Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T14:33:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pedro David Netto Silveira.pdf: 2518726 bytes, checksum: 98a8bbb142613c0374954e7487d18c2e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-04-16 / A crescente utilização dos ambientes virtuais colaborativos nas mais variadas formas destaca lacunas nos suportes tecnológicos atuais no que diz respeito à customização do ambiente e de sua interface. Esse fato incita a criação de novas propostas que atendam às necessidades ou preferências dos usuários de espaços virtuais. Este trabalho apresenta uma arquitetura de software que apoia a autoria na criação e edição de interfaces visuais dos espaços virtuais desenvolvidos a partir do MOrFEu, favorecendo a personalização dos ambientes e consequentemente gerando sua melhor adaptação aos estilos cognitivos de seus usuários. Os templates, instâncias de interfaces gráficas, são criados individualmente ou em conjunto. Seus usuários são ainda beneficiados com a possibilidade de sua reutilização e customização / The increasing use of collaborative virtual environments in many forms highlights gaps in current technological support with respect to customization of the environment and its interface. This fact urges the creation of new proposes to assist with the needs or preferences of virtual spaces participants. This work presents a software architecture that supports the authoring and editing in the creation of virtual spaces visual interfaces developed from MOrFEu, providing ways of customizing environments and, consequently, generating better adaptation to the cognitive styles of their users. The templates, instances of graphical user interfaces are created individually or with other users. Users are also benefited with the possibility of reuse and customization

Submitted by Daniely Januário (daniely.januario@gmail.com) on 2018-03-02T14:47:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 jonasdasilva.pdf: 8078229 bytes, checksum: 87448415353e50b393a972734bd021e7 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2018-03-14T18:28:16Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 jonasdasilva.pdf: 8078229 bytes, checksum: 87448415353e50b393a972734bd021e7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-14T18:28:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 jonasdasilva.pdf: 8078229 bytes, checksum: 87448415353e50b393a972734bd021e7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-27 / PROQUALI (UFJF) / A sociedade brasileira e a própria Administração Pública anseiam por profundas transformações na gestão da coisa pública, que a torne mais eficaz e proba. Neste sentido, as práticas governamentais relacionadas à participação social sustentada por Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) são vistas como uma alternativa para tornar as instituições públicas mais democráticas, eficazes e responsivas às demandas da sociedade. Embora diversas iniciativas de participação social com o uso de sistemas de informação (SI), também chamados de Ambientes Virtuais de Participação Social (AVPS), estejam sendo concebidas e experimentadas, a participação social no contexto de diversas instituições públicas, ainda é reduzida ou mesmo inexistente. O desafio está em como expandir esta prática, transformando a cultura institucional em relação à participação social. A UNIRIO, como uma Instituição Federal de Ensino Superior (IFES), à princípio um espaço que se espera ser democrático e participativo, é um exemplo onde a participação social, sobretudo com o uso de tecnologias, é pouco ou praticamente não explorada na vivência de sua comunidade. O objetivo deste trabalho foi conduzir uma pesquisa-ação no âmbito da UNIRIO, visando ampliar a participação social da comunidade universitária com o uso de AVPS. A pesquisa-ação foi conduzida no contexto de um projeto voltado à inovação institucional e compreendeu a realização de um evento de desenvolvimento aberto e colaborativo - o primeiro Hackathon da UNIRIO - para o desenvolvimento de AVPS institucionais e a promoção da prática participativa interna. Esta pesquisa possibilitou: a compreensão de quais etapas e atividades devem ser desenvolvidas ao longo de um projeto de Hackathon no contexto de uma IFES para promover a participação social e construir AVPS, como ocorre o engajamento dos membros da instituição e membros externos a ela, o que os motiva, e quais foram os efeitos causados pela realização do evento na UNIRIO. / The Brazilian society and the Brazilian Public Administration look for deep transformations in the management of public affairs, to make it more effective and realiable. Government practices related to social participation supported by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are seen as an alternative to make public institutions more democratic, effective and responsive to the demands of society. Although several initiatives of social participation with the use of Information Systems (IS), also called Social Participation Virtual Environments (SPVE), are being conceived and tried, social participation in the context of several public institutions is still reduced or even nonexistent. The challenge is how to expand this practice, transforming organizational culture in relation to social participation. UNIRIO, as a public university is expected to be a democratic and participative space. However, it is an example where social participation, especially with the use of technologies is little or practically unexplored in its community experience. The aim of this work was to conduct an action research within UNIRIO, aiming to broaden the social participation within the university community with the use of SPVE. The action research was conducted in the context of a organization innovation project and comprised an open and collaborative development event - the first UNIRIO Hackathon - aimed at the development of institutional SPVE and the promotion of internal participatory practice. This research made possible the understanding of which steps and activities should be developed during a Hackathon project in the context of an Federal University to promote social participation and build SPVE, such as the engagement of members of the institution and members outside it, which motivates them, and what were the effects caused by the event at UNIRIO.

