Interface [s] Montréal :: [Immersion and Virtual Reality]

5:30pm
– $30 at the door – package deals available, go to www.interfacesmontreal.org

[Immersion
and Virtual Reality] Beyond reality and interactive reality experience
From
aerospace to surgery, and in all things game related, the simulators and immersion
environments developed to serve humankind are indispensable tools that significantly
improve human knowledge and enhance our reality experience

Speakers
Yves Gonthier – Canadian Space Agency
Jean-Claude Artonne – Immervision
Jocelyn Faubert – Université de Montréal,
École d’optométrie
Carl-Éric Aubin – École Polytechnique de
Montréal, Dép. génie mécanique & CHU Sainte-Justine
Luc Courchesne – Université de Montréal et
Ideaction

[Yves Gonthier]
Canadian Space Agency
A Real-Time Simulator for 3D Mental Image Reconstruction On-Board the
International Space Station
The operations of manned and unmanned space vehicles and their associated supporting
docking and robotics systems require significant crew training both on ground
and on orbit. A number of psychological and physiological factors are known
to affect the crew on-board performance. Therefore, skills degrade over time
and the frequency, depth of proficiency and refresher training need to be studied.
Currently a new experiment is designed in order to study the 3D mental image
reconstruction for tasks involving the operation of all robotic components of
the Mobile Servicing System of the International Space Station. The long-term
goal of this research project is to gather data to study skill degradation and
recovery of psychomotor and cognitive skills. This data will be analyzed to
help define metrics that could be used to assess the level of readiness of an
operator to perform complex tasks.

To study performance
degradation and skill recovery, a highly efficient simulator is required in
order to ensure on-orbit real time simulation and fast feedback to the operator.
In this project, the challenge is the real-time simulation of Canadarm2 and
Dextre while performing graphics rendering of the worksite environment using
just a single computer, in particular a P4 1.8Ghz IBM ThinkPad. The simulator
relies on the modeling technology from SGDL to generate highly realistic images.
For the graphics rendering of the models, the SGDL models are transformed into
an approximate polygonal representation. This minimizes the computational load
on the CPU and optimizes the rendering rate by using graphics card hardware
acceleration. At the same time, a collision detection algorithm is applied to
the exact SGDL model to monitor any collision event.

It is planned that
the experiment will be launched on the space station in April 2006.

[Jean-Claude
Artonne] Immervision
Panoramic technologies in everyday applications
During the last ten years computer and optical sciences have evolved to open
possibilities and create opportunities for new applications. Thanks to these
technological advances today we can experience a new “Immersive”
dimension.

With today’s
panoramic imaging technologies we can digitalise and visualise in real-time
a whole 360 degrees environment. Hosting a panoramic videoconference from your
mobile phone, keeping an eye on every room of your house, preventing transportation
accidents thanks to 360 degrees dynamic analysis, caring for your loved ones
from distance and virtually immerging yourself inside the human body will soon
all be panoramic imaging technology’s applications as common as today’s
ultrasound, radar, telephone and many other technologies developed during the
past 50 years.

A new 360 degrees
technology invented and patented by Jean-Claude Artonne and developed by ImmerVision
meet the quality, flexibility and performance required by today’s rich
multimedia applications and most rigorous security and aerospace applications.
It is a combination of both hardware and software that run on today’s
video camera and computer technology from the smallest pocket PC to the most
powerful system. The hardware includes the new panomorph lenses with increasable
resolution on specific areas combined with software based on advance imaging
algorithms.

[Jocelyn
Faubert] Université de Montréal, département
optométrique, Chair NSERC-Essilor on presbytia and visual perception
Understanding human behavior with immersive virtual environments
Full-immersive displays such as the CAVE system have been originally developed
for visualization and industrial uses. Using such an environment for the study
of human performance involves a number of challenges, as it was not originally
designed for such a purpose. For several years now our laboratory has adapted
the CAVE technology to help us understand human behavior. We are interested
in determining the effect of age-related changes on perception, posture and
visual-motor control in ecological environments. In particular, we try to understand
how prebyopes cope with visual deformations that are induced by corrective lenses.
Presbyopia is an age-related change that affects our capacity to focus at near.
The first signs usually appear in the 40s and almost 100% of individuals in
the 50s are presbyopic. Our initial results are extremely promising and demonstrate
that a full-immersive environment is a very powerful tool for assessing human
performance but this is a technology that still requires enormous resources
in both initial cost and maintenance and may not be generally accessible in
the near future.

[Carl-Éric
Aubin] École Polytechnique de Montréal, Dép.
génie mécanique & CHU Sainte-Justine
Surgical Simulator for the Virtual Prototyping of the Surgical Instrumentation
of the Scoliotic Spine

Prof. Carl-Eric
Aubin Ph.D., ing.; Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, département
génie mécanique & CHU Sainte-Justine
Collaborateurs : Profs. H. Labelle, B. Ozell, F. Cheriet.

[Luc Courchesne]
Université de Montréal and Ideaction
Panoscope 360°
Enter the Panoscope 360° to be fully immersed in a 3D world. A 3-axis joystick
placed at the center of the viewing platform will let you and your friends (up
to 8) fly through the space as in dreams. This single channel immersive display
uses a PC and a custom designed hemispheric projector above your head to project
in real time a rendering of your entire horizon onto the hemispheric screen.”