Simulações man-in-the-loop, ou human-in-the-loop reproduzem virtualmente ambientes reais ou imaginários para o usuário, sendo aplicadas em diversas áreas como, entretenimento, treinamento, experimento e reabilitação. Na área de treinamento, os simuladores são cada vez mais empregados visando principalmente a redução de custos e riscos, além do controle total das condições do treinamento. Simuladores de treinamento têm sido utilizados em diversas áreas, como medicina (simuladores de procedimentos cirúrgicos), aviação, trânsito, náutica, industrial, militar, entre outras. Uma das dificuldades no desenvolvimento de simuladores para treinamento é projetar e implementar o modelo do ambiente virtual em software. Apesar de existirem diversas ferramentas (livres ou comerciais) que podem auxiliar no desenvolvimento dos simuladores, poucas se propõem à modelagem do sistema e sua execução, e estas são, em sua maioria, proprietárias. O principal objetivo deste trabalho é conceber uma ferramenta genérica para auxiliar na modelagem, estruturação e implementação de simuladores de ambientes virtuais voltados para treinamento, partindo da proposta de uma arquitetura de software baseada na decomposição estrutural do sistema a ser simulado. A utilização de uma ferramenta genérica tem a finalidade de reduzir o tempo e o custo de desenvolvimento de simuladores de treinamento, facilitando a integração simultânea de diversas equipes de trabalho e a reutilização de componentes de softwares para outras aplicações. Foi concebida uma arquitetura de software baseada nos trabalhos da literatura e desenvolvido um protótipo da ferramenta genérica. Para avaliar a ferramenta foi realizado um estudo de caso baseado no software de um simulador de aeronave de asas rotativas, modelo Bell Jet Ranger III e nos procedimentos operacionais reais. O estudo foi realizado por meio da adaptação parcial do software do simulador original utilizando a ferramenta proposta. Os resultados obtidos mostraram a viabilidade da utilização da arquitetura e da ferramenta genérica para o desenvolvimento de simuladores de treinamento. / Man-in-the-loop or human-in-the-loop simulations reproduce virtually real or imaginary environments to the user, being used for several purposes, such as, entertainment, training, experiment and rehabilitation. In training area, the simulators are more and more used aiming, specially for costs and risks reduction besides the total control of training conditions. Training simulators have been used in several areas such as medicine (surgical procedures simulators), evaluation, traffic, nautical, industrial, military, among others. One of the difficulties in the simulator development for training is to project and implement the virtual environment model in software. Even though there are several free and commercial tools that might help in simulator development, few of them focus on system modeling and execution, and those are, in it\'s majority, proprietary. The main purpose of this work is to design a generic tool to assist the modeling, structuring and implementation of virtual environment simulators for training, starting from the proposal of a software architecture based on the structural decomposition of the system to be simulated. The use of a generic tool aims to reduce time and cost of developing training simulators, facilitating simultaneous integration of various workgroups and reuse of software components for other applications. Initially, a software architecture for training simulators was designed based on academic researches and a prototype of a generic tool was developed. To evaluate this tool, a case study was conducted based on the Bell Jet Ranger III rotorcraft simulator software and real operational procedures. The study was performed by partially adapting the original simulator software using the proposed tool. The results showed the feasibility of using the purposed architecture and generic tool for training simulators development.

