More Projects

Table Of Content
SmallVR - a simple VR Development Toolkit
Aeromóvel Project
Medical Trainning System
ARLIST - Augmented Reality for Life Support Training
Human Eye Simulation
Semi-automatic Lung Segmentation from Medical Images Using Texture Descriptor
User Assisted Segmentation and Polygonal Organ Reconstruction from Medical Images
A Methodology To Specify 3d Interaction Using Petri Nets
Volume Rendering Visualization System
Navigation Techniques for Multi-floor Virtual Environment
Manufacturing Cell Virtual Environment
Multi Scale Navigation Techniques
Image-Based Hand Tracking System
Shared Memory Library
Interaction in Collaborative Virtual Environment
Hepactectomy Surgery Simulation
Touch Feedback in Virtual environments
Augmented Reality for Outdoor Applicationss
Remote Memory
Programming and Simulation of Robots using Virtual Reality Techniques
Virtual Bicycle
Software Tools to Support Imersion in Virtual Environments
Immersive Interaction Panel
SimpleSerial
Driver for I-glasses head-tracker
Driver for Thing 3 Interface (TNG3)
Virtua System



Aeromóvel Project back to top

This project is being developed with support from FINEP and intend to plan the installation a APM line in the PUCRS Campus. The role of GRV at this project is to develop a 3D model of the Campus and run a real-time stereo simulation of the train.

Click here to see some pictures from the simulation

The official project page can be found at:
http://www.pucrs.br/aeromovel/







Medical Trainning System back to top

This project aims to test the usage of virtual enviroments for medical training and education.  We are developping a virtual surgical center where the student will be able to navigate and interact with the nursery and the patient. 








ARLIST - Augmented Reality for Life Support Training back to top

The area of Medical Qualification in Life Support training is being constantly improved. However, many problems are identified in the training process, such as the lack of realism in the exercises and the low student involvement. In order to qualify the learning process, the ARLIST project (Augmented Reality for Life Support Training) is being developed to add computational resources as sound and images, in the manikins used in the training courses. Through Augmented Reality techniques, the use of OpenGL and some computational resources (e.g. projector ad video camera), it is possible to build an application that defines the images and sounds that should appear in accordance to the clinical state of the patient.

Related Papers:

Pretto, Fabrício ; MANSSOUR, Isabel Harb ; PINHO, Márcio Sarroglia . Augmented Reality for Life Support Training. In: SIBGRAPI - Simpósio Brasileiro de Computação Gráfica e Processamento de Imagens, 2007, Belo Horizonte. To appear, 2007.  (PDF)


   

Human Eye Simulation back to top

See more details here.






Semi-automatic Lung Segmentation from Medical Images Using Texture Descriptor back to top

This project is developping a system to identify interstitial lung tumors using texture analysis.


Imagem


User Assisted Segmentation and Polygonal Organ Reconstruction from Medical Images back to top

This software aims at making possible a three-dimensional reconstruction of human body structures, segmented from medical images (called slices). To this day, it is possible to do automatic and manual segmentation from DICOM images and generates as output a 3D file. This file can be loaded in CAD (Computer Aided Design) systems that are able to create the three-dimensional models from plane sections.

See more details here.





A Methodology To Specify 3d Interaction Using Petri Nets back to top

This work presents a methodology to model and to build 3D interaction tasks in virtual environments using Petri nets, technique-decomposition taxonomy and object-oriented concepts. Therefore, a set of classes and a graphics library are required to build an application and to control the net dataflow. Operations can be developed and represented as Petri Net nodes. These nodes, when linked, represent the interaction process stages. The integration of these approaches results in a modular application, based in the Petri Nets formalism that allows specifying an interaction task, and also to reuse developed blocks in new virtual environments projects.

See more details here.

Related Papers:

RIEDER, R., RAPOSO, A.B., PINHO, M.S. Uma Metodologia Para Especificar Interação 3D utilizando Redes de Petri. Proceedings of the IX Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality. Petrópolis, RJ: LNCC, 2007. (PDF)
 



Volume Rendering Visualization System back to top

This project has developed a viewer for medical images. It displays images on 2D and 3D.








Navigation Techniques for Multi-floor Virtual Environment back to top

Interaction in virtual environments is an area of study that has been developing in a remarkable way in recent years. As we can see on a literature review, the interaction can be divided in control, selection, manipulation and navigation. This last one can be divided in traveling and wayfinding. The travel task is defined as the movement and orientation of the user, and wayfinding is related to the information presented by the environment with the objective to support the user in his localization. This work deals with the evaluation of wayfinding aid techniques in virtual environments that allow users to navigate with high degree of freedom for traveling. The evaluation was made through the development of applications that implement some of the existing techniques and tests with groups of users, where each group tested one of the chosen techniques. The test results have shown that it is useful to use such techniques in this type of environment.

