Monthly Archives: October 2024

Virtual Reality Presence in Partially Non-Euclidean Environments

Computer Graphcis, Video Games, Virtual Reality

Currently, virtual reality is limited by a physical workspace if the user walks indefinitely inside its virtual world. Therefore, it is necessary to find solutions to this limitation. A possible solution could be to reuse this workspace by overlapping different parts of the virtual space. This can be achieved through the use of imperceptible portals that connect different points in the virtual environment. Thanks to these portals it is possible to create a momentary break in the conventional Euclidean geometry displaying parts of the virtual world that are farther away than usual. Although this kind of effect has been seen in conventional games, its application to virtual environments has some technical implications. One of the most important technical characteristics to be evaluated is the presence, which could be affected by this type of visual effect. For this reason, a validation of the effect has been carried out by quantitatively analyzing the perceptual presence and conducting qualitative interviews with users. The results did not show an overall impact on presence, and users were excited to experience this type of visual effect inside the virtual world. Finally, this paper shows everything learned in this development and is discussed from a perceptual design point of view, opening the possibility of new studies associated with this visual effect applied to the virtual world.

https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00419

About Jesús Mayor

Jesús Mayor is since 2019 a full-time lecturer and researcher in Politécnica de Madrid University. He received MS degree in Computer Science (CEU San Pablo, 2013), MS degree in Computer Graphics (U-tad, 2014) and PhD degree in Computer Science (Rey Juan Carlos University, 2020) in Madrid. His studies are focused on computer graphics and data science

Examining and Comparing the Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Serious Games and LEGO Serious Play for Learning Scrum

Education, Virtual Reality

Significant research work has been undertaken related to the game-based learning approach over the last years. However, a closer look at this work reveals that further research is needed to examine some types of game-based learning approaches such as virtual reality serious games and LEGO Serious Play. This article examines and compares the effectiveness for learning Scrum and related agile practices of a serious game based on virtual reality and a learning activity based on the LEGO Serious Play methodology. The presented study used a quasi-experimental design with two groups, pre- and post-tests, and a perceptions questionnaire. The sample was composed of 59 software engineering students, 22 of which belonged to group A, while the other 37 were part of group B. The students in group A played the virtual reality serious game, whereas the students in group B conducted the LEGO Serious Play activity. The results show that both game-based learning approaches were effective for learning Scrum and related agile practices in terms of learning performance and motivation, but they also show that the students who played the virtual reality serious game outperformed their peers from the other group in terms of learning performance.

https://doi.org/10.3390/app14020830

About Jesús Mayor

Jesús Mayor is since 2019 a full-time lecturer and researcher in Politécnica de Madrid University. He received MS degree in Computer Science (CEU San Pablo, 2013), MS degree in Computer Graphics (U-tad, 2014) and PhD degree in Computer Science (Rey Juan Carlos University, 2020) in Madrid. His studies are focused on computer graphics and data science

Long short-term memory prediction of user’s locomotion in virtual reality

Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality

Nowadays, there is still a challenge in virtual reality to obtain an accurate displacement prediction of the user. This could be a future key element to apply in the so-called redirected walking methods. Meanwhile, deep learning provides us with new tools to reach greater achievements in this type of prediction. Specifically, long short-term memory recurrent neural networks obtained promising results recently. This gives us clues to continue researching in this line to predict virtual reality user’s displacement. This manuscript focuses on the collection of positional data and a subsequent new way to train a deep learning model to obtain more accurate predictions. The data were collected with 44 participants and it has been analyzed with different existing prediction algorithms. The best results were obtained with a new idea, the use of rotation quaternions and the three dimensions to train the previously existing models. The authors strongly believe that there is still much room for improvement in this research area by means of the usage of new deep learning models.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10055-024-00962-9

About Jesús Mayor

Jesús Mayor is since 2019 a full-time lecturer and researcher in Politécnica de Madrid University. He received MS degree in Computer Science (CEU San Pablo, 2013), MS degree in Computer Graphics (U-tad, 2014) and PhD degree in Computer Science (Rey Juan Carlos University, 2020) in Madrid. His studies are focused on computer graphics and data science