A complexidade dos sistemas de visualização imersivos pode variar tremendamente conforme a sua aplicação. Algumas ferramentas mais simples fazem uso de um único óculos de Realidade Virtual como infraestrutura de visualização. No entanto, aplicações mais complexas, como simuladores e outras ferramentas de treinamento, podem necessitar de uma infraestrutura distribuída, contendo diversos computadores e telas. Alguns simuladores e outras aplicações de treinamento fazem uso frequente de periféricos sofisticados de interação, que reproduzem de maneira fiel os elementos encontrados no cenário real. Além disto, o espaço de treinamento pode ser compartilhado por dois ou mais usuários. Estes requisitos acabam por impor o uso de sistemas de visualização complexos e distribuídos, que visam cobrir de maneira quase completa o campo de vis~ao destes usuários. Por causa das características deste tipo de sistema, as aplicações desenvolvidas nestes cenários são inerentemente complexas, pois frequentemente consideram aspectos específicos da infraestrutura para realizar a distribuição e o sincronismo da cena virtual. Esta complexidade dificulta o desenvolvimento, a manutenção e a interoperabilidade destas ferramentas. Este trabalho apresenta uma arquitetura de comunicação para promover o uso de sistemas imersivos de forma simples e transparente para as aplicações, viabilizando o uso de infraestruturas complexas e distribuídas. A arquitetura proposta utiliza o mecanismo de substituição do driver OpenGL para obter, de forma automática, a distribuição do aspecto gráfico das aplicações. Apesar deste conceito já ter sido discutido na literatura, esta proposta apresenta um conjunto de técnicas para contornar as limitações inerentes desta abordagem e obter ganhos de desempenho significativos, com resultados consistentes em um amplo conjunto de infraestruturas. As técnicas apresentadas neste trabalho sugerem, entre outras coisas, o uso de recursos modernos do padrão OpenGL para reduzir o volume de comunicação entre CPU e GPU. Um dos recursos avaliados foi o uso de mecanismos de renderização indireta, onde a aplicação armazena os comandos de renderização na memória da placa gráfica. Juntamente com esta técnica, o trabalho também investigou o uso de um algoritmo de culling na própria GPU, o que permitiu que esta otimização fosse utilizada mesmo em sistemas com arranjos mais complexos de tela. Os resultados obtidos mostram que a aplicação pode exibir o seu conteúdo em um conjunto amplo de sistemas imersivos, contendo mais resolução e mais geometria visível, sem deteriorar o seu desempenho. Os testes foram conduzidos em diferentes infraestruturas e com cenas de tamanhos variáveis. Nos casos mais complexos, as técnicas propostas podem reduzir em 86% o tempo médio de renderização, quando comparadas com as abordagens tradicionais. / The complexity of immersive visualization systems can vary tremendously depending on their application. Some simple tools might only require a conventional virtual reality goggle as a visualization infrastructure. However, more complex applications, such as simulators and other training tools, might require a distributed infrastructure, containing several computers and screens. Some training applications and simulators invariably make use of physical peripherals for interaction, which are designed to faithfully reproduce the elements found in real scenarios. Furthermore, the training area may be shared by two or more users. These requirements usually impose the use of complex and distributed imaging systems, which are intended to cover almost the entire field of view of the users involved. Because of the characteristics of this type of system, the applications developed for these infrastructures are inherently complex. They are required to consider specific aspects of the infrastructure itself to carry out the distribution and synchronization of the virtual scene. This complexity hampers the development, maintenance and interoperability of these tools. This work presents a communication architecture to promote the use of immersive systems by allowing applications to use complex and distributed infrastructures in a simple and transparent way. The proposed architecture uses the approach of replacing the OpenGL driver to transparently achieve graphics distribution. Although this has already been discussed in the literature, this document presents a set of techniques to overcome the inherent limitations of this approach and ultimately achieve significant performance gains, with consistent results across a broad range of infrastructures. The techniques presented here suggest, among other things, the use of modern features of the OpenGL standard to reduce the communication overhead between CPU and GPU. One of the features evaluated was the usage of indirect rendering, where the application stores all the rendering commands in the graphics card dedicated memory. Along with this feature, the work also investigated the use of a culling algorithm on the GPU itself, which allowed this optimization to be used even on systems containing screens with a more complex layout. The results show that the application can render its content in a wide range of immersive systems, with higher resolution and more visible geometry, without degrading its performance. The tests were conducted at different infrastructures and scenes with variable sizes. In the more complex use cases, the proposed techniques can reduce by up to 86% the average rendering time, when compared to the traditional approaches.