Related Papers:

BACIM, Felipe; TROMBETTA, André Benvenuti; PINHO, Márcio Serolli. Avaliação de Técnicas de Auxílio a Wayfinding em Ambientes Virtuais. In: IX Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality, 2007, Petrópolis, RJ. IX Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality, 2007. (PDF)





Manufacturing Cell Virtual Environment back to top

This work consists of the study of techniques of robotics and Virtual Reality (RV) to develop a simulator that can be used in the robotics schools, having an adequate visualization and a simple and intuitive way of interaction. For this a Virtual Environment (AV) for robotics was developed, in language C++, using OpenGL.We simulate the Scorbot ER-VII robot. RV resources have been incorporated to improve the visualization and to facilitate the interaction of the user with the program. The evaluation of  the environment was performed through the analysis of the results obtained in the experiments carried out with users. Automatic reports for the quantitative questions were generated, and questionnaires were fulfilled for the qualitative questions. The results have shown that the use of RV helps in the execution of the task, improving the visualization by reducing the total time and increasing the precision.

See more details here



Multi Scale Navigation Techniques back to top

The design of virtual environments for applications that have several vlevels of scale has not been deeply addressed. In particular, navigation in such environments is a significant problem. This paper describes the design and evaluation of two navigation techniques for multiscale virtual environments (MSVEs). Issues such as spatial orientation and understanding were addressed in the design process of the navigation techniques. The evaluation of the techniques was done with two experimental and two control groups. The results show that the techniques we designed were significantly better than the control conditions with respect to the time for task completion and accuracy.

See more details here

Related Papers:

KOPPER, Regis; NI, Tao; BOWMAN, Doug; PINHO, Marcio Serolli. Design and Evaluation of Navigation Techniques for Multiscale Virtual Environments. In: IEEE VIRTUAL REALITY 2006, 2006, Alexandria.IEEE Virtual Reality. IEEE Computer Society, 2006. p. 24-31.



SmallVR back to top


The SmallVR toolkit supports virtual reality applications construction. The main goal were to develop a toolkit that allows the rapid development of virtual reality applications and to facilitate the port of existing computer graphics applications to a virtual reality setup. The toolkit supports the following issues: construction of scene graph, view-culling techniques, geometric model loading, collision detection and multiple screen rendering. The toolkit modeling uses an object oriented language to facilitate the modification and upgrade tasks. The SmallVR was built on the top of OpenGL and GLUT libraries.

See more details here.



Image-Based Hand Tracking System back to top

Currently, the use of Virtual Reality technology has opened the possibility to use computers with an interaction level superior to the traditional interfaces based on keyboards and mouse. This is achieved trough devices that allow to insert the users vitually in a computer generated environment. In this virtual environment the user can visualize and manipulate, in three dimensions, virtual objects that are part of it, with the possibility of interacting with them in a similar way like the real world. The degree of interaction in virtual environments is influenced by the capability of track certain parts of body, such as the head, the hand or even the whole body. Also, it is important that this environment enable the execution of certain operations that allow a user interact with a virtual object in real world fashion, providing the feeling that he or she is immersed in another reality. Unfortunately, the cost of such equipments and the amount of wires that need to be attached to the user body, among others restrictions, limit the use of Virtual Reality in everyday life. This work aims to present an alternative to the position and orientation tracker hardware used to track the user hand. Its contribution is to use Image Processing and Computer Vision techniques to implement a video image based hand tracker. To do so, the project is divided in three distinct phases. The first phase detects the hand in an image through skin color segmentation. In this phase, four skin segmentation algorithms are implement and many tests are realized with two skin models and two color space. The second phase calculates the hand position and two algorithms are implemented and tested. In the third phase, the hand orientation is obtained through a Computer Vision technique called Image Moments. After that, through the contour hand analysis, some features are detected, such as fingertips, valleys between the fingers and the wrist. These features can be used to get the 3D hand position and orientation. Along this text each development phase, the techniques used, and its respective results are described in detail.

See more details here





Shared Memory Library back to top

SharedMemoryLib, a C library that provides an easy way to build a common memory page to be shared between different process/programs.

See more details here



Interaction in Collaborative Virtual Environment back to top

Cooperative manipulation refers to the simultaneous manipulation of a virtual object by multiple users in an immersive virtual environment (VE). In this work, we present techniques for cooperative manipulation based on existing single-user techniques. We discuss methods of combining simultaneous user actions, based on the separation of degrees of freedom between two users, and the awareness tools used to provide the necessary knowledge of the partner activities during the cooperative interaction process. We also present a framework for supporting the development of cooperative manipulation techniques, which are based on rules for combining single user interaction techniques. Finally, we report an evaluation of cooperative manipulation scenarios, the results indicating that, in certain situations, cooperative manipulation is more efficient and usable than single-user manipulation.

See more details here.

