Virtual environment for on-campus orientation

This paper presents details of the specification, design and functionality of the virtual UNR campus software (in short, VCampus), an interactive virtual environment that allows users to explore the 3D representation of the University of Nevada, Reno. VCampus provides a realistic-rendering of the university and allows users to obtain useful information such as building names and directories, university historical and statistical data, events scheduled to take place on campus, and area maps centered on specified locations. The users can navigate through the 3D representation of the campus by adopting either a first or a third person view and by selecting either a walking or a flying exploration mode. Various graphical objects can be accessed in the environment to obtain orientation data and general information, a guided tour is available, and communication and collaboration with peers is supported by a multi-user, multi-character real-time interaction facility. The paper also includes a comparison of VCampus with similar projects, a discussion of the environment's advantages and limitations, and a set of pointers to future research and development work

[1]  Austin Henderson,et al.  Interaction design: beyond human-computer interaction , 2002, UBIQ.

[2]  Yvonne Rogers,et al.  Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction , 2002 .

[3]  Yokoi Shigeki,et al.  Interactive Conversational Character as a Virtual Tour Guide to an Online Museum Exhibition , 2002, ICCE.

[4]  Alexei Sourin.  Nanyang Technological University Virtual Campus , 2004, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[5]  Rynson W. H. Lau,et al.  CyberWalk: a web-based distributed virtual walkthrough environment , 2003, IEEE Trans. Multim..

[6]  Frederick C. Harris,et al.  Virtual UNR Campus: The Specification Process , 2004, Software Engineering Research and Practice.

[7]  Michael Zyda,et al.  Networked virtual environments - desgin and implementation , 1999 .

[8]  S. Papson.  A student's perspective: getting real with virtual reality , 2004 .

[9]  Y. Rogers,et al.  Interaction Design , 2002 .

[10]  Michael W. Haas,et al.  Virtual and Adaptive Environments: Applications, Implications, and Human Performance Issues , 2003 .

[11]  Jim Arlow,et al.  Uml and the Unified Process: Practical Object-Oriented Analysis and Design , 2005 .

[12]  Gerhard Fischer,et al.  Beyond Human-Computer Interaction , 1993 .

[13]  Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann,et al.  Believability and Interaction in Virtual Worlds , 2005, MMM.

[14]  Brian Berenbach,et al.  The evaluation of large, complex UML analysis and design models , 2004, Proceedings. 26th International Conference on Software Engineering.

[15]  Kostas Karpouzis,et al.  Emotion representation for virtual environments , 2003, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Telecommunications, 2003. ConTEL 2003..