Sistemas de Realidade Virtual são ferramentas comumente usadas no treinamento de procedimentos complexos e de alto risco. Neste trabalho é apresentada a proposta de um simulador visual de passadiço seguindo os conceitos e tecnologias de realidade virtual, descrevendo um ambiente de realidade mista que recria a sensação de presença em uma embarcação real por meio da composição de elementos cenográficos com elementos virtuais. Uma descrição da implementação do sistema de treinamento desenvolvido para a Marinha do Brasil analisando-se as diferenças entre a proposta ideal e o resultado do projeto de engenharia. Este sistema implementado é resultado da integração de diversos subsistemas: uma sala cenográfica que mimetiza uma sala real de passadiço, um sistema de projeção imersivo, consoles computadorizados para interação, um software de visualização para aglomerados gráficos, um mundo virtual e um arcabouço de software integrador. São discutidas as contribuições tecnológicas e acadêmicas provenientes do contraste entre uma proposta resultada dos conceitos de Realidade Virtual projeto e a implementação de um simulador visual de passadiço, desenvolvido a partir de um projeto de engenharia. / Virtual Reality systems are commonly used in training of complex and high-risk procedures. This paper presents a proposal for a visual simulator of a ships bridge conceived by the concepts and technologies of virtual reality, describing a mixed reality environment that recreates the feeling of real presence in a boat through the scenic elements composing with virtual elements. A description of the implementation of the training system developed for the Navy of Brazil by analyzing the differences between the ideal proposal and the result of engineering design. This implemented system is the result of the integration of several subsystems: a scenic simulation room that mimics a real ships bridge, an immersive projection system, interactive computer consoles, VR cluster visualization software, a virtual world and an integrative software framework. The technological and academic contributions of the contrast between an ideal proposal created from virtual reality concepts and an implementation of a ships bridge visual simulator are discussed.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:23:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Natalia Aly Menezes.pdf: 1707912 bytes, checksum: 24de256a5a3ae501e05d097a51eca3da (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-15 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / It is known that film, like all other arts, is influenced by technological advances. These influences inevitably modify film language. Today, the most obvious and visible interference of digital media on film lies in the possibilities of special effects that these new "tools" bring to the seventh art. However, my object of research has not turned towards that direction, but instead it was directed towards questions concerning the future of cinema, the possibilities of its language introduced by digital media, and especially for the creation of new forms of perception proper to interactive immersive environments. Although this question corresponds to a contemporary state of the art due to the explosion, followed by the consolidation of digital devices in the XXI century, in fact, it has already been studied and experimented since the 1970s and 1980s in the theoretical work of researchers such as Lev Manovich, Bill Seaman, Arlindo Machado, Peter Weibel, Peter Lunenfeld, Jeffrey Shaw, among others. They were all taken as the main sources for my discussions. The trends, which are many, and have received various designations in the direction of a possible future cinema, were discussed in chapter 2. Among them, the one that was studied more closely, that is, the conditions of immersion and the new narrative forms that they introduced, was the object of study of chapter 3. As a basis for these two chapters, chapter 1 discussed the roots of these present trends. These are to be found in experimental cinema and its enfolding along time whose consequences culminated in what, among other names, is being called future cinema / Sabe-se que o cinema, como todas as demais artes, sofreu e sofre influência dos avanços tecnológicos, influências estas que inevitavelmente modificam sua linguagem. Hoje, a interferência mais óbvia e visível que se tem das mídias digitais para/com o cinema encontra-se nas possibilidades de efeitos especiais que essas ferramentas trazem à sétima arte. No entanto, meu objeto de pesquisa não seguiu em tal direção, mas voltou-se para questões relativas ao futuro do cinema, às possibilidades de linguagem introduzidas pelas mídias digitais e, principalmente, para as novas criações perceptivas em ambientes imersivos interativos. Esta questão, apesar de corresponder a um estado da cinematografia atual e de ter sido conceituada a partir da explosão, seguida da consolidação dos aparatos digitais no século XXI, na realidade, já vem sendo estudada e experimentada desde a década de 1970/80, nos trabalhos teóricos de pesquisadores como Lev Manovich, Bill Seaman, Arlindo Machado, Peter Weibel, Peter Lunenfeld, Jeffrey Shaw, entre outros que serviram de base para as discussões realizadas. As tendências, que não são poucas, daquilo que vem recebendo várias designações na direção de um possível cinema do futuro, foram discutidas no capítulo 2. Entre elas, aquela que estudei mais de perto foi a da imersão e das novas condições narrativas por ela introduzida, objeto de estudo do capítulo 3. Como base para esses dois capítulos, o capítulo 1 discorreu sobre as raízes das tendências presentes. Estas se encontram no cinema experimental e seus desdobramentos que vieram desembocar na contemporaneidade naquilo que, entre outros nomes, está sendo chamado de cinema do futuro