This thesis analyzes the problem of acquiring stereoscopic images in all gazing directions around a reference viewpoint in space with the purpose of creating stereoscopic panoramas of non-static scenes. The generation of immersive stereoscopic imagery suitable to stimulate human stereopsis requires images from two distinct viewpoints with horizontal parallax in all gazing directions, or to be able to simulate this situation in the generated imagery. The available techniques to produce omnistereoscopic imagery for human viewing are not suitable to capture dynamic scenes stereoscopically. This is a not trivial problem when considering acquiring the entire scene at once while avoiding self-occlusion between multiple cameras. In this thesis, the term omnidirectional refers to all possible gazing directions in azimuth and a limited set of directions in elevation. The acquisition of dynamic scenes restricts the problem to those techniques suitable for collecting in one simultaneous exposure all the necessary visual information to recreate stereoscopic imagery in arbitrary gazing directions. The analysis of the problem starts by defining an omnistereoscopic viewing model for the physical magnitude to be measured by a panoramic image sensor intended to produce stereoscopic imagery for human viewing. Based on this model, a novel acquisition model is proposed, which is suitable to describe the omnistereoscopic techniques based on horizontal stereo. From this acquisition model, an acquisition method based on multiple cameras combined with the rendering by mosaicking of partially overlapped stereoscopic images is identified as a good candidate to produce omnistereoscopic imagery of dynamic scenes. Experimental acquisition and rendering tests were performed for different multiple-camera configurations. Furthermore, a mosaicking criterion between partially overlapped stereoscopic images based on the continuity of the perceived depth and the prediction of the location and magnitude of unwanted vertical disparities in the final stereoscopic panorama are two main contributions of this thesis. In addition, two novel omnistereoscopic acquisition and rendering techniques were introduced. The main contributions to this field are to propose a general model for the acquisition of omnistereoscopic imagery, to devise novel methods to produce omnistereoscopic imagery, and more importantly, to contribute to the awareness of the problem of acquiring dynamic scenes within the scope of omnistereoscopic research.

[pt] A tecnologia de jogos multi-jogador é uma especialização dentro da área de ambientes virtuais distribuídos. Com a crescente popularidade de jogos pela Internet, torna-se interessante analisar os seus principais problemas e encontrar soluções de arquiteturas destes ambientes, a fim de adaptá-las para as necessidades específicas destes jogos. Uma arquitetura híbrida usando as abordagens cliente- servidor e peer-to-peer é proposta e implementada neste trabalho, visando atender uma certa classe de jogos multi- jogador. Com o objetivo de permitir uma eficiente transmissão de objetos criados entre os jogadores durante uma sessão, é proposta uma alteração em sua forma de representação geométrica. É mostrado que técnicas de modelagem de mais alto nível como CSG ou Metaball podem ser usadas para permitir esta transmissão eficiente sob certas circunstâncias. É também proposta uma técnica eficiente de representação e transmissão de coordenadas do ambiente virtual usando campos de bits. / [en] Multiplayer game technology is a specialized field in networked virtual environments (Net-VE). With the increasing popularity of Internet games, the analysis of their main problems and the search for an architecture for these environments has become interesting in order to adapt them to the specific needs of these games. A hybrid architecture using both client-server and peer-to-peer approach is proposed and implemented in this work for a certain class of multiplayer games. In order to provide an efficient transmission of user created objects among players during a session, a change in its geometrical representation is proposed. It is showed that the use of higher level object representation such as CSG or Metaball modeling techniques can be used to provide this efficient transmission under certain circumstances. It is also proposed the use of bitfields as a efficient way to both represent and transmit coordinates of the virtual world.