Related Papers:

Pinho, M. S.; Bowman, D. A.; Freitas, C. M. D. S. Cooperative Object Manipulation in Immersive Virtual Environments: Framework and Techniques In. ACM VIRTUAL REALITY SOFTWARE AND TECHNOLOGY, 2002, Hong Kong, p. 171-178 
Click Image to Enlarge



Hepactectomy Surgery Simulation back to top

The main objective of this work is to help surgery specialists in hepatectomy planning. This work proposes the development of a Virtual Environment to help the planning of a hepatectomy surgery. Some techniques of the modern medicine used to plan a hepatic surgery are described, as well as the difficulties involved in the process. The medical image acquisition methods and the generation of the virtual model of a human liver techniques are briefly explained. Computer graphics is presented as a useful tool to help medicine in areas such as phobia treatments and teaching. The software will be developed using computer graphics and virtual reality techniques combined, in order to have an intuitive human-machine interface. It will show the virtual liver, based on data from a real patient, as well as a cutting plane, controlled by the user, helping to look for the adequate place to make the section. The human-machine interface will be designed in a way the surgeon does not need to be a computer expert.

See more detais here



Touch Feedback in Virtual environments back to top



In this work, a set of tests has been developed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the use of touch sensations in virtual environment simple tasks. The work focused on the model of interaction defined by Doug Bowman which subdivides the manipulation process in four distinct phases: selection, attachment, positioning e release. This design choice allows us to analyze the very specific characteristics present on each phase of the interaction process and for each of them seek for appropriate ways to improve the interactive experience. From this analysis, the type of tactile stimuli that should be generated in each stage was defined, always having the goal of improving the execution of the task.

See more details here

Related Papers:

KOPPER, Régis Augusto Poli; SANTOS, Mauro Cesar Charão dos; PROCHNOW, Daniel; PINHO, Marcio Serolli; LIMA, Julio Cesar. Projeto e Desenvolvimento de dispositivos de geração de tato. In: VII SYMPOSIUM ON VIRTUAL REALITY, 2004, São Paulo.  2004. v. 0, p. 65-75. (PDF)





Augmented Reality for Outdoor Applications back to top

This projetc have built a system to support the use of Augmented Reality in out-door enviroments.

See more details here.



Remote Memory back to top

The “Remote Memory” is a library to support shared distributed memory for Collaborative Applications.

See more details here



Programming and Simulation of Robots using Virtual Reality Techniques back to top

This work presents the design and development of a robot movement system using virtual reality devices, as a glove and a three-dimensional position tracker. By using these devices the user can make, with his hand, the movements he wishes and the robot will repeat them. The system captures the user’s movements and translates them to robot commands. The system implements also a three-dimensional environment simulation environment where many programming tests can be made. See more details here.



Virtual Bicycle back to top


One of the most complicated tasks when working with three-dimensional virtual worlds is the navigation process. Usually, this process requires the use of buttons and key-sequences and the development of interaction metaphors which frequently makes the interaction process artificial and inefficient. In these environments, very simple tasks, like look upward and downward can became extremely complicated. To overcome these obstacles, this work presents an interaction model for three-dimensional virtual worlds, based on the interpretation of the natural gestures of a real user while he/she is walking in a real world. This model is an example of a non-WIMP (Window, Icon, Menu, Pointer) interface. To test this model we created a device named virtual-bike. With this device, the user can navigate through the virtual environment exactly as if he were riding a real bike.

(versão em português)

See more details here

Related Papers:

PINHO, Marcio Serolli; DIAS, Leandro Luis; MOREIRA, Carlos G. Antunes; KHODJAOGHLANIAN,  Emmanuel González; BECKER, Gustavo Pizzini; DUARTE, Lúcio Mauro. A User Interface Model for  Navigation in Virtual Environments. Cyberpsychology And Behaviour Jornal, v. 5, n. 5, p. 443-449, 2002. 

Bike

Bike


Software Tools to Support Imersion in Virtual Environments back to top

This project is developing software libraries to allows easier creation of immersive applications. Now we finished the following libraries:

DXF file Reader - Download here
Polhemus Isotrack II driver - Download here



Immersive Interaction Panel back to top

These project is developing an interaction panel which can be used inside an immersive environment. The user can manipulate a tridimensional panel using a real panel and a real pointer (like a pencil).



SimpleSerial back to top

A very easy-to-use Delphi Driver to read/write a serial Port.
See more details here

Driver for I-glasses head-tracker back to top

A software driver for the I-glasses HMD. Written in Delphi.
See more details here.



Driver for Thing 3 Interface (TNG3) back to top

A software driver for the TNG3 analog-digital converter. Written in Delphi.
See more details here.


Virtua System back to top

A system to manipulate virtual objects. It  is possible to move and rotate the objects. This system was our first work in  virtual realitty. It uses a Powerglove to grab and move the virtual objects.