Virtual Reality News: 8 August 2002Virtual Reality News: 8 August 2002
| About VREfresh news Each edition of virtual reality news is now published on a separate page, ensuring that links (particularly from VREfresh) continue to remain current. To view news from previous issues, please use the navigation buttons below. |
VREfresh Email alerter of news items and associated URLs, send an email with your name, organisation, country (and for the US a zip code) to the Editor via the link above. |
 |
Forward to next week
|
Back to previous week
|
 |
| El.pub News |
A free email alerter of the latest news items and associated URLs. |
Users, Applications & Projects
01 Real-time Applications via the Internet
02 Audio Content in Virtual Spaces
03 Mix Real and Virtual Worlds
04 Assess and Train
05 Russian Virtual Culture & Heritage
06 Integrating CAD/CAE into VR
07 Workplace Design
08 Lockheed Martin & SGI
09 New York Jets Go 3D
10 Enhance Customer Productivity & Sales
Products & Services
11 3D in PowerPoint
12 Photographic Texture CD
13 Sharp Display
14 TGS to Launch amira 3.0
15 Plug-ins for Rhinoceros
16 Visualizing Complex Data Sets
17 Release from Spatial
18 Professional Broadcast and Post-Production
19 Radeon for Retail
Companies & Markets
20 Merger
21 One Million Software Downloads
22 ATT Metrology Services & Arc Second
23 Cimmetry Systems Seminars
24 Meet UK Award Winning Company
25 DoD Decision on RTi/HLA
Patents, Standards & Benchmarks
26 Patent: VR Immersion Therapy
People & Appointments
27 EDS Files Lawsuit
Events & Calls for Papers
28 VR World Congress V
29 PRESENCE 2002
30 IEEE VISUALIZATION 2002
31 Collaborative Virtual Environments 2002
32 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics
33 SIGGRAPH 2003
34 More Events
Barco has acquired the assets of TAN Projektionstechnologie GmbH & Co.KG and TAN AG, based in Düsseldorf, Germany and Marin, Switzerland, which will strengthen BARCO's market position - particularly in Germany. BARCO is to incorporate the existing customer base of TAN, its current orders and projects, technological and market knowledge and a team of system engineers, system integrators, sales and support people.
Eutelsat, European Spatial Agency, is coordinating a pilot project named VERDI (Virtual Environments for Real-time applications over the Internet) in the framework of the Artes 3 programme of ESA dealing with VR and rich media applications over satellite notably for e-learning and e-marketing. VERDI will be the subject of a presentation and demonstration at VR World Congress V. See item 202.28 for details.
Philippe Van Nedervelde, CEO, E-Spaces (Belgium) and Co-CEO, X3D Technologies (USA) will present "Interactive Virtual 3D World Communities" at VR World Congress V. Distributed communities are the natural next step in the evolution of networked computing. They facilitate not just mobility of content to members, but also mobility of context. To support communities on a wide scale requires developments from low-level communication protocols supporting transparent access to mobile components, through to distributed operating systems, high-level programming languages and models allowing complex interactions.
LAB@FUTURE focuses on three strategic e-Learning experiments for laboratory education (Science-Fluid Dynamics, Mathematics-Geometry, and Arts and Humanities). Experiments will be run at large scale involving 20-50 schools from eight countries. The underlying technologies are based on operational and scalable paradigms including Augmented Reality, Mixed Realities, Haptics, Multiuser VR worlds and mobile technologies. LAB@FUTURE will be the subject of a presentation and demonstration by Dr Costas Davarakis at VR World Congress V.
Partners in LAB@FUTURE are Systema Informatics (Greece), University of Helsinki (Finland), Universitaet Bremen (Germany), Parallelgraphics (Ireland), Vizualizacijo (Slovenia), Technische Universitaet Wien (Austria) and Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zuerich (Switzerland). Participating at VR World Congress V could help you enter an international consortium for a VR/i3D project.
Also for e-marketing, there will be a demonstration of Virtual Showroom: new ways of using 3D real-time visualization for e-commerce at VR World Congress V. See item 202.28 for details.