The tools available to architects in the design process are constantly being enhanced and developed, which paves the way to try out new methods and techniques. The current widespread availability of commercial drones, sophisticated surveying instruments and advanced calculation software, makes it possible to create detailed digital representations of reality, in the form of context models. Context models in combination with real-time rendering, through game engines and visualization with the help of Interactive Virtual Environments (IVE), lets architects recreate planned buildings in a realistic virtual context. The study examines how the architect can leverage the benefits of context models and IVE in the architectural design process and presents a method which can be used by architect- and consultant firms. A qualitative research method is used to accomplish this goal, where data is gathered through interviews and a workshop with practicing architects, but also a case study is performed to evaluate the presented method. All the collected data is compartmentalized and analyzed with a method called Pattern Matching, where expected theoretical patterns are compared to the empirical data that appear from the collected data. The study shows that the use of context models and IVE has great benefits in several varying phases of the design process, where benefits in communication is presented as the main contributing factor. With that said, there are concerns regarding implementation of the tools in early stages of the design process, where the possibility to present a misleading IVE is regarded as a potential risk. A presented benefit of using context models and IVE is the ability to create virtual presence. Also, the ability to present the building in its real context proved to be a great benefit in the study. These are closely tied to the benefits of IVR (Immersive Virtual Reality), in cases where visualization of volumes and spaces is needed, which is enhanced by a detailed context model. Finally, a method for architects and consultants to use context models and IVE in the design process is presented. The method is summarized to involve different expertise in the organization to carry through different tasks in the workflow, in order to let the architect focus on the design of the building, but still leverage the benefits of the visualization tools. A conclusion that is drawn, is that the presented method needs to be evaluated further, in order to prove its efficiency. If that is the case, the method might be a step in a new path for the ever changing role of the architect. / Verktygen som är tillgängliga för en arkitekt under gestaltningsprocessen utvecklas konstant, vilket banar väg för att testa nya arbetsmetoder och tekniker. Den numera breda tillgängligheten till kommersiella drönare, sofistikerade mätinstrument och avancerade beräkningsprogram gör det möjligt att på smidiga sätt framställa detaljerade digitala verklighetsrepresentationer, i form av kontextmodeller. Tillsammans med realtidsrendering, genom spelmotorer och visualisering med hjälp av interaktiva virtuella miljöer (Interactive Virtual Environements, IVE), kan arkitekter idag återskapa planerade byggnader i en verklighetstrogen virtuell kontext. Studien tittar på hur arkitekten kan dra nytta av kontextmodeller och IVE i gestaltningsprocessen och presenterar en arbetsmetod som kan tillämpas av arkitekt – och teknikkonsultbyråer. För att uppnå detta tillämpas en kvalitativ forskningsmetod, där data samlas in genom intervjuer och workshop tillsammans med arkitekter och en praktisk tillämpning i form av en fallstudie. All samlade data sammanställs och analyseras med en så kalla mönstermatchning (eng. Pattern Matching), där förväntade teoretiska mönster jämförs med de empiriska mönster som träder fram ur datamängden. Studien visar att användning av kontextmodeller och IVE har stora fördelar i flera olika skeden av gestaltningsprocessen, där främst kommunikationsvinster presenteras som en huvudsaklig bidragande faktor. Däremot råder viss oro för implementering av tekniken i allt för tidiga skeden och även risker med att presentera förvirrande och missvisande IVE lyfts fram som en risk. En fördel som presenteras är kontextmodellers och IVEs förmåga att skapa virtuell närvaro, men också möjligheten att presentera en byggnads omgivning virtuellt, presenterades som en stor vinst i studien. Detta är starkt kopplat till fördelarna som IVR (Immersive Virtual Reality) bidrar med, i frågor om att visualisera volymer och rumsligheter, något som förstärks av en detaljerad kontextmodell. Slutligen presenteras en arbetsmetod för hur teknikkonsulter och arkitekter kan tillämpa kontextmodeller och IVE under gestaltningsprocessen. Arbetsmetoden sammanfattas till att enskilda kompetensområden med fördel utför olika delar av processen, vilket tillåter arkitekten att fokusera på gestaltningsarbetet, men samtidigt dra nytta av visualiseringsteknikerna. En slutsats som dras är att den framtagna arbetsmetoden måste förankras i verkligheten, genom att tillämpas i ett verkligt projekt innan den kan bevisas som effektiv. Om den i framtiden bevisas effektiv kan arbetsmetoden visas vara ett steg i ny riktning för ett skiftande arbetssätt inom arkitektyrket.

