xrcoe, Author at X-Reality: University of Michigan XR ⋆ Page 6 of 9

July 18, 2013October 8, 2020

Using the MIDEN for Hospital Room Visualization

How can doctors and nurses walk around a hospital room that hasn’t been built yet? It may seem like an impossible riddle, but the Duderstadt Center is making it possible!

Working with the University Of Michigan Hospital and a team of architects, healthcare professionals are able to preview full-scale re-designs of hospital rooms using the MIDEN. The MIDEN— or Michigan Immersive Digital Experience Nexus— is our an advanced audio-visual system for virtual reality. It provides its users with the convincing illusion of being fully immersed in a computer-generated, three-dimensional world. This world is presented in life-size stereoscopic projections on four surfaces that together fill the visual field, as well as 4.1 surround sound with attenuation and Doppler Effect.

Architects and nursing staff are using the MIDEN to preview patient room upgrades in the Trauma Burn Unit of the University Hospital. Of particular interest is the placement of an adjustable wall-mounted workstation monitor and keyboard. The MIDEN offers full-scale immersive visualization of clearances and sight-lines for the workstation with respect to the walls, cabinets, and patient bed. The design is being revised based on these visualizations before any actual construction occurs, avoiding time-consuming and costly renovations later.

June 20, 2013August 25, 2020

3D Painter Provides Interactive Art Experience

An application developed by the Duderstadt Center, called 3D Painter, allows users to paint in multiple dimensions, rotating and flipping their strokes. You can switch the walls you’re painting on, can switch to the floor, can switch colors and even depth. All using a simple LED-wand. 3D Painter was created to showcase the creative potential of applications and the capabilities of the MIDEN.

June 20, 2013August 25, 2020

Pushing Interactive Boundaries in a Tea House

A person exploring the tea house within the MIDEN.

A tea house environment was designed to explore the limits of what is possible in interactivity and textures. Moving freely around the environment, the user could lift up, open, and move around objects. The scene was explored with the MIDEN and had real-world physics applies to the objects.

June 20, 2013August 26, 2020

Sailboat Environment Creates Interactions Even Pirates Would Envy

The sailor sits at the table to greet the user in this tech demo

This Sailboat environment, similar to the Tea House, demonstrates the capabilities of real-time graphics in an immersive simulation. In this environment, the user can walk around the wave-ridden boat using a flashlight, showing the capabilities of fast-changing and dramatic lighting effects. This demonstration aimed to push the system to its limits with dynamic lighting, real-time global illumination, animated characters, and a fully physical environment that can be manipulated and interacted with.

May 21, 2013August 26, 2020

Hybrid Force-Active Structures and Visualization

Tom Bessai demonstrates using a Microscribe

Tom Bessai is a Canadian architect currently teaching at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning. This past year Tom has been on sabbatical working with Sean Alquist to research hybrid force-active structures—or structures that work under the force of tension. Much like a bungee cord, these structures have two forms: slack and taught. Sean and Tom have been researching material options and constraints for these structures, experimenting with rope, mesh, nylon, and elastic in various forms.

While these structures borrow from techniques seen in gridshell structures, they are entirely new in that they actuate material as well as the geometry of their design. These structures are first designed in computer-aided design (CAD) software and then are physically built. After building the scale models, Tom uses a Microscribe to plot the vertices of the model in 3D space. These points then appear in Rhino, creating a CAD model based off of the actual, physical structure. Tom can then compare his built model to his simulated model. Comparing the measurements of both structures identifies the relationship between the tension of the structure and the material used. By taking these measurements, the properties of the material can be more specifically defined, allowing for larger and smaller structures to be more accurately designed.

These structures are not only complex and beautiful; Tom imagines they could have a practical application as well. Hybrid force-active structures could be used to control architectural acoustics, create intimate or open environments, or define interior and exterior spaces.

