91-03/U.Alberta.inf From: mark@cs.UAlberta.CA (Mark Green) Subject: VR at the University of Alberta Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1991 19:19:17 GMT Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Virtual Reality Research at University of Alberta Mark Green Associate Professor (403) 492-4584 mark@cs.ualberta.ca Background The computer graphics laboratory at the University of Alberta has been actively involved in virtual reality research for the past few years. This laboratory has a long history of research in both graphical user interfaces and computer animation. We have done a considerable amount of work on software tools for the design and implementation of graphical user interfaces. This includes the development of two well known UIMS's The UofA UIMS (Siggraph'85 Proceed- ings) and the UofA* UIMS (CHI'89 Proceedings and July 1991 issue of ACM TOG). I was also responsible for the estab- lishment of the UIST conference which is the major annual conference devoted exclusively to user interface software. We have also done a considerable amount of work in interac- tive three dimensional animation. This work includes developing a physical model of human motion (June 1987 issue of IEEE CG&A) and a language for defining geometry and behavior for interactive three dimensional animations (November 1988 issue of IEEE CG&A). I was co-chair of the ACM SIGGRAPH'90 Workshop on Software Architectures and Metaphors for Non-WIMP User Interfaces. This workshop addressed the software and hardware requirements for Non-WIMP user interfaces, which includes virtual reality. The report produced by this workshop will appear in a future issue of SIGGRAPH's Com- puter Graphics Quarterly. The report includes a list of major research topics and a reading list suggested by the participants in the workshop. Current Projects The major emphasis of our current work in virtual real- ity is the development of software tools that will facili- tate the development of virtual reality systems and other types of highly interactive 3D user interfaces. To date we have produced two generations of software tools. The first generation consisted of device drivers for some of the stan- dard devices used in virtual reality (such as Polhemus digi- tizers, DataGloves and EyePhones), and an application skele- ton that allowed us to quickly prototype simple VR applica- tions. This tool set was used in a number of scientific applications including an interactive fluid dynamics system (the user could interact, in real-time, with the flow using a DataGlove). This work is reported in the Graphics Inter- face'90 and CGI'90 proceedings. The main purpose of developing the first generation of tools was to determine the requirements for VR development tools. The second generation of tools consists of the MR (Minimal Reality) toolkit, which is a subroutine library similar to that provided by most window systems, for the development of VR applications. This toolkit supports a range of devices normally used in VR user interfaces, dis- tribution of the user interface over multiple workstations, data communications, performance monitoring, gesture recog- nition, navigation and a range of two and three dimensional interaction techniques. This toolkit currently runs on Sil- icon Graphics workstations and will be ported to DEC works- tations in the future. The MR toolkit services as the basis for other tools that we are currently developing. These include special filtering (including predictive filtering) for the Polhemus digitizer used in the EyePhone, DataGlove and other devices, performance optimization tools, and a UIMS for VR applications. We have been working with the Banff Centre on the application of Virtual Reality to the Arts. We are in the process of developing interactive graphics systems that will allow an artist to easily develop the geometry and behavior of virtual worlds. These systems are based on the work that we have done in computer animation, and in particular recent work that we have been doing on the modeling of realistic behavior (both animal and human). At the present time there is one faculty member, 4 Ph.D. and 2 M.Sc. students working on virtual reality related projects in the graphics laboratory. Virtual Reality Course At Graphics Interface'91 Mark Green and Chris Shaw will be giving a 1 day course on Interactive Three Dimensional Graphics and Virtual Reality. Graphics Interface'91 will be held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada from June 3 to June 7, 1991. The course that we are giving will likely be held on Monday June 3 (check with the conference organizers for the exact date). Information on Graphics Interface'91, includ- ing course registration information can be obtained from: Billie Summers Conference Office University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4 (403) 220-4987