Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

12 Specific Applications of SE Systems
Pages 387-443

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 387...
... As a result, the design of the product, as it evolves, can incorporate the requirements of the user, special needs for marketing, and any limitations of the production process (Krishnaswamy and Elshennawy, 1992~. Once developed, advanced visualization technologies such as virtual environments (YE)
From page 388...
... Such a virtual pilot line could be used to predict performance and to diagnose the source of faults or failures. Plant management could be improved as engineers are given the capability of reviewing and modifying various plant layouts in virtual space.
From page 389...
... Virtual pilot lines might be developed instead of real pilot lines to simulate human and machine tasks and make predictions about potential problems for human performance and safety as well as estimating the probability of failure and the line's expected operating efficiency. The promise is that virtual pilot lines will be far easier to modify in response to diagnosed problems than a physical pilot line, and they will provide the opportunity to introduce information on manufacturing efficiency early in the product design process.
From page 390...
... The concept is that customers could shop for apparel in a VE in which they would see virtual clothes on virtual images of their own bodies and feel how the clothes would fit. On the basis of this experience, customers would select and order outfits that would be fabricated on demand and sent out to them within a short time period.
From page 391...
... A second charge is to apply VE technology to represent the internal view of a textile manufacturing plant, including the position of machines, the air conditioning, the noise level, and the lighting. The goal of the project is to facilitate the reorganization of a manufacturing plant by providing engineers and factory workers with the ability to walk through a virtual plant; to move machines around on the basis of requirements to produce new lines of apparel (seasonal changes)
From page 392...
... Industry Efforts Staff at Rockwell International, through its Virtual Reality Laboratory (Tinker, 1993) , are working on virtual prototypes and mock-ups; virtual world human factors assessment for proposed task environments; and training for manual factory workers, maintenance personnel, and equipment operators.
From page 393...
... A limiting factor at this point is the computing and graphics power needed to represent the CAD database in a three-dimensional virtual space so that real-time interaction and a feeling of presence can be facilitated. It is anticipated that VE technology will begin to contribute to Boeing's productivity in the next two years, but development will probably need to be continued over a 15-year time period (see the more detailed discussion of implementation issues in the section on technology requirements)
From page 394...
... Another goal requiring technology development is providing engineers with the ability to interact with objects in virtual space. Currently, Boeing is working with a mannequin developed by Norman Badler at the University of Pennsylvania (Badler et al., 1993)
From page 395...
... As in other information-intensive disciplines, computer and communications technologies have important roles to play in reducing the cognitive demands on medical practitioners and students by helping to manage, filter, and process multiple sources of information. The following subset of medical knowledge and skill is well-suited to management and handling by VE, augmented reality, and teleoperator systems: .
From page 396...
... Today, several virtual worlds have been developed to demonstrate basic anatomy and as rudimentary models of training simulators. One is a model of the optic nerve created by VPL (VPL, Inc., 19911.
From page 397...
... ~, ~. ~ c~ ~ ~ ~Ant, ~i, ~ ~ the work on augmented reality at UNC (Bajura et al., 1992)
From page 398...
... Such a simulator could be used for initial training, as well as for the additional follow-up training, which has been shown to significantly reduce the incidence of postsurgical complications in patients operated on by surgeons with such training (William et al., 1993~. A second application to surgical training is the use of the see-through augmented-reality model to support novice surgeons in performing their first few appendectomies, cholecystectomies, or arthroscopies.
From page 399...
... For recently developed surgical techniques, training programs may differ even more strongly, lacking standardized training methods and standardized accreditation procedures (see Bailey et al., 1991~.2 How are physicians at various points on a spectrum of experience, without any unified teaching, and without exposure to a uniform patient population, to be judged against a national standard? ~ This training protocol is analogous to the head-up displays often used by fighter pilots during their initial flights.
From page 400...
... and designed by Delp (Delp et al., 1990) is an example of using virtual reality to test various procedures.
From page 401...
... The system uses interactive voice, video telecommunication, and biomedical telemetry to link rural health care facilities and primary care physicians with large medical centers. As a result, primary care physicians and their patients can consult with specialists without leaving their communities.
From page 402...
... The fact that the master and slave computers communicate by optical fiber connection will make it possible for the surgeon and the microsurgical robot to be located at different sites once the system is implemented. VPL has developed a system, RB2, in which two operators can interact in virtual space (VPL Inc., 1989~.
From page 403...
... Specifically (p. 243~: Near-normal walking can be elicited, even in severely akinetic patients, by presenting collimated virtual images of objects and abstract visual cues moving vertically through the visual field at speeds that emulate normal walking.
From page 404...
... Blood vessels should bleed; bile ducts should ooze; hearts should pump. · Better image registration techniques for augmented reality.
From page 405...
... There are several social issues that will also need to be addressed if VE technology is to achieve wide acceptance in medicine: · Acceptability to care providers. Physicians generally practice from a perspective of conservatism, refraining from the use of techniques that may be unproven, such as the opportunities for surgical training and performance offered by VE technology.
