Marcelo de Paiva Guimarães Bruno Barberi Gnecco Marcelo Knorich Zuffo Integrated Systems Laboratory Polytechnic School - University of São Paulo - Brazil 2004 Graphical Interaction Devices for Distributed Virtual Reality Systems

Introduction The contribution of the present research project is to simplify the design of graphical interfaces and their interaction with the VR application The contribution of the present research project is to simplify the design of graphical interfaces and their interaction with the VR application –freeing the designer from having to know all the details of the individual technologies, and to use PDAs as interaction device No programming knowledge from the GUI designer No programming knowledge from the GUI designer

Introduction The PDA application communicates transparently with a cluster, via any underlying network system, which processes the events and maintains the synchrony of the rendered images in real-time The PDA application communicates transparently with a cluster, via any underlying network system, which processes the events and maintains the synchrony of the rendered images in real-time the interface and its configuration can be changed at run-time the interface and its configuration can be changed at run-time This solution is part of Glass This solution is part of Glass

What is Glass? A library for distributed computing A library for distributed computing –Extensible and flexible –Portable and interoperable –Easy to use and learn: transparent –High performance –Network protocol independent –Reliable and fault tolerant –Completely thread safe

Overview Written in C++ Written in C++ –Easy to interface with C, C++, Java, etc All functionality is provided by plugins All functionality is provided by plugins Glass core provides internal functionality Glass core provides internal functionality –Network system –Plug-in management (Barriers, Events,Alias...) –Node management Fault tolerant Fault tolerant –If a node dies, Glass detects and deals with it. –Computation does not stop –Deadlocks are prevented

PDA Editor Born from desire to control our CAVE with a PDA Born from desire to control our CAVE with a PDA Glass runs in PDA Glass runs in PDA Editor generates GUI in a straightforward, graphical way Editor generates GUI in a straightforward, graphical way –No programming knowledge required

PDA Editor Code is generated automatically Code is generated automatically –Programmer has only to write an event handler Interface is in Java Interface is in Java –Run it anywhere: PDA or desktop

PDA Editor:

PDA Applicaton: screenshot All input are propagated as asynchronous events, which can be either polled or handled by callbacks on the application. There’s no limit to the number of PDAs that can be used simultaneously in an application Each PDA may be controlling a different vehicle, or the participants may share a GUI and work collectively on a project.

The PDA is a cluster node Glass is used underneath Glass is used underneath –To Glass, the PDA is just another node

PDA software layers Application Java Java Virtual Machine JNI Glass Operational System (Linux, Windows CE, Windows)

Celestia Application

Cathedral Application

Conclusions PDAs PDAs –improve the user interaction in immersive environments –can be used to control the VR system itself running applications running applications controlling lights and projectors, etc controlling lights and projectors, etc –It’s an efficient way to manipulate large volumes of data –the user is already familiar with the GUI approach used

Conclusions The tool for designing GUIs presented The tool for designing GUIs presented –which generates code automatically, requiring no knowledge of computer programming from the user The interface runs on Java, which has the advantage of easy portability to any platform The interface runs on Java, which has the advantage of easy portability to any platform The routine for treatment of events on the main application is also generated automatically The routine for treatment of events on the main application is also generated automatically

Conclusions The interface integrates directly with the main application, which is running on a cluster. The interface integrates directly with the main application, which is running on a cluster. As future work, we plan to enhance GUIs to be multimedia, including animations and sounds As future work, we plan to enhance GUIs to be multimedia, including animations and sounds