La razón por la que se cree conveniente investigar el tema “Los ambientes virtuales como estrategia de enseñanza y aprendizaje en el nivel primario” es con el fin que se conozca la relevancia de estos ambientes virtuales en la educación. Actualmente, nos encontramos en un mundo que evoluciona digitalmente de manera continua y que brinda herramientas que permiten tanto a los docentes como a los estudiantes desarrollarse de manera integral. A partir de ello, se considera fundamental integrar los ambientes virtuales como un contexto que sirva de soporte para los maestros y, a su vez, facilite el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje de cada estudiante. Asimismo, permiten que los estudiantes trabajen de manera colaborativa, con lo que se crean comunidades en las que se posibilita un aprendizaje constructivo. Además, se cuenta con el apoyo de diversos dispositivos, como es el caso de tablets, computadoras, etc. Estos van a ir funcionando como una extensión del aula. De esta manera, el acceso a la información de calidad se hace más factible, y se fomente la autonomía en los estudiantes a partir de la experimentación y exploración. Cabe mencionar; que los ambientes virtuales permiten el desarrollo y la progresión que trae consigo cambios significativos en la forma de enseñanza. Por ello, es necesario que, en las instituciones educativas, se mantengan actualizados constantemente a los docentes para que se encuentren preparados y empleen estas herramientas. A partir de ello, podrán integrar diversas estrategias y técnicas de enseñanza - aprendizaje. / The reason why it’s convenient to research the topic “Virtual environments as teaching strategy and lower school learning” is to know the relevance of these virtual environments in education. Nowadays, we find ourselves in a world that evolves digitally in a continuos way and provides the tools that allow teachers and students to develop comprehensively. Because of this, it is essential the integration of these virtual environments as background to support teachers, and at the same time to facilitate the process of teaching-learning of each student. Likewise, it enables students to work in a collaborative way, which creates communities that make possible constructive learning. There is also the help from different devices, like tablets, computers, etc. These will work as an extension of the classroom. In this manner, access to quality information is more reachable, and autonomy of the students is encouraged through experimentation and exploration. It should be noted that virtual environments allow the development and progression that meaningful changes in the way of teaching entails. That is why it is necessary that educational institutions have their teachers constantly updated so they can be prepared and exercise these tools. On that basis, they will be able to incorporate different teaching and learning strategies and techniques. / Trabajo de investigación

This study seeks to answer the overarching question of how the use of a digitally delivered arts curriculum, including a virtual museum environment, affects teacher's perceptions of curriculum integration and whether they believe it is successful in the classroom. This study is based on the analysis of archival data collected during a pilot study that was conducted in the fall of 2016 and spring of 2017. This pilot study used a qualitative, descriptive approach and included the use of surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observations. The main focus of this study was on the experiences of a selection of educators who took part in the pilot study and summer training sessions to determine the successes and challenges they faced as they sought to the implement the experimental digitally delivered arts curriculum. The results of the study should improve the field's understanding of how virtual environments and technology can influence teacher experiences and perceptions of their potential value for learning as they continue to take hold in public schools worldwide.

Les compétences non-techniques (CNT) sont un panel de capacités métacognitives complémentant les compétences techniques, et garantissant la réalisation d’une activité technique sûre. Elles jouent un rôle particulièrement important dans la gestion de situations critiques, et ce dans de nombreux domaines, comme la conduite automobile, ou la médecine d’urgence. Les travaux de cette thèse ont eu pour but de contribuer à la construction d’un environnement virtuel pour l’apprentissage humain (EVAH) de ces compétences non-techniques, via l’expérience de situations critiques. Les travaux se sont focalisés sur deux aspects fondamentaux pour la mise en place d’un EVAH. Dans un premier temps, nous nous sommes focalisés sur la conception d’une architecture de diagnostic des compétences non-techniques de l’apprenant, un problème complexe, « mal-défini » au regard du faible degré de formalisation du domaine, de la nature en temps réel de cet apprentissage, et des relations, propres à chaque individu, entre criticité, compétences techniques et compétences non-techniques. Cette architecture associe connaissances du domaine, apprentissage machine et un réseau bayésien, afin de franchir l’important gap sémantique séparant l’activité perceptivo-gestuelle de l’apprenant produite au sein d’un environnement virtuel, de l’évaluation épistémique de ses compétences. Dans un second temps, nous avons consacré nos efforts à la conception d’un module pédagogique capable de raisonner sur la base du module de diagnostic pour proposer à chaque apprenant un voyage à travers la criticité qui lui soit adapté, personnalisé, et à même de renforcer ses CNT. Ce module associe connaissances issues du réseau bayésien, à un algorithme d’apprentissage par renforcement de type « bandit manchot », pour guider l’apprenant vers une maîtrise toujours plus grande de ses compétences non-techniques. Les expérimentations ont eu pour but de valider les choix de modélisation. Elles se sont basées sur des données réelles, obtenues au cours de sessions d’apprentissage réalisées sur un simulateur « grande échelle » de conduite automobile, pour mettre en évidence la robustesse et la capacité de couverture de l’architecture de diagnostic. Nous avons ensuite conçu un jeu de données synthétiques pour évaluer les capacités du module pédagogique à proposer des situations d’apprentissage adaptées aux singularités de chaque apprenant, et à mêmes de contribuer au renforcement de ses CNT. / Non-technical skills (NTS) are a set of metacognitive abilities that complement technical skills and allow for a safe and efficient technical activity. They play an important role during the handling of critical situations, in many domains, including driving or acute medicine. This thesis work focused on the building of a virtual environment for learning (VEL), dedicated to the training of these non-technical skills, through the experience of critical situations. The main contributions target two fundamental aspects with regards to the construction of such a VEL. First, we focused our efforts on the conception of an architecture able to diagnose a learner’s NTS. This is an ill-defined problem, given the low degree of domain knowledge, the real time aspects of this learning process, and the unique relