to implement a network-transparent interface between application programs and the set of physical devices (tracker, etc.) used in a virtual-reality (VR) system. The library is used in many experiment with VE applications. The students are required to develop a library of functions to allow different operations during the running of the experiments.

Other suggestions are appreciated .... depends on the other projects I'm following !!!