From page 406...
... Toxic Environments To avoid human exposure to radioactivity or toxic chemicals, teleoperators have been used in handling radioactive and chemically toxic materials, maintaining nuclear power plants, and disposing of hazardous wastes. Handling radioactive materials was the first application for which teleoperators were developed in the 1940s by Raymond Goertz at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.
From page 407...
... Just prior to a real operation, a simulation can be run to verify the expected result. For the actual task, the operator relies heavily on the graphical display and simulation to control the telerobot because of poor visibility in the tank.
From page 408...
... The resultant motion can be replayed or relayed to the slave robot; otherwise the operator may directly control the robot after feeling confident about the outcome. During an actual space laboratory task, the operator may view not only the stereo graphical display but also a time-delayed real image superimposed with a phantom display.
From page 409...
... Enhancements on the real image can be performed to improve visibility, such as removing bright specular reflections and increasing the contrast in dimly lit areas. Remote cameras automatically track the end effector to keep the manipulator in view or to focus on the task.
From page 410...
... There is no requirement that is not technologically feasible. A remote firefighting vehicle would be capable of crawling up one or more flights of stairs under remote human control; entering various rooms; and allowing the human operator to look around (with better vision than a human eye and most likely with camera pan and tilt controlled by a headmounted display)
From page 411...
... relative position of the receiving vehicle with reference to the sending vehicle, the teleoperator can be commanded to null out the difference in platform positions, while the human operator controls the cargo transfer as though the two platforms were fixed relative to one another. When massive objects are being transferred,
From page 412...
... Deep-ocean teleoperators have also found a number of other sunken ships, historic artifacts, and buried treasure, as well as discovering the existence of hydrothermal vents deep on the ocean floor. Deep-ocean vehicles, sensors, and manipulators have been used to survey the ocean bottom topographically, geologically, and biologically.
From page 413...
... Such manipulators must be made sufficiently precise and sensitive, producing enough feedback that the human operator can control the manipulations appropriately. In addition, the range of tasks that can be performed by manipulators should be expanded so that unanticipated contingencies can be handled with greater ease.
From page 414...
... While having relatively modest fidelity compared with present-day flight simulators, the Link Trainer incorporated nearly all of the training concepts that are featured in the most advanced training devices (Williams and Flexman, 1949~. After World War II, the ideas of dynamic task simulation were extended into other task environments: air defense (Chapman et al., 1959)
From page 415...
... For example, realistic training for hazardous, risky, and dangerous emergency situations, in which the trainee feels that he or she is present in the simulated environment, can be undertaken in ways not possible with conventional training. Artificial cues, not realizable dynamically in the physical world, may be utilized to augment the training effectiveness of VE worlds.
From page 416...
... In the long range, we envision a full range of interactive portable training simulators both for operational activities and for maintenance activities. Specific Applications Commercial aircraft simulators substitute for real aircraft in training flight crews with respect to standard and emergency procedures in their current aircraft and in qualifying them to transfer to a new aircraft type.
From page 417...
... The data glove representation of the hand projected in the virtual world provided degraded positioning accuracy compared with a real hand and real cans. And the visual-motor coordination lagged behind the actual hand movements under the conditions that used as the criterion the time for speeded movement.
From page 418...
... maximum positive transfer will be obtained with stimulus and response identity between original and transfer learning, (2) if there is complete response identity, negative transfer cannot be generated, and (3)
From page 419...
... As a result, evaluation will be needed during all stages of system design, development, and implementation. The following section discusses the problems associated with quantitative demonstrations of transfer of training effectiveness in the laboratory and the field.
From page 420...
... Commercial pilots routinely use simulators to maintain their currency in selected aircraft. NASA used virtual reality to train astronauts and other personnel in preparation for the Hubbell telescope repair mission that involved extensive extravehicular activity.
From page 421...
... Because of the cost and difficulty of conducting such studies, government-sponsored experiments of this kind are needed to evaluate scientifically the benefits of VE training. A second limitation of the current state of virtual environment technology is the problem of successfully representing the real world with satisfactory fidelity to achieve a training goal.
From page 422...
... Research Needs There is a need to mature the state of VE technology in order to broaden the range of training applications for which it is cost-effective. We run the serious risk of trying to test potential training applications and failing, not because an application is bad, or even one that would not ultimately show usefulness, but because the state of the technology was not yet mature enough to support it effectively.
From page 423...
... ; · working with other students of different ages and cultures, at different sites internationally, on a daily basis, to improve one another's language skills, or on tasks like those described above; · building improved tools for their own use and use by others, such as libraries of images, elemental simulations, stories, local history, and demographic and geographic data. In essence, students using virtual reality would be able to do what we would like students to be doing today-but with vastly expanded ability to access information in the larger world, to experiment, visualize, and understand, and to interpret the information to their own ends.
From page 424...
