An interactive virtual reality-based e-education system
Lky Chan, Hyk Lau · 2004
A fully immersive and interactive visualization system that provides extremely vivid stereoscopic views of sceneries in 3-D is developed based on the technologies of distributed virtual reality and computer networking. The system, known as the imseCAVE, is a low cost, high performance generic Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) system developed by the researchers at the University of Hong Kong for teaching and research. imseCAVE is a versatile and powerful virtual reality platform with the capability to provide a highly cost effective e-education media for teaching and learning. The system can be readily configured to provide virtual tours for students to obtain first hand experience such as deep sea and space exploration, journey inside human body, visit to the pyramid, etc. without the limitations of time and space. The system can also be tools for complex system analysis and design such as in the development of products, buildings, and other facilities. In addition, the computer generated images can be tailored made to produce any simulated environment for training and skill evaluation purposes within a short period of time. One of the novel features of the imseCAVE is its design and implementation. Low cost computer systems are clustered with high bandwidth communication network to achieve a fully distributed computing environment to realize the concept of distributive virtual reality. In addition, the application software of the system enables real and virtual sceneries to be seamlessly integrated to generate an environment by which application scenarios can be built in a highly flexible way. Furthermore, the imseCAVE can be readily interfaced to a host of input and output devices including 3-D tracker, joysticks and motion platform for real time interacting with the virtual environment. With the addition such devices, not only visual effect is reproduced, other sensation including motion and sound can be provided whereby enhancing the immersiveness of the overall system. In the