May 8, 2013August 26, 2020

Using Motion Capture To Test Robot Movement

Student analyzing movement of his group’s robot

At the end of every year, seniors in the College of Engineering are working hard to finish their capstone design projects. These projects are guided by a professor but built entirely by students. Keteki Saoji, a mechanical engineer focusing on manufacturing, took inspiration from Professor Revzen who studies legged locomotion in both insects and robots. Earlier in the year Professor Revzen published the results of experiments with tripping cockroaches which indicated that insects can use their body mechanics and momentum to stabilize their motions, rather than relying on their nervous system interpreting their environment and sending electrical messages to the muscles. The study predicts that robots which similarly lack feedback can be designed to be remarkably stable while running.

Saoji and her three teammates took on the challenge of creating a robot that would maintain such stability on very rough terrains. They worked with a hexapedal robot designed at the University of Pennsylvania that was shown to follow the same mechanically stabilizing dynamics as cockroaches. The team had to design new legs with sensors allowing the robot to detect when its feet hit the ground. The changes in motion introduced by sensing were so subtle that they needed special equipment to see the change. Using the Duderstadt Center’s eight-camera Motion Capture system, the team was able to track the intricacies of how the robot moved when sensory information is used and when it is not used. They took the data collected from the Motion Capture session to track how the robot moved with their mechanical and programming revisions, establishing that ground contact sensing allows robot motions to adapt more effectively to rougher ground.

May 2, 2013August 26, 2020

Dialogue of the Senses: Different Eyes

Three guests experiencing Alex Surdu’s exhibit

“Dialogue of the Senses” was the theme for an exhibit of student work from the Department of Performing Arts Technology, School of Music, Theater & Dance (May 2013). Alex Surdu titled his piece, “Different Eyes / I’m Standing in a Vroom.” He designed it for exhibition in the MIDEN, for aural as well as visual immersion. In Alex’s words:

With each passing day, we find ourselves gaining perspective from the places we go, the people we meet, and the world that we experience. We are ultimately, however, alone in our individual universes of experience. With this piece, I attempt to bridge this gap by immersing participants in an abstract virtual universe that utilizes isochronic pulses to stimulate different states of consciousness. If art was a device created by man to communicate perspective, then works of this nature are the next logical step in realizing art’s purpose: providing not just something to look at, but a way with which to look at it.

April 30, 2013September 30, 2020

New Discoveries Exploring Renal Gene Clusters

Sometimes a mess of data is just a mess of data. But sometimes, as Dr. Suresh Bhavnani discovered, it is an opportunity for a new type of visualization. Ted Hall, advanced visualization specialist at the University of Michigan’s Duderstadt Center, set up an immersive stereoscopic projection of Bhavnani’s data in the MIDEN (Michigan Immersive Digital Experience Nexus), a small room that surrounds the user with 3D images. An antenna headset and a game console controller give Bhavnani a position in space relative to his data, from which he can virtually navigate the web of relationships between genes and diseases. This allowed him to see new patterns and identify unexpected regularities in gene function that are very difficult to untangle in 2D

April 24, 2013August 26, 2020

Concentrate Media: On the Cutting Edge of 3D

Patrick Dunn, Concetrate Media:

“Because there are different paths one can take, it helps to go to one location where there are multiple individuals who are well-versed in those different paths,” … “It really helps people to find their direction.”

The accessibility of U-M’s facility makes it a particularly rare gem. The lab provides unique ease of access to technology that’s on the rise but still fairly exotic to the general public, like the 3D printers. And in the case of the MIDEN, it’s one of only a couple of publicly accessible similar facilities nationwide.

“Generally these technologies are locked behind doors because they’re very expensive, they require expertise, and they can be very delicate,” … “Here, people say, ‘We want to use the MIDEN,’ and we say ‘Okay, we’ll help you do what you want to do.'”

Visit Story at ConcentrateMedia

April 19, 2013August 26, 2020

StateTech Magazine Cites Duderstadt Center for NUI

A journalist for StateTech Magazine interviewed Ted Hall (Advanced Visualization Specialist) and Rachael Miller (undergraduate student in Computer Science) regarding the Duderstadt Center’s work with natural user interfaces (NUIs) and their possible applications for state and local government. An article derived from the interview appears in the Spring 2013 issue (page 16) and is also posted on-line here.

StateTechMagazine.com Article