Atualmente, com a diversificação dos produtos demandados, os sistemas de manufatura têm se tornado cada vez mais complexos e de difícil operacionalização. Dificilmente o responsável pela manufatura tem toda a informação necessária para antever os detalhes necessários à sua execução. Por outro lado, as empresas não dispõem de tempo nem de recursos para testar alternativas de manufatura no sistema real. Com isso, a simulação baseada nas features, ou seja, na geometria da peça, se torna importante, pois retrata fielmente as características do produto a ser manufaturado, facilitando a gestão da manufatura. Esse trabalho foi estruturado a partir da revisão da literatura sobre os conceitos de sistemas de manufatura, tecnologia de features, simulação, realidade virtual e modelos de processos de software. O objetivo do trabalho foi desenvolver um ambiente a partir de uma nova abordagem para simulação da manufatura baseado nas features das peças com uma interface tridimensional baseada em realidade virtual. A partir dessas simulações, o usuário poderá tomar decisões baseadas em indicadores como: tempo total de manufatura, custo e tempo por recurso de fabricação e movimentação, tempo de espera em fila e taxa de utilização de cada recurso num sistema de manufatura específico sem alterar o cotidiano da empresa. O desenvolvimento do sistema foi executado dentro do paradigma da orientação a objetos e foi dividido em etapas: análise de requisitos, projeto, implementação, verificação e validação e documentação. Para mostrar que as funcionalidades do ambiente de simulação decorrentes da abordagem proposta no trabalho são aplicáveis em sistemas de manufatura reais foram propostas duas aplicações com suas soluções. / Nowadays with the diversification of products demanded, manufacturing systems have become increasingly complex and with difficult operation. Hardly the person responsible for the manufacturing area has all the information necessary to anticipate the details for their implementation. On the other hand, companies don\'t have the time or resources to test alternatives in the real manufacturing system. With this simulation based on the features, i.e., the part geometry becomes important because it represents faithfully the characteristics of the product being manufactured, making it easy the management of manufacturing. This work was structured from the literature review on the concepts of manufacturing systems, features technology simulation, virtual reality and software process models. The objective of this study was to develop an environment from a new approach for simulation of manufacturing based on features of the parts with a three-dimensional interface based on virtual reality. From these simulations, the user can make decisions based on indicators such as: total time manufacturing, costs and time for manufacturing and resource handling, time of queuing and rate of utilization resource in a manufacturing system without changing the daily life of the company. The development of the system was implemented within the paradigm of object orientation and was divided into steps: requiriments analysis, project, implementation, verification and validation and documentation. To show that the functions of the simulation environment due the approach proposed in this work are applicable to real manufacture systems have been proposed two applications with their solutions.

Sistemas de Realidade Virtual são ferramentas comumente usadas no treinamento de procedimentos complexos e de alto risco. Neste trabalho é apresentada a proposta de um simulador visual de passadiço seguindo os conceitos e tecnologias de realidade virtual, descrevendo um ambiente de realidade mista que recria a sensação de presença em uma embarcação real por meio da composição de elementos cenográficos com elementos virtuais. Uma descrição da implementação do sistema de treinamento desenvolvido para a Marinha do Brasil analisando-se as diferenças entre a proposta ideal e o resultado do projeto de engenharia. Este sistema implementado é resultado da integração de diversos subsistemas: uma sala cenográfica que mimetiza uma sala real de passadiço, um sistema de projeção imersivo, consoles computadorizados para interação, um software de visualização para aglomerados gráficos, um mundo virtual e um arcabouço de software integrador. São discutidas as contribuições tecnológicas e acadêmicas provenientes do contraste entre uma proposta resultada dos conceitos de Realidade Virtual projeto e a implementação de um simulador visual de passadiço, desenvolvido a partir de um projeto de engenharia. / Virtual Reality systems are commonly used in training of complex and high-risk procedures. This paper presents a proposal for a visual simulator of a ships bridge conceived by the concepts and technologies of virtual reality, describing a mixed reality environment that recreates the feeling of real presence in a boat through the scenic elements composing with virtual elements. A description of the implementation of the training system developed for the Navy of Brazil by analyzing the differences between the ideal proposal and the result of engineering design. This implemented system is the result of the integration of several subsystems: a scenic simulation room that mimics a real ships bridge, an immersive projection system, interactive computer consoles, VR cluster visualization software, a virtual world and an integrative software framework. The technological and academic contributions of the contrast between an ideal proposal created from virtual reality concepts and an implementation of a ships bridge visual simulator are discussed.

