A high performance six degree-of-freedom magnetic levitation haptic interface device has been integrated with a physically-based dynamic rigid-body simulation to enable realistic user interaction in real time with a 3-D dynamic virtual environment. The user grasps the levitated handle of the device to manipulate a virtual tool in the simulated environment and feels its force and motion response...

INTRODUCTION Team training for procedural sedation for pediatric residents has traditionally consisted of didactic presentations and simulated scenarios using high-fidelity mannequins. We assessed the effectiveness of a virtual reality module in teaching preparation for and management of sedation for procedures. METHODS After developing a virtual reality environment in Second Life® (Linden La...

Virtual reality experiments with virtual crowds are necessary to study human behavior under panic or stressful situations that cannot be evaluated in the real world (i.e., building evacuation due to fire). In order to carry out those experiments it is necessary to use a crowd simulation model in which a real person is seamlessly immersed and experiences a high sense of presence when interacting...

The evolution of software engineering, multitasking environment, object oriented programming and symbolically assisted simulation methods have enable the creation of interactive simulation environments that come close to providing a virtual experience of the actual system. The initial attempts at utilizing this technology are impressive and yet the degree to which they achieve virtual status is...

The majority of existing virtual heritage applications are focused on detailed 3D reconstruction of historically significant sites and ancient artifacts. Recreating the way of life of ancient people is only considered by some researchers, who employ crowd simulation for this task. Existing crowd simulation algorithms are not suitable for modeling complex individual behaviors and role dependent ...

In this paper, we describe an approach to artificial life, which uses Qualitative Reasoning for the simulation of life within a 3D virtual environment. This system uses qualitative formalisms to describe both the physiology of a virtual creature and its environment. This approach has two main advantages: the possibility of representing integrated physiological functions at various levels of abs...

Virtual characters playing virtual musical instruments must interact in real-time with the sounding environment. Dynamic simulation is a promising approach to finely represent and modulate this interaction. Moreover, captured human motion can provide a database covering a large variety of gestures with various levels of expressivity. We propose in this paper a physics-based environment in which...

Virtual reality (VR) systems require realistic simulation of arti cial worlds inhabited by virtual creatures. The complex behavior of these creatures has to be guided by intelligent control systems. The paper discusses experiments on combining an explicit planning method with evolutionary computation techniques for the creation of a control system for a six-legged virtual creature modeled in a ...