The document discusses increasing immersiveness in 3D virtual worlds for educational purposes. It proposes several prototypes combining the virtual world vAcademia with different motion tracking and display technologies: using Microsoft Kinect to virtualize real-life lectures, using a CAVE system to teach threshold concepts, and using Oculus Rift for training and role playing. The prototypes aim to overcome limitations of traditional learning methods and 2D content by providing interactive, collaborative, and immersive 3D virtual experiences. Initial implementations and challenges of virtualizing lectures and exploring threshold concepts in a CAVE are described.

1. Increasing Immersiveness
into a 3D Virtual World
Motion-Tracking and Natural Navigation in
vAcademia
Mikhail Fominykh and Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Mikhail Morozov and Andrey Smorkalov
Volga State University of Technology, Russia
Judith Molka-Danielsen
Molde University College, Norway
International Conference on Applied Computing, Computer Science, and Computer
Engineering (ICACC 2013)
December 28–29, 2013 | Saipan, USA
1
VSUT

2. Motivation: 3D Virtual Worlds
Strong affordances
Serious challenges
Learning in 3D Virtual worlds
still has experimental nature
3D Virtual worlds require significant improvement
to make them more convenient for educators
and achieve better results
Exploring new ways of using 3D virtual worlds for learning
2
VSUT

3. Goal: Increasing Immersiveness
Motion-tracking device
controlled by
Educational
3D Virtual World
accessed through
Head-mounted
device
3
IPT or CAVE
VSUT

4. Goal: Increasing Immersiveness
Microsoft Kinect
controlled by
vAcademia
accessed through
Oculus Rift
4
ReaCTor CAVE
VSUT

5. Technology: vAcademia
Sophisticated learning tools + 3D virtual recording
5
VSUT

6. Technology: Motion-Tracking with
Kinect
Low cost motion sensing
6
VSUT

7. Technology: Cave Automatic
Virtual Environments
Unconstrained moving + good field view
7
VSUT

8. Technology: Head-Mounted
Display Oculus Rift
Low cost + good field view + fast tracking
8
VSUT

9. Prototypes
o Virtualizing Real-life Lectures with
vAcademia and Kinect
o Teaching Threshold Concepts with
vAcademia and CAVE
o Training and Role playing with
vAcademia and Oculus Rift
9
VSUT

10. vAcademia and Kinect
prototype: Motivation
o
o
o
10
‘Traditional’ video recording of lectures and web
conferences change the context of learning and
do not provide immersion as in 3D virtual worlds
‘2D’ screen-capture recordings do not provide a
possibility for collaborative work or a method for
further developing the content
Combining 3D recording in vAcademia with Kinect
for advanced, immersive capturing of lectures
VSUT

11. vAcademia and Kinect
prototype: Goal
o
A low-cost technological setup for translating reallife presentations and lectures into a 3D virtual
world
–
–
11
Streaming real-life lectures into 3D virtual world
Automatically creating immersive 3D recordings
VSUT

12. vAcademia and Kinect
prototype: Implementation
o
12
Achievements and Challenges
–
–
–
–
Matching avatar, screen and pointer in real and virtual worlds
Recognizing natural and filtering unnatural gestures
Low accuracy, no turns, small area, overlaying objects
Too many restriction on the lecturer’s movements
VSUT

13. Prototypes
o Virtualizing Real-life Lectures with
vAcademia and Kinect
o Teaching Threshold Concepts with
vAcademia and CAVE
o Training and Role playing with
vAcademia and Oculus Rift
13
VSUT

14. vAcademia and CAVE prototype:
Motivation
o
o
o
o
In immersive VR, participants tend to react as if the
scene they are seeing is real (e.g., by moving
away from a threat)
Threshold Concepts* - exploring new ways of
learning that stimulate and enhance the potential
of human creativity
Implementation of learning scenarios
Integration of the capability of “VR-replay” feature
that is newly designed in this project to be
functional between CAVE and vAcademia
*Meyer, J. H. F. and Land, R. (2006). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: issues of liminality.
14
VSUT

15. vAcademia and CAVE prototype:
Goal
o
o
o
15
Replaying one’s life-size avatar representation and
seeing one’s previous actions
Using the 3D recording feature of vAcademia in
the CAVE for (1) revealing patterns of becoming
aware of one's own reflective learning patterns
and (2) deciding to use them consciously
The ultimate objective is promoting students to
overcome thresholds and enable them to identify
what creativity in learning means in relation to their
individual experiences in transformative processes
VSUT

16. vAcademia and CAVE prototype:
Implementation (in progress)
16
VSUT

17. Prototypes
o Virtualizing Real-life Lectures with
vAcademia and Kinect
o Teaching Threshold Concepts with
vAcademia and CAVE
o Training and Role playing with
vAcademia and Oculus Rift
17
VSUT

18. vAcademia and Oculus Rift
prototype: Motivation and Goals
o
o
Applying for the Threshold Concept scenarios
Extending the immersive experience with
affordability and mobility of the Head-mounted
devices
o
Multiple locations (without being restricted by a
single CAVE facility we have access to)
Multiple participants of collaborative scenarios
(avoiding the rigid single-user CAVE setup)
o
18
VSUT

19. vAcademia and Oculus Rift
prototype: Implementation start
19
VSUT

20. Thank you!
Mikhail Fominykh
mikhail.fominykh@ntnu.no
Mikhail Morozov
morozovMN@volgatech.net
Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland
ekaterip@ntnu.no
Andrey Smorkalov
smorkalovAY@volgatech.net
Judith Molka-Danielsen
Judith.Molka-Danielsen@himolde.no
Acknowledgments
Multimedia Systems Laboratory
Volga State University of Technology
http://mmlab.ru/
Virtual Environments & Computer Graphics Group
University College London
http://vecg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/
vAcademia
Virtual Spaces LLC
http://vacademia.com/
20
VSUT