The Charismatic (interactive speech activated avatars in virtual heritage VEs for edutainment) project will be presented and demonstrated at VR World Congress V. See item 202.28 for details. Partners in Charismatic are Mellon Technologies (Greece), University of East Anglia (UK), British Telecommunications (UK), Universitaet Stuttgart (Germany), Fraunhofer Institut Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation IOA (Germany), Technische Universitaet Braunschweig (Germany), Televirtual (UK), Tan Projektionstechnologie (Germany) and Exodus (Greece).
LISTEN will provide users with intuitive access to personalized and situated audio information spaces while they naturally explore everyday environments. A new form of multi-sensory content is proposed to enhance the sensual, emotional and pedagogical impact of a broad spectrum of applications ranging from art shows to marketing or entertainment events. This is achieved by augmenting the physical environment through a dynamic soundscape, which users experience over motion-tracked wireless headphones. Immersive audio-augmented environments are created by combining high-definition spatial audio rendering technology with advanced user modeling methods. LISTEN will be described at VR World Congress V.
St_Elmo implements a conversational character. An open source servlet engine runs an XML-based cinematic script, using affect synthesis and fuzzy logic, to generate a RT3D natural language front end. The character then sets the context of conversation through an interactive narrative, which the reader is invited to uncover. A presentation at VR World Congress V will show the basic development approach and artistic goals of the project.
For two years, the art.live project has developed an architecture and a set of tools for the creation of new narrative applications that mix the real and virtual worlds. The project explored many aspects of Mixed-Reality, from telepresence to augmented reality, from standalone applications to collaborative games. The project concluded by demonstrating new immersive interactive possibilities relying on the 'magic mirror' paradigm which will be shown at VR World Congress V.
Maybe you are interested in entering a consortium to bid for some of the European Commission's $3.6bn Sixth Framework budget. Partners in art.live are Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne Ecublens (Switzerland), Universite Joseph Fourier Grenoble (France), Philips (France), Fastcom Technology (Switzerland), Association pour le Developpement de l'Enseignement et de la Recherche en Systematique Appliquee (France), Associacao para o Desenvolvimento das Telecomunicacoes e Tecnicas de Informatica (Portugal) and Casterman Edition (Belgium).
The VIRTUALFIRES system will be used for assessing the fire safety of tunnels, for training of rescue personnel and for planning rescue scenarios and will be able to replace real fire tests. The end users of this system will be tunnel operators, government organizations concerned about tunnel safety and rescue organizations such as fire brigades. The system can be used for ascertaining the fire safety of existing tunnels and will be presented and demonstrated at VR World Congress V.
Russian Web Service has worked closely with Russian museums (State Russian Museum, State museum of Saint-Petersburg's history etc) and the municipality of Saint-Petersburg in VR representations of culture and heritage in the global network. An overview of the experience of VR in cross-national culture distribution will be presented and demonstrated at VR World Congress V.
If you have considered working with Eastern European countries, specifically Russia, VR World Congress V provides an exception learning opportunity.
Virtual Simulation Environment For a Seamless Integration of CAD/CAE into VR (VisiCADE) will be demonstrated at VR World Congress V. Partners in the VisiCADE consortium are Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung (Germany), Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (France), PROSTEP Produktdatentechnologie (Germany), EADS Airbus (Germany), Transcendata Europe (UK), Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK), ZF Friedrichshafen (Germany), Queen's University of Belfast (UK) and CS Systemes d'Information (France).
DIVERCITY primarily addresses Workplace Design by developing, integrating and evaluating innovative workplace technologies for creating innovative and new workplace environments in the building industry sector. It aims to improve the process of building design and construction by enabling the user groups to operate both more efficiently and with better interaction and will be presented and demonstrated at VR World Congress V.
