Nowadays the World Wide Web increasingly provides rich multimedia contents to its users.In order to further enhance the experience of web-users, researchers have sought solutions to integrate yet another modality into the web experience by augmenting web content with haptic properties. In those applications, users are able to interact with web virtual environments (such as games and e-learning systems) enriched with haptic contents. However, it is not easy for designers without pro cient web programming background and basic knowledge regarding haptics, to develop a web application with haptic content enabled. Additionally, there is currently no standard to describe and reuse a well-described haptic application which can be played in web browsers. In this thesis, I present an MPEG-V based authoring tool for facilitating the development procedure of haptics-enabled web applications. The system provides an interface for users to create their own application, add custom 3D models, and modify their graphic and haptic properties. Haptic properties include the speci cation of collision detection mechanism and object surface properties which in turn directly a ect the force simulations. Finally, the user is able to export a haptic-enabled 3D scene in a standard MPEG-V format which can be reconstructed in a web haptic player. A detailed experiment is conducted to evaluate the force simulations, application development process and design of user interface. The results not only verify my proposed methodology, but also show the high acceptance level by users with all levels of programming knowledge of the system.

The automation of buildings mainly in the large and office buildings is very discussed issue in nowadays time. The advantages of automated buildings fundamentally consist in the lowering of the operation costs, more safety and the protection of property. The building can be monitored and controlled towards the proceeding processes and states. It is able to use local or remote monitoring and controlling. More comfortable controlling is next important factor. This thesis describes European installation bus EIB and its communication with visualization a control system called Control Web. Control Web communicates with the electronic security system Galaxy for complete monitoring of the whole building. The complex system ensues by the mutual link of these technologies. It is possible to lower effectively the total costs for the business among other things. The result of this project is the developed application in the system Control Web 6, which is used in the building of the company ATX, ltd. in Žďár nad Sázavou. The Visualization is targeted in the two dimensional view and 3D view, which is used very often today. Web representation is used as well because web browser is part of the every operating system. The integral part of visualization is process automatic control.

Ever since we were children the phrase "In case of an emergency, walk, DON'T run, to the nearest exit" has been drilled into our heads. How to evacuate a large number of people from a given area as quickly and safely as possible has been a question of great importance since the first congregation of man; a question that has yet to be optimally answered. There have been many attempts at finding an answer and many more yet to be made. In light of recent world events, 9/11 for instance, the need for a better answer is apparent. While finding a solution to this problem is the end objective, the goal of this thesis is to develop an application or tool that will aid in the search of an answer to this problem. There are several aspects of traditional evacuation plans that make them inherently suboptimal. First among these is that they are static by nature. When a building is designed, there is some care taken in analyzing its floor plan and finding an optimal evacuation route for everyone. These plans are made under several assumptions and with the obvious constant that they cannot be modified during the actual emergency. Yes, it is possible for such a plan to actually end up being the optimal plan during any given evacuation, but the likelihood of this being the case is most definitely less then 100%. There are many reasons for this. The most obvious is this: the situation that the plan is trying to solve is a very dynamic one. People will not be where they should be or in the quantities that the static plan was prepared for. Many of them will probably not know what they should do in an emergency and so most likely will follow any large group of people, like lemmings. Finally, most situations that require the evacuation of a building or area occur because all or part of the building has become, or is becoming, unsafe. It is impossible for a static evacuation plan to take into account the way a fire or poisonous gas is spreading, or the state of the structural stability of the building. What is needed during a crisis is an artificially intelligent and dynamic evacuation system that is capable of (1) analyzing the state of the building and its occupants, (2) coming up with a plan to get everyone out as fast as possible, and (3) directing all occupants along the best exit routes. Furthermore, the system should be able to modify its plan as the evacuation progresses. This application is intended to provide researchers in this area the means to quickly and accurately simulate different evacuation theories and ideas. That being the case, it will have powerful graphical capabilities, thus allowing the researchers to easily see the real-time results of their work. It will be able to use diverse modeling techniques in order to handle the many different ways of approaching this problem. It will provide a simple way for equations and mathematical models to be entered which can affect the behavior of most aspects of the world being simulated. This work is in conjunction with, and closely tied to, Dr Pushkin Kachroo's research on this same topic. The application is designed so that future developers can quickly add to and modify its design to meet their specifications. It is not the goal of this work to provide an application that directly solves the optimal evacuation problem, or one that inherently simulates everything perfectly. It is the job of the researchers using this application to define the specific physics equations and models for each component of the simulation. This application provides an easy way to add these definitions into the simulation calculations. In brief, this Escape Simulator is a client server application. All of the graphics and human interaction are handled client side using Win32 and Direct3D. The actual simulation world calculations are handled server side, and both the client and server communicate via DirectPlay. The algorithm being used to model the objects and world by the server will be completely configurable. In fact, everything in the world, including the world physics, will be completely modifiable. Though the researchers will need to write the necessary pluggins that to define the actual models and algorithms used by the agents, objects, and world, ultimately this will give them much more power and flexibility. It will also allow for third parties to develop libraries of commonly used algorithms and resources that the researchers can use. This research was supported in part from the National Science Foundation through grant no. CMS-0428196 with Dr. S. C. Liu as the Program Director. This support is gratefully acknowledged. Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this study are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. / Master of Science

