mark@cs.UAlberta.CA (Mark Green) (03/08/91)
Virtual Reality Research at University of Alberta
Mark Green
Associate Professor
(403) 492-4584
mark@cs.ualberta.ca
Background
The computer graphics laboratory at the University of
Alberta has been actively involved in virtual reality
research for the past few years. This laboratory has a long
history of research in both graphical user interfaces and
computer animation. We have done a considerable amount of
work on software tools for the design and implementation of
graphical user interfaces. This includes the development of
two well known UIMS's The UofA UIMS (Siggraph'85 Proceed-
ings) and the UofA* UIMS (CHI'89 Proceedings and July 1991
issue of ACM TOG). I was also responsible for the estab-
lishment of the UIST conference which is the major annual
conference devoted exclusively to user interface software.
We have also done a considerable amount of work in interac-
tive three dimensional animation. This work includes
developing a physical model of human motion (June 1987 issue
of IEEE CG&A) and a language for defining geometry and
behavior for interactive three dimensional animations
(November 1988 issue of IEEE CG&A).
I was co-chair of the ACM SIGGRAPH'90 Workshop on
Software Architectures and Metaphors for Non-WIMP User
Interfaces. This workshop addressed the software and
hardware requirements for Non-WIMP user interfaces, which
includes virtual reality. The report produced by this
workshop will appear in a future issue of SIGGRAPH's Com-
puter Graphics Quarterly. The report includes a list of
major research topics and a reading list suggested by the
participants in the workshop.
Current Projects
The major emphasis of our current work in virtual real-
ity is the development of software tools that will facili-
tate the development of virtual reality systems and other
types of highly interactive 3D user interfaces. To date we
have produced two generations of software tools. The first
generation consisted of device drivers for some of the stan-
dard devices used in virtual reality (such as Polhemus digi-
tizers, DataGloves and EyePhones), and an application skele-
ton that allowed us to quickly prototype simple VR applica-
tions. This tool set was used in a number of scientific
applications including an interactive fluid dynamics system
(the user could interact, in real-time, with the flow using
a DataGlove). This work is reported in the Graphics Inter-
face'90 and CGI'90 proceedings. The main purpose of
developing the first generation of tools was to determine
the requirements for VR development tools.
The second generation of tools consists of the MR
(Minimal Reality) toolkit, which is a subroutine library
similar to that provided by most window systems, for the
development of VR applications. This toolkit supports a
range of devices normally used in VR user interfaces, dis-
tribution of the user interface over multiple workstations,
data communications, performance monitoring, gesture recog-
nition, navigation and a range of two and three dimensional
interaction techniques. This toolkit currently runs on Sil-
icon Graphics workstations and will be ported to DEC works-
tations in the future. The MR toolkit services as the basis
for other tools that we are currently developing. These
include special filtering (including predictive filtering)
for the Polhemus digitizer used in the EyePhone, DataGlove
and other devices, performance optimization tools, and a
UIMS for VR applications.
We have been working with the Banff Centre on the
application of Virtual Reality to the Arts. We are in the
process of developing interactive graphics systems that will
allow an artist to easily develop the geometry and behavior
of virtual worlds. These systems are based on the work that
we have done in computer animation, and in particular recent
work that we have been doing on the modeling of realistic
behavior (both animal and human).
At the present time there is one faculty member, 4
Ph.D. and 2 M.Sc. students working on virtual reality
related projects in the graphics laboratory.
Virtual Reality Course
At Graphics Interface'91 Mark Green and Chris Shaw will
be giving a 1 day course on Interactive Three Dimensional
Graphics and Virtual Reality. Graphics Interface'91 will be
held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada from June 3 to June 7,
1991. The course that we are giving will likely be held on
Monday June 3 (check with the conference organizers for the
exact date). Information on Graphics Interface'91, includ-
ing course registration information can be obtained from:
Billie Summers
Conference Office
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
T2N 1N4
(403) 220-4987