Also looking at the workplace, Call-centers are a fast growing source of employment in the European economy: The Angelo (Knowledge Based Virtual Facilitator in Team Working) Project’s goal is to use new technology to improve quality of work for operators in the next generation of call-centers. This includes analysis of and design of an advanced system for call-centre operator support, including a broadband IP-network, software-based session interpreter, knowledge base, workflow engine, systems to monitor key environmental and physiological parameters, software based “measurement system” to model and anticipate operator needs and requests and an advanced “augmented reality” human-machine interface.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. has purchased SGI visualization technology to find the best ways to design, build and maintain the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The multimillion-dollar purchase order, booked and delivered in the June quarter, includes Onyx 3000 series visualization systems as well as Silicon Graphics Fuel and Octane2 workstations. SGI workstations run CATIA engineering and design applications, while SGI visualization systems power Lockheed Martin's JSF flight simulation laboratory in Fort Worth, Texas. In October 2001, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded a $19 billion contract to Lockheed Martin to produce and test an initial 22 F-35 JSF aircraft during the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase. Designed to replace the A-10, AV-8, F-16 and F/A-18, more than 3,000 F-35 JSF aircraft will be manufactured by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, Britain's Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, and Canada's Department of National Defense.
URL: http://www.sgi.com
Based upon its study released in March, Greenfield Online reports that 81% of online shoppers found that quick views of product details are a critical component in their buying decision. Now the New York Jets are to use Viewpoint's ZoomView technology as the interactive shopping medium for its team apparel and merchandise store. Working with agencies ID Society and Nineteen Nineteen, the Jets are completely redesigning the product area of their web site to utilize ZoomView across the entire shopping site. To start, 125 products will be deployed in ZoomView and select merchandise is expected to be featured in interactive Viewpoint 3D. Jets shoppers will be able to get "up close" to a product and see the embroidery, the fabric, the design and the stitching of the product they are looking to purchase. The content is expected to launch early fall in time for the football season.
URL: http://www.idsociety.com
URL: http://www.viewpoint.com
URL: http://www.newyorkjets.com
Jergens Inc., manufacturers of "Standard Components with the Highest Standards" is using SolidWorks 3D PartStream.NET to enhance customer productivity while increasing sales of its tooling and fixture components used in aerospace, automotive, shipbuilding, and industrial products. Powered by 3D PartStream.NET, the Jergens online catalog allows design engineers to view i3D models of Jergens' components and download the exact product configurations into their designs, reducing their overall manufacturing costs and increasing product quality, while ensuring customers incorporate Jergens' products into their designs. 3D PartStream.NET enables customers to download 3D CAD models of Jergens' products in a few minutes instead of taking hours to draw components from scratch based on information found in paper catalogs. Jergens' tooling and fixture components allow customers to accurately locate and hold work pieces to machine tools, such as vertical and horizontal machine centers, as well as other shop floor machinery. With tight production schedules, Jergens customers need innovative ways to tool their equipment quickly and accurately for every manufacturing job. Proper fixture alignment is essential during this changeover process, and any small miscalculation could cause significant problems downstream in manufacturing.
URL: http://www.solidworks.com
URL: http://www.jergensinc.com/
Kaon Interactive has a new 3D capability for Microsoft PowerPoint. Companies are now able to include high resolution, geometrically precise 3D models of their products in PowerPoint presentations. These interactive models will help with education and efficiency for sales, training, customer service, and publicity purposes. To get a Kaon 3D product model for use in PowerPoint, marketers send the product to Kaon for digital photography and 3D model creation. Kaon 3D models can be used for PowerPoint, product display on the Web, online advertising, multi-party collaboration and to generate images for print. Kaon says that creation of 3D product models will cost about the same as a professional 2D photo shoot. Companies using Kaon technology include Bose, Casio, Cisco, Dell, Hitachi, Nokia, Palm, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony.
URL: http://www.kaon.com
Eric Smith writes that he has a tileable photographic texture CD that compares with Viewpoint and Marlin Studios collections. He has worked on it for two years and put 2000+ hours into it.
