Virtual Environments '95: Selected Papers of the Eurographics Workshops in Barcelona, Spain, 1993, and Monte Carlo, Monaco, 1995 (Eurographics)

Virtual Environments -(VE) the new dimension in man-machine-communication -have been developed and experienced in Europe since 1990. In early 1993 the Eurographics Association decided to establish a working group on Virtual Environments with the aim to communicate advances in this fascinating area on a scientific and technical level. In September 1993 the first workshop on VEs was held in Barcelona, Spain, in conjunction with the annual Eurographics conference. The workshop brought together about 35 researchers from Europe and the US. The second workshop was held together with Imagina '95 in Monte Carlo, Monaco. This time, around 40 researchers from Europe, the US, but also from Asia met for a 2-day exchange of experience. Needless to say -as in all Eurographics workshops -we found the atmosphere very open and refreshing. The workshops were sponsored by ONR (Office of Naval Research), UK; US Army Research Institute, UK; University of Catalonia, Spain; EDF France; CAE France, INA France and IGD Germany and locally organized by Daniele Tost and Jaques David. While in the first workshop in 1993 many concepts in VE were presented, the '95 workshop showed up various applications in different areas and demonstrated quite clearly that Virtual Environments are now used in interactive applications. Front Matter....Pages i-vii Is VR Better than a Workstation? A Report on Human Performance Experiments in Progress....Pages 1-7 The Influence of Dynamic Shadows on Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments....Pages 8-21 A Fuzzy Controlled Rendering System for Virtual Reality Systems Optimised by Genetic Algorithms....Pages 22-32 Generating Multiple Levels of Detail from Polygonal Geometry Models....Pages 33-41 Fine Object Manipulation in Virtual Environment....Pages 42-58 Fast algorithms for drawing Nonuniform B-spline surfaces: a practical application in Virtual Environment....Pages 59-69 Virtual molecules, rendering speed, and image quality....Pages 70-86 Searching for Facial Expression by Genetic Algorithm....Pages 87-98 Coordinating Vocal and Visual Parameters for 3D Virtual Agents....Pages 99-106 Consistent Grasping in Virtual Environments based on the Interactive Grasping Automata....Pages 107-118 Hand-Gesture Recognition as a 3-D Input Technique....Pages 119-134 The Virtual Treadmill: A Naturalistic Metaphor for Navigation in Immersive Virtual Environments....Pages 135-148 Interaction Models, Reference, and Interactivity in Speech Interfaces to Virtual Environments....Pages 149-159 Experiment Authoring for Virtual Driving Environments....Pages 160-170 Simulating Automated Cars in a Virtual Urban Environment....Pages 171-184 A Shared Virtual Workspace for Constraint-based Solid Modelling....Pages 185-198 An interactive virtual world experience — the cyberspace roadshow....Pages 199-210 Improving the Legibility of Virtual Environments....Pages 211-223 Design Issues for Virtual Reality Systems....Pages 224-236 Further Development of the Responsive Workbench....Pages 237-246 Virtual Design II — an advanced VR development environment....Pages 247-272 Using the GIVEN toolkit for system development in MuSE ....Pages 273-289 Back Matter....Pages 291-311 Virtual Environments - (VE) the new dimension in man-machine communication - have been developed and experienced in Europe since 1990. In September 1993 the first workshop on VEs was held in Barcelona, Spain, in conjunction with the annual Eurographics conference. The workshop brought together about 35 researchers from Europe and the US. The second workshop was held together with Imagina '95 in Monte Carlo, Monaco. This time, around 40 researchers from Europe, the US, but also from Asia met for a 2-day exchange of experience. While in the first workshop in 1993 many concepts in VE were presented, the '95 workshop showed up various applications in different areas and demonstrated quite clear that Virtual Environments are now under use in interactive applications. The book contains 22 selected and revised papers that have been presented in EG workshops in Barcelona and Monte Carlo. The areas covered are visual presentation aspects, gesture and speech interaction issues, applications and VE system, demonstrating very clearly the emphasis and the results of various research activities in the field