... · VE can provide immersive and interactive environments that provide macro contexts in which ~ntereshn~ Intellectual Problems naturally arise.3 - r · VE potentially provides micro worlds in which students can exercise the skills and use the knowledge they learn. 3 Theories of situated cognition (Brown et al., 1989)
From page 425...
... Simulated Field Trips and Telepresence Schools often use field trips to expose students to unfamiliar physical environments (e.g., an ~nner-city class may visit a farm)
From page 426...
... Hundreds of people experienced the rather simple virtual world, in which it was possible to grasp building blocks using a three-dimensional wandlike pointing device and slide the blocks around to assemble one's own toy house. The Boston Computer Museum invented a kind of video swivel chair (for which a patent application has been submitted)
From page 427...
... , but the construction of virtual worlds with today's tools is technically challenging. Bowen Loftin at NASA/Iohnson and the University of Houston has constructed a virtual physics laboratory, built on NASA's SE tools (Yam, 1993~.
From page 428...
... Why should children be deprived of these tools, in favor of virtual building blocks and virtual field trips? Moreover, unlike real blocks and environments, the rules that govern simulated systems are limited only by the system developer's imagination, and as such are essentially arbitrary.
From page 429...
... It is hard to test the kinds of learning achieved from field trips to exotic NfE labs for one-shot viewings of one's geometric models or virtual submarine voyages. What is genuinely problematic is the following issue: To what extent can educators design engaging VE systems (a relatively easy task)
From page 430...
... Increased performance expectations have offset the decrease in component prices, and so the cost of low-end personal computers has tended to remain about constant, even as their capabilities have increased. An entry-level PC-based NIE system can be purchased in 1993 for approximately $24,000.
From page 431...
... · The development of a variety of means (user interfaces, languages, CAD tools) whereby VE environments can be easily expressed and constructed by lesson designers.
From page 432...
... Possibilities for the future include augmented reality, in which a virtual image is superimposed on the real world (e.g. view the pipes inside a wall)
From page 433...
... Currently, little progress has been made in the use of virtual or augmented reality for the purposes of information visualization. However, some investigators have begun to explore various aspects of visualization for scientific purposes.
From page 434...
... Scientific visualization requires the Informative display of abstract quantities and concepts, rather than the realistic representation of objects ~ the real world. Thus, the graphics demands of scientific visualization can be oriented toward accurate, as opposed to realistic, representations.
From page 435...
... · Aeronautical Engineering: The virtual wind tunnel (Bryson and Levit, 1992; Bryson and Gerald-Yamasaki, 1992) uses virtual reality to facilitate the understanding of precomputed simulated flow fields resulting from computational fluid dynamics calculations.
From page 436...
... In addition, there is the ability to deposit very small amounts of material on the surface via direct manipulation by the user. · Medical visualization: Medical visualization systems using augmented reality (e.g., Bajura et al., 1992)
From page 437...
... TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND TELETRAVEL Rationale As facilitators of distributed collaboration, the applications of telecommunications and teletravel cut across all of the other applications discussed in this chapter. For manufacturing activities of the future, it is anticipated that virtual images of products will be simultaneously shared by geographically dispersed design engineers, sales personnel, and potential customers, thus providing the means for joint discussion and product modification.
From page 438...
... One example is the use of a shared virtual battlefield for mission planning, rehearsal, and training. Another potential use is offering students from several schools around the country the opportunity to come together through network technology to share a common virtual world such as a reconstruction of a historic site that no longer exists.
From page 439...
... In any case, telecommuting, as a form of distributed collaboration, has become an accepted option for some workers in some organizations (Shirazi, 19911. The other critical ingredient in the evolution of distributed collaboration was the rapid adoption of small but powerful computers by workers in many different occupations.
From page 440...
... Will VE provide the means to take a few more incremental steps in the further expansion of distributed collaboration or will VE provide the basis for major change in how the concept is actualized? Teletravel and Virtual Environments VE offers the possibility for one to participate in a meeting in which all the other attendees were present in the form of virtual images.
From page 441...
... Since the valves and other actuators in such a plant are electronically controlled from a control panel, it is not too far-fetched to imagine the sensor data and control of the operation of the plant being part of the virtual world inhabited by the plant's human operators. The operators might be more aware of the status of the plant in emergencies if they could virtually travel through its radioactive corridors.
From page 442...
... Both of these properties of real sounds can be supported in shared virtual worlds. To capture an image of a user's facial expression while allowing the user to view the shared virtual world, several display methods are available.
From page 443...
... These technologies, though still immature, offer the possibility of electronically projecting oneself, as easily as one currently makes telephone calls, into virtual worlds inhabited by other distant human users, with whom one can have face-to-face interactions both one-on-one and in groups. These shared multiperson virtual worlds create a shared space, in which each human participant has a position, a body image resembling his or her own real appearance, and a viewpoint from which to observe the behaviors and facial expressions of the other people engaged in the transaction.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.