My most recent body of work explores the synthesis of my influences, interests and life experiences into imagery of common themes: The expression of dynamic figures and forms and colors in digital 3d space, cinematic composition, and vibrant color, expressed through a semblance of Aztec culture and wildlife. My sculptures of nature and ancient culture are created using contemporary digital art creation technologies and techniques. I examine the art and religion of the Aztecs and the universal search for understanding and purpose in the world and the forces around and beyond us.

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Detta examensarbete utfördes för att ta reda på hur viktig skuggning är som djupinformationsbärare i en multimodal simulator för operativ extraktion av visdomständer. Simulatorn har både haptik och stereografik som kan förmedla djupinformation. Frågeställningen för examensarbetet var därför att undersöka om det fanns något behov av att använda sig av en relativt beräkningstung rendering med skuggning, eller om det skulle duga med en enklare typ av rendering. Användartester har utförts med erfarna tandläkare som har fått prova på simulatorn med olika typer av renderingar av ett och samma patientfall. Metoden som användes kallas kooperativ utvärdering vilken tillåter diskussion mellan användaren och utvärderaren. Det visar sig att skuggningen spelar en mycket stor roll för användarens djupuppfattning. Skuggningen visar sig faktiskt vara betydligt viktigare än stereoinformationen, särskilt som tandläkarna fokuserar på ett mycket litet område där stereoeffekten verkar försumbar. Det är även viktigt att väga in det faktum att inte alla kan se djup i stereobilder. Då de tänkta användarna är relativt unga tandläkarstudenter är de vana vid nästan verklighetstrogen grafik från dataspel och datoranimerad film. Därför bör grafiken i simulatorn ligga så nära den standarden som möjligt. Användandet av haptik gör visserligen att användaren kan känna var denna befinner sig i djupled, men vid konflikt med synintrycken så verkar synen ta överhanden. Slutsatsen blir därmed att skuggning definitivt är värd att implementeras, trots de extra resurser som krävs. / The aim of this thesis was to investigate the importance shading has on the perception of depth in a multimodal simulator for operative extraction of wisdom teeth. The simulator uses both haptics and stereo graphics to convey information about depth. The problem formulated in the thesis was to investigate the necessity of using shading, which is quite demanding computationally, or if a simpler type of rendering would suffice. User tests have been performed with experienced dentists who have tried different graphical renderings of the same patient case in the simulator. The method used for the tests is called cooperative evaluation and allows for discussions between the user and the evaluator. Shading turns out to play an important role in the users’ perception of depth. It even seems to be more important than the stereo information since the area the dentists focus on is so small the stereo effect seems negligible. The fact that not all people can see depth in stereo images is also important to consider. As the intended users are relatively young dental students, they are accustomed to almost photorealistic graphics in computer games and computer animation. Therefore the graphics in the simulator needs to be as close to that standard as possible. The use of haptics does make it possible for the user to feel where s/he is located depthwise, but when a conflict with the visual feedback occurs, the visual information tends to dominate. The conclusion therefore is to recommend that shading definitely is worth implementing, even though it requires additional resources.