Les tâches dans les environnements virtuels immersifs sont associées à des techniques et à des dispositifs d’interaction 3D (e.g. la sélection d’objets 3D à l’aide de la main virtuelle via un flystick). Alors que les environnements et les tâches deviennent de plus en plus complexes, les techniques ne peuvent plus être les mêmes pour chaque application, voire pour les différentes situations au sein d’une application. Une solution est d’adapter l’interaction en fonction des besoins de la situation pour améliorer l’utilisabilité. Ces adaptations peuvent être effectuées manuellement par le concepteur ou l’utilisateur, ou automatiquement par le système créant ainsi une interaction adaptative. La formalisation d’une telle assistance automatique nécessite la gestion d’informations pertinentes au vu de la situation. L’ensemble de ces informations fait émerger le contexte de l’interaction. L’assistance adaptative obtenue en raisonnant à partir de ces informations est ainsi consciente du contexte. De nombreuses possibilités existent pour l’obtenir. Notre objectif est une gestion du contexte qui préserve ses degrés élevés d’expressivité et d’évolutivité tout en étant facile à intégrer. Nous proposons une modélisation de ce problème par des graphes conceptuels basés sur une ontologie et gérés par un moteur externe en logique du premier ordre. Le moteur est générique et utilise une base de connaissance contenant des faits et des règles, qui peuvent être changés dynamiquement. Nous avons intégré une notion de confiance, afin d’établir l’adéquation d’une situation à la base de connaissances. La confiance des réactions est comparée à leur impact afin de ne garder que les pertinentes tout en évitant de saturer l’utilisateur. Les applications utilisent des outils qui peuvent être contrôlés par le moteur. Des capteurs permettent d’extraire des informations sémantiques pour le contexte. Des effecteurs permettent d’agir sur l’application et d’obtenir des adaptations. Un jeu d’outils et une base de connaissance pour l’interaction 3D ont été créés. De nombreuses étapes sont introduites dans la base de connaissance pour de bonnes combinaisons et une réflexion indépendante d’outils spécifiques. Nos premières applications illustrent la compréhension de la situation, dont les intérêts et difficultés de l’utilisateur, et le déclenchement d’assistances adaptées. Une étude hors ligne montre ensuite l’accès et l’évolution des étapes du moteur selon la situation. Le raisonnement sémantique générique obtenu est alors expressif, compréhensif, extensif et modifiable dynamiquement. Pour l’interaction 3D, il permet une assistance universelle automatique, ponctuelle ou manuelle à l’utilisateur et des analyses hors-lignes d’activités ou de conceptions pour le concepteur. / Tasks in immersive virtual environments are associated with 3D interaction techniques and devices (e.g. the selection of 3D objects with the virtual hand and a flystick). As environments and tasks become more and more complex, techniques can not remain the same for each application, even for every situations of a single application. A solution is to adapt the interaction depending on the situation in order to increase usability. These adaptations can be done manually by the designer or the user, or automatically by the system thus creating an adaptative interaction. Formalisation of such assistance needs the management of pertinent information regarding the situation. Those items of information make the context emerge from the interaction. The adaptative assistance obtained by reasoning on this information is then context-aware. Numerous possibilities can be used to build one. Our objective is a context management that preserves its high degrees of expressiveness and evolutivity while being easy to plug in. We have built a model for this issue using conceptual graphs based on an ontology and managed externally with a first order logic engine. The engine is generic and uses a knowledge base with facts and rules which can be dynamically changed. We have added a confidence notion, in order to establish a situation similarity to the knowledge base. Reactions’confidences are compared to their impacts so as to keep only the pertinent ones while avoiding user overload. Applications have tools that can be controlled by the engine. Sensors are used to extract semantic information for the context. Effectors are used to act upon the application and to have adaptations. A tools set and a knowledge base have been created for 3D interaction. Numerous steps have been added in the knowledge base to obtain good combinations and a reasoning independent from specific tools. Our first applications shows the situation understanding, including user interests and difficulties, and the triggering of pertinent assistances. An off-line study illustrates the access and evolution of the internal engine steps. The built generic semantic reasoning is expressive, understandable, extensive and modifiable dynamically. For 3D interaction, it allows universal assistances for the user that can be automatic, punctual or manual and off-line activities or conceptions analysis fort he designers.

