IEEE VR 2007, Charlotte, North Carolina (March 2007)

Charlotte city centre

Two half-day tutorials on navigation

Presenter Roy Ruddle, School of Computing, University of Leeds, UK. Handout covering both tutorials and a bibliography. Topics:

• Navigation: Theoretical foundations and techniques for travel
• Aiding and evaluating navigation

Both tutorials were a mixture of lectures and practical work. One of the main practicals involved designing and actually running a navigation experiment. In another practical attendees divided into four groups to "design a VR interface to allow an architect to review the design of a new conference hall with a client" (click on any image to get a larger version).

Then each group had to simulate their interface by explaining how it worked and acting out its use in the real world! (again, click on any image to get a larger version).

The winners were rewarded with a handsome prize(!), and this video (47 Mb) shows part of their simulation. Sorry it ends abruptly - my batteries expired.

Demos

Amongst the fun demos at VR'07 were (click thumbnails for larger images):

Me!

Olfactory display, showcased using a curry cooking application (Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Pointman interface, providing superb manoeuvrability for desktop navigation (Naval Research Laboratory)
Novint Falcon haptic device (very cheap, and very good!)
Tactile feedback system for finger-based interactions (Bauhaus-Universitat, Weimar)

Roy Ruddle, 15 March 2007