Innovative technologies and their ability to grow rapidly are known to be a great source of controversy and paranoid reactions amongst people. The aim of this research is to examine the acceptance and perception of the technology of digital supermodels and influencers. This will be done in the global market of end-users where this technology has proliferated or has the potential to emerge. Digital supermodels and influencers were regarded specifically in a marketing context for this research, since the whole essence of their existence is for marketing purposes, and was approached as a new innovative technology. The research was divided into two parts, first was about conducting a questionnaire to analyse people’s acceptance of the technology, more specifically to examine the possible change in their purchasing behaviour. The purpose of the second part of given research was to examine people’s reactions and perception towards this technology through a content analysis of Instagram comments for the Instagram accounts of digital supermodels and influencers. The addressed innovative technology of digital influencers and supermodels is mostly perceived positively or neutrally. The significant amount of neutral positions in both parts of given research states the presence of confusion and the need for answers rather than lack of interest, which is to be addressed by the creators and users of digital avatars in marketing in the fashion industry.

<p>The technique of volume rendering can be a powerful tool when visualizing 3D medical data sets. Its characteristic of capturing 3D internal structures within a 2D rendered image makes it attractive in the analysis. However, the applications that implement this technique fail to reach out to most of the supposed end-users at the clinics and radiology departments of today. This is primarily due to problems centered on the design of the Transfer Function (TF), the tool that makes tissues visually appear in the rendered image. The interaction with the TF is too complex for a supposed end-user and its capability of separating tissues is often insufficient. This thesis presents methods for detecting the regions in the image volume where tissues are contained. The tissues that are of interest can furthermore be identified among these regions. This processing and classification is possible thanks to the use of a priori knowledge, i.e. what is known about the data set and its domain in advance. The identified regions can finally be visualized using tissue adapted TFs that can create cleaner renderings of tissues where a normal TF would fail to separate them. In addition an intuitive user control is presented that allows the user to easily interact with the detection and the visualization.</p>

The technique of volume rendering can be a powerful tool when visualizing 3D medical data sets. Its characteristic of capturing 3D internal structures within a 2D rendered image makes it attractive in the analysis. However, the applications that implement this technique fail to reach out to most of the supposed end-users at the clinics and radiology departments of today. This is primarily due to problems centered on the design of the Transfer Function (TF), the tool that makes tissues visually appear in the rendered image. The interaction with the TF is too complex for a supposed end-user and its capability of separating tissues is often insufficient. This thesis presents methods for detecting the regions in the image volume where tissues are contained. The tissues that are of interest can furthermore be identified among these regions. This processing and classification is possible thanks to the use of a priori knowledge, i.e. what is known about the data set and its domain in advance. The identified regions can finally be visualized using tissue adapted TFs that can create cleaner renderings of tissues where a normal TF would fail to separate them. In addition an intuitive user control is presented that allows the user to easily interact with the detection and the visualization.

Research has shown that students interest in academics declines significantly with age, especially in the areas of math and science (Kahle et al., 1993; Wigfield, 1994; Wigfield and Eccles, 1992). One approach to combating this problem is by using new technologies to engage students who otherwise would not be interested in learning. In the AquaMOOSE project, 3D graphical technology is combined with a constructionist learning philosophy to create an environment where students can creatively explore new mathematical concepts. The AquaMOOSE socio-technical system has been developed using an iterative design process. Three formal studies were conducted to assess the effectiveness of the system, as well as several smaller scale evaluations. The first study was conducted during a six-week summer program where students were able to use the AquaMOOSE system during their free time. The second study explored different learning issues in the context of a comparison-class study at a local high school where one section learned about polar coordinates using standard curriculum materials and an equivalent section learned the same material using a curriculum designed specifically around the AquaMOOSE system. The final study of the AquaMOOSE system was in an eight-week after-school program at a local high school where a balance between structure and creative freedom was explored. In this thesis, the iterative design and evaluation of the AquaMOOSE socio-technical system is presented. Evidence from this process is used to suggest implications of using 3D technology and constructionist philosophy for teaching complex mathematical content. The findings presented address issues of using constructionist learning environments for complex content and the tradeoffs of using 3D technology for educational systems.