Simulation Driven Virtual Reality

1. Simulation Driven Virtual Reality A Framework for Large Scale Virtual Simulation Lacey Duckworth May 18, 2009 Prospectus Dr. Andrew Strelzoff, Chair Dr. Tulio Sulbaran , Co-Chair Dr. Ray Seyfarth Dr. Nan Wang Dr. Chaoyang Zhang

2. Agenda • Preamble • Overview and Questions from Pre-Prospectus • Meeting Objectives • Dissertation Prospectus • Background • Problem • Objective • Methodology • Impact and Results

3. Preamble – Overview (Meeting February 16th, 2009) • 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.

4. Preamble Question 1 from Pre-prospectus • 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): 24.708785 seconds • LabVIEW: 0.3314 seconds • C++ (computer/orca): 0.0148 seconds/0.007 seconds

5. PreambleQuestion 2 from Pre-prospectus • 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 15-30 “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.

6. Preamble Questions 3 from Pre-prospectus • Are there other examples of large simulation in Client-Server VR? • All examples found were simply visualizations without significant simulation

7. Preamble Questions 4 from Pre-prospectus • 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.

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

9. Organization of the Prospectus 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

10. Background • 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.

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

12. Background • 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.

13. Background • Simulation Software • LabVIEW

14. Background • Simulation Software • OMNNeT++

15. Background • Simulation Software • Simulink

16. 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.

17. Objective • 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.

18. Objective (Cont.) • 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(Σ1,S1,s01,δ1,F1) and the event-driven state machine of the client-server VRE (Σ2,S2,s02,δ2,F2).

19. Objective (Cont.) • 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.

20. Methodology • 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.

21. Methodology (Cont.) “Qualitative-Content Analysis” methodology applied to Sub-Objective 1

22. Methodology (Cont.) “Qualitative-Content Analysis” methodology applied to Sub-Objective 1 (Cont)

23. Methodology (Cont.) “Qualitative-Content Analysis” methodology applied to Sub-Objective 1

24. Methodology (Cont.) • 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.

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

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

27. Methodology (Proof of Concept)

28. Methodology (Proof of Concept)

29. Methodology (Proof of Concept)

30. Expected Results and Impact • 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.

31. Questions ? Thank you for attending