Simulation Driven Virtual Reality Lacey Duckworth December, 2009 Dissertation Update A Framework for Large Scale Virtual Simulation Dr. Andrew Strelzoff, Chair Dr. Tulio Sulbaran, Co-Chair Dr. Ray Seyfarth Dr. Nan Wang Dr. Chaoyang Zhang

 Provide an update on

 Meeting Objectives 

 Problem A robust and reusable communication method does not exist to connect external simulation languages with the compelling and accessible client-server Virtual Reality Environments.  Objective Define a communication language protocol schema between a simulation language and a client-server Virtual Reality Environments Test the robustness of the developed communication protocol. 

 What is the relative performance of calculations in Virtual Reality Environment vs. Object Oriented Simulation Languages? Experiment: Compare Second Life, LabVIEW and C++ for sample calculation For all numbers i between 1 and 1,000,000 If i is odd { sum += i } Results  SecondLife (LSL): seconds  LabVIEW: seconds  C++ (computer/orca): seconds/0.007 seconds

 Why use LabVIEW as a simulation language? Many potential collaborators are not expert programmers – LabVIEW presents a simple visual interface and is widely used in engineering and operation fields. LabVIEW is the most widely used Data Acquisition language – long term it will be very useful to have Simulations+VR which can have various devices added easily. LabVIEW is sufficiently fast for “world refreshes” per second and if speed becomes an issue additional faster modules in other languages can be added using LabVIEW as a data integrator and communication hub.

 Are there other examples of large simulation in Client-Server VR? All examples found were simply visualizations without significant simulation

 What will be the impact of your research? Allow for faster, more complex, and scalable virtual reality environments to be developed. Permit the extension of these hybrid simulations to be extended using the object-oriented functionality. Could result in larger, more complex, and scalable virtual reality simulations to be developed in a large number of fields including construction, medical technology, education, and so forth.

 Present Ph.D. prospectus to obtain feedback and approval to continue with Dissertation  Approve Ph.D. Plan of Study

 Background  Objective  Methodology  Expected Results and Impact  Appendix A: A Study in Virtual Reality  Appendix B: A Study in Simulation  Appendix C: A Study in Communication Protocol  Appendix D: Benchmarking  Appendix E: A Study in Simulation Software

 Virtual Reality Environments (VREs) Are used for decision making, design, training and various other purposes. Must maintain breadth (sensory dimensions) and depth (quality) of information to submerge the user into the VRE.

 Simulations Useful for testing products or methods. Base models can be developed and interactions can “predict” the outcome.

 Communication Protocol Set of rules for data to be transferred between communicaiton channels. Main focus in developing communicaiton protocols is to improve latency as well as adding new communication protocols.

 Simulation Software LabVIEW

 Simulation Software OMNNeT++

 Simulation Software Simulink

 A robust and reusable communication method does not exist to connect external simulation languages with the compelling and accessible client-server Virtual Reality Environments.

 To develop a robust and scalable communication method that connects external simulation languages with client-server Virtual Reality Environments.  Two sub-objectives Sub-Objective 1: Define a generalizable communication layer between an external simulation language and a client-server Virtual Reality Environment (VRE) Sub-Objective 2: Test the robustness and scalability of the proposed design a case study with several components.

Sub-Objective 1: Define a generalizable communication layer between an external simulation language and a client-server Virtual Reality Environment (VRE)  A mapping between the finite state machine definitions of the generalized simulation language(Σ 1,S 1,s 01,δ 1,F 1 ) and the event-driven state machine of the client-server VRE (Σ 2,S 2,s 02,δ 2,F 2 ).

Sub-Objective 2: Test the robustness and scalability of the proposed design a case study with several components.  The communication protocol as developed in sub-objective 1 will be tested using a simulation language such as LabVIEW, a VRE such as SecondLife, and a motivational large scale simulation problem.

 Sub-Objective 1: Define a generalizable communication layer between an external simulation language and a client-server VRE. “Qualitative – Content Analysis”  Qualitative - focusing on phenomena occurring in the “real world” and studying the entire complexity of that phenomenon  Content Analysis - a detailed and systematic examination of the contents of a particular body of material for the purpose of identifying patterns, themes, or biases.

 “Qualitative-Content Analysis” methodology applied to Sub-Objective 1

 “Qualitative-Content Analysis” methodology applied to Sub-Objective 1 (Cont)

 “Qualitative-Content Analysis” methodology applied to Sub-Objective 1

Sub-Objective 2: Test the robustness and scalability of the proposed design a case study with several components.  “Qualitative - Case Study”  Qualitative - focusing on phenomena occurring in the “real world” and studying the entire complexity of that phenomenon.  Case Study - in-depth data is gathered relative to the topic for the purpose of learning more about the unknown or poorly understood situation.

 Qualitative – Case Study” applied to Sub- Objective 2

 Qualitative – Case Study” applied to Sub- Objective 2 (Cont.)

 By developing a communication protocol between an object-oriented simulation language and a client-server VRE Allows for faster, more complex, and scalable virtual reality environments to be developed. Permits the extension of these hybrid simulations to be extended using the object-oriented functionality. Results in larger, more complex, and scalable virtual reality simulations to be developed in a large number of fields including construction, medical technology, education, and so forth.

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