Sharp Systems of America has a 20.1-inch LCD Panel monitor capable of displaying a true resolution of 1.9 Megapixels (1600x1200). The LL-T2010W is said to provide excellent off-axis imaging with minimum chroma shift within its symmetrical viewing cone of 170 degrees. The LL-T2010W may be switched between two computers, and its dual inputs accommodate analogue or digital (DVI) interface. It is priced at $2,099
TGS will release amira 3.0 within the next 90 days. amira, is an application program used in creating 3D visualizations and geometric models of 3D image data sets from various application areas, e.g. medicine, biology, biochemistry, chemistry, physics and engineering. amira allows 3D objects to be represented as grids suitable for numerical simulations, notably as triangular surfaces and volumetric tetrahedral grids. amira provides methods to generate such grids from voxel data representing an image volume, and it includes a general-purpose interactive 3D viewer. amiraDev 3.0, which will be released in conjunction with amira 3.0, provides an API that allows the user to add new components by C++ programming. New features include a more powerful image segmentation editor, improved 3D surface reconstruction capabilities, the ability to handle large data objects, a new region-of-interest concept for handling large data sets, improved file import, or new alignment methods for slices, surfaces and volumes have been incorporated into amira 3.0. amiraVR is a specialized and extended version of the amira visualization system which is dedicated for use in immersive installations, such as large-screen stereoscopic projections, CAVE or Holobench systems. Among others, it supports multi-threaded multi-pipe rendering, head-tracking, advanced 3D interaction concepts and 3D menus allowing interaction with any amira object in the same way as on the desktop. Indeed - Visual Concepts GmbH, originally founded as a spin-off from Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB), is the developer of the amira visualization system.
URL: http://www.tgs.com
URL: http://www.indeed3d.com
Three new plug-ins for Rhinoceros, the 3D NURBS modeling program, are available from Cadalog Inc.’s Rhino3Dstore.com web site. MeshWorks adds more functionality to Rhino’s polymesh features for improved prototyping; Involute Gear makes highly accurate involute spur gears in as little as two steps; and RFCommands adds 28 general utilities for more flexible curve and entity handling.
URL: http://www.rhino3dstore.com
URL: http://www.cadalog.com/about/
Fuel Tech Inc. has released Virtual Vantage, a VR-based software package for visualizing complex data sets, especially those resulting from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses. The software delivers the experience of exploring model results from a first-person perspective, with a wide range of analysis tools immersed with the user in the virtual world. Virtual Vantage has been demonstrated in VR theaters like the C4 and C6 at Iowa State University's Virtual Reality Application Center, as well as on more modest Unix and Linux desktop systems.
URL: http://www.virtualvantage.net
URL: http://www.fueltechnv.com
Spatial Corp., a Dassault Systemes company, has released 3D ACIS PHL (Precise Hidden Line) V5, which is designed to allow Spatial's ACIS partners to create fast, accurate 2D hidden line drawings of 3D models. ACIS PHL V5 provides Spatial's ACIS modeling kernel with the same hidden line removal technology used in CATIA V5.
AJA Video manufactures SDI and HD-SDI video interface and conversion solutions for the professional broadcast and post-production markets. The recently released KONA-HD and KONA-SD are claimed to be the first 10-bit, uncompressed QuickTimeT video capture cards available for AppleT's new OS X. KONA-HD and KONA-SD handle popular effects in real-time, without duration limits. KONA was designed for use with Final Cut Pro 3T, but it is also compatible with QuickTime compatible programs like Maya 3D and After Effects, as well as non-QuickTime programs like PhotoShop and PowerPoint.
URL: http://www.aja.com
ATI Technologies has added the RADEON 9700 PRO graphics board, featuring the RADEON 9700 PRO visual processing unit (VPU), to its retail lineup. Based on the RADEON 9700 series VPUs introduced in July, the RADEON 9700 PRO board is aimed at the gaming and enthusiast market. It features 128MB of DDR memory and has a price of $399.
URL: http://www.ati.com
Quantum3D, Inc. and CG2, Inc. are to merge and expand on previous collaborative integration and development efforts.