The fields of virtual reality and gesture-based input devices are growing and becoming more popular. In order for the two technologies to be implemented together, an understanding of gestures in relation to virtual objects and users' expectations of those gestures needs to be understood. Specifically, this thesis focuses on arm gestures for the rotation of virtual objects. Participants in the study were first asked to freely perform an arm gesture they felt should execute a task. Next, participants were asked to perform specific rotation tasks with pre- configured arm gestures on four objects. There were two types of objects: those that could only be rotated on one axis and those that could be rotated on two axes. Each object type was represented by a familiar small and large object: combination lock, water wheel, baseball and beach ball. Data on how quickly they could complete the rotation tasks was collected. After performing the tasks on each of the four objects, participants were asked to rate the intuitiveness of each gesture as well as their preferred gesture for the specific task. The captured data showed that when users were presented with virtual representations of familiar physical objects, most of them expected to rotate the objects with the same gestures they would use on the actual physical objects. Considering 1-axis objects, an arm-based twist gesture outperformed other arm-based gestures in both intuitiveness and efficiency. Also with 2-axis objects, an arm-based horizontal/vertical gesture outperformed others in both intuitiveness and efficiency. Interestingly, those gestures were most efficient for each object type regardless of the size of the object being rotated. This would indicate that users are able to mentally separate the physical and virtual experiences. Larger objects require different rotation gestures than smaller objects in the physical world, but that requirement is non-existent in a virtual world. However, while the mind can separate between the physical and virtual worlds, there is still an expected connection. This is based on the fact that the gestures most preferred for the rotation tasks are the same gestures used for similar physical tasks.

Leveraging virtual reality (VR) technology to enhance engineering design reviews has been an area of significant interest for researchers since the advent of modern VR. The ability to interact meaningfully with 3D engineering models in these VR design reviews is an important, though often neglected, capability due to the difficulty of performing data translation between native CAD data and VR compatible file formats. A bi-directional interface was developed between a VR design review environment and a commercial CAD package that streamlines the data translation process. By transmitting both geometric data and selected metadata from the CAD system an improved format for the VR model was achieved and enhanced model interaction tools were added to the VR design review application. The suite of model interaction tools developed include component hiding, exploded views, and the ability to parametrically update the model directly from the VR environment. Preliminary user experiments were performed once an early prototype of the system was in place. These experiments guided the remainder of the development and the experimental setup for the final set of experiments. Final user experiments were performed to validate the usefulness of the bi-directional interface concept and the system developed, as well as to establish the importance of enhanced model interaction in VR engineering design reviews. The experiments performed were composed of two tasks: One task aimed at exploring how CAD integration and advanced interaction tools in VR design reviews aid understanding of model geometry and design comprehension and a second task that explores how the ability to preview design changes from the VR design review environment improves decision making. In the first task participants were shown a model of a complex gearbox and asked to count the number of gears. Participants performed this test on two different models: once with the enhanced toolset and once with a baseline toolset representative of the current state of the art that only allows users to pan, rotate, and scale a shaded monochrome version of the model. In the second task participants were given a model of a four cylinder internal combustion engine and asked to determine the feasibility of three proposed design changes based on whether the changes would cause interference in the model. Again, participants performed this test with two different models, once with each toolset. The analysis of the data from these experiments showed that participants were significantly more successful at understanding the geometry of the model when using the enhanced toolset. The data also showed that the enhanced toolset often boosts users' confidence in their understanding, and can help users to understand the design more quickly. Data from the second task showed that the enhanced environment can also help users to better and more confidently understand the implications of a proposed design change, which can lead to improved decision making. The work presented here builds the foundation for the bi-directional interface concept to be extended to further applications that can enable advanced interaction with a diversity of engineering data in VR.

ESCRIBO ERGO SUM is an analysis of my writing methods, and it seeks to understand the meaning and purpose behind my novel, J4CK MERED34TH. Through this explorative piece, I create parallels between my own life and my work in order to show a much closer history and context for the novel. In it, I ultimately conclude the importance of identity and its acceptance in my writing process. J4CK MERED34TH follows 19-year-old gamer and hacker Jack Meredith in a near distant future in which virtual reality has been achieved. After a small routine job, someone breaks Jack’s security and steals his identity. This novel seeks to explore the concept of identity and its importance through Jack’s journey as he fights to regain his identity.