One million software downloads have been made of Actify's SpinFire product suite which enables anyone to access and visualize 2D and 3D CAD designs without requiring a full-featured CAD system or workstation.
ATT Metrology Services, Inc. has become an Arc Second, Inc. Constellation 3Di Integration Partner. The two companies will work together to customize and install Constellation 3Di based solutions for advanced industrial metrology applications. Constellation 3Di was developed utilizing Arc Second's proprietary 3D-Intelligence technology.
Cimmetry Systems is continuing its series of free Visualization and Collaboration seminars. Four additional half-day sessions will be held in Chicago, IL and Troy, MI. Featured speaker at the events will be John MacKrell, Senior Consultant at CIMdata, who will speak about the market for visualization tools and provide attendees with a framework for achieving business benefits through the use of Visualization technology. Attendees will also gain insight into the broad application of Visualization across the extended enterprise, including their supply chain.
SEOS Limited of the UK has been presented with a 2002 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the International Trade Category. The honor follows another in 1995 for Export achievement and two in 1998 for Export and Technical Innovation. Since it was founded in 1984 the company has grown to employ 180 staff providing visual display systems for Aircraft Flight Simulators and VR. The main criterion for gaining the Queen's Award is sustained achievement in the volume of exports. In the last five years, SEOS exports have grown from £5.6M ($8M) in 1995/6 to £17.3M ($25M) in 2000/1, a year-on-year average growth rate of 25%. The main market is North America, followed by Europe and the Far East; in most years exports account for approximately 80% of the company’s turnover. At VR World Congress V, the Trimension division of SEOS, will show a multi-media presentation and control system for delivering a seamless, scaleable desktop onto multiple screen displays which integrates media sources including VCR, DVD, camera, computer, workstations and laptop to provide a coherent working and presentation environment.
URL: http://www.seos.com
The U.S. Department of Defense-sponsored and developed Runtime Infrastructure (RTI), the software implementation of the DoD's High Level Architecture (HLA), has begun its transition to a solely commercially developed and sustained product. According to Chris Turrell, the DMSO's technical lead for the HLA: "This is not an abandonment of the HLA program and technology by the DoD, but rather recognition of the development of a commercial HLA support base."This decision is not made lightly, but with the realization that there is an emerging commercial base of RTI development and support that will be better able to meet the future needs of the DoD M&S user community than a single product developed within the DoD." Version 6 of the RTI 1.3 Next Generation (RTI 1.3 NG V6), now available on the HLA Software Distribution Center, will be the last freely available and supported RTI product to be released by the HLA program. RTI 1.3 NG V6 will remain available and freely supported by the RTI Helpdesk until September 30, 2002. At that time all versions of the DoD sponsored RTI will be removed from the software distribution center and the RTI HelpDesk support will be terminated."
URL: http://www.dmso.mil/
US Patent Number: 6425764 has been awarded for "A method of treating a psychological, psychiatric, or medical condition by choosing a psychological strategy for treating the condition, encoding electronic instructions for a virtual reality environment in such a way that the interactive virtual reality environment implements the psychological strategy, loading electronic instructions into a virtual reality technology unit equipped with a display for displaying the virtual reality environment and with a patient input device for receiving responses to the environment from the patient, and instructing the human patient how and when to use the virtual reality technology unit to interact with the environment. The interactive environment contains instructions for a scoring procedure for quantitatively analyzing the medical condition of the patient, and/or counseling instructions or self-help instructions. The environment can be used in conjunction with a physical parameter measuring device connected to the virtual reality technology unit. The process is comprehensive and takes place during immersion in fully interactive three-dimensional virtual reality environments utilizing computer generated graphics, images imported from photographs, and video for sensory stimulation. Immersion is achieved with goggles, a head-mounted-display, or other form of visual stimulation, such as surround projection screens or monitors or devices that permit the user to have a virtual experience. It includes the use of voice, music, and sound and other forms of physiological stimulation and feedback. Body sensors and devices such as a hand-held grip permit the user to interact with objects and navigate within the virtual environment."
In Texas, USA, EDS has filed a civil lawsuit seeking to fire Mr Steingraber, the former chairman and chief executive of its A.T. Kearney Inc. management-consulting unit, accusing him of embezzling $100,000 by submitting false and duplicate expense reports and using corporate property for personal use. The suit, without elaborating, accuses its executive of "repeated, systematic misuse and misappropriation of corporate assets and equipment" and submitting false expense reports. Mr. Steingraber joined A.T. Kearney in 1964 and became CEO in 1983, a role in which he continued after EDS bought A.T. Kearney in 1995.
VR World Congress V will be held in Paris, France on September 9th and 10th, 2002. Professor Bob Stone, Chairman for VR World Congress V, will be available to discuss the report “Human-Centred Design Processes in Virtual Environments: Methodologies and Real-Life Case Studies.” The report prepared by Virtual Presence has four aims: 1. Clarify the relationship between interactive 3D or Virtual Reality (i3D/VR) and other forms of Synthetic Environments (SEs). 2: Overcome some of the myths associated traditionally with VR (particularly related to certain technology implementations and costs). 3: Analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with i3D/VR. 4: Describe case studies that support the case for i3D/VR including examples supporting concept definition, engineering and design, test and evaluation, in-service support (eg. maintenance) and training. The report stresses the fact that desktop VR (conventional keyboard, mouse and screen) and basic forms of video-projected VR deliver sufficient interactivity for up to 85% 0f i3D/VR applications. The need to introduce more sophisticated interface technologies, such as “immersion” (using head-mounted display technology), must be accompanied by a focused human factors analysis to judge whether or not the human’s task actually warrants this form of interface. Indeed, to this end and within a separate section, the report considers the importance of adopting human-centred principles in the design of advanced user interfaces. Copies of the report may be requested from Professor Stone at VR World Congress V.
PRESENCE 2002, Portugal on October 9-11, 2002
Co-located with IEEE Visualization 2002 are InfoVis 2002, the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization, and VolVis 2002, the IEEE/SIGGRAPH Symposium on Volume Visualization and Graphics. Boston, Massachusetts, USA - October 27 - November 1, 2002.
URL: http://vis.computer.org/vis2002
ACM Collaborative Virtual Environments 2002: Bonn, Germany - September 30-October 2, 2002. CVE 2002 is a conference dedicated to the design, development and use of collaborative virtual environments (CVEs).
2003 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics: California, USA - April 27 to 30, 2003. Papers Deadline: 15 September 2002
ACM SIGGRAPH is dedicated to the generation and dissemination of information on computer graphics and interactive techniques: San Diego, California, USA - July 27-31, 2003 (Early abstracts & proposals by October 31, 2002).
For information on events relevant to the VR/i3D community, VREfresh recommends the web sites below.
| About VREfresh news Each edition of virtual reality news is now published on a separate page, ensuring that links (particularly from VREfresh) continue to remain current. To view news from previous issues, please use the navigation buttons below. |
VREfresh Email alerter of news items and associated URLs, send an email with your name, organisation, country (and for the US a zip code) to the Editor via the link above. |
|
|
Forward to next week
|
Back to previous week
|
|
|
File
Downloads - Please note
|
| File downloads from the El.pub site are currently suspended - the links however have not been updated to reflect this. If you would like access to a particular download file - please email webmasters@elpub.org with a suitable request confirming a description of the file you wish to download. |
El.pub - Interactive
Electronic Publishing R & D News and Resources
We welcome feedback
and contributions to the information service, and proposals for subjects for
the news service (mail to: webmasters@elpub.org)
Edited by: Logical Events Limited - electronic marketing, search engine marketing, pay per click advertising, search engine optimisation, website optimisation consultants in London, UK. Visit our website at: www.logicalevents.org
Last up-dated: 16 February 2024
© 2024 Copyright and disclaimer El.pub and www.elpub.org are brand names owned by Logical Events Limited - no unauthorised use of them or the contents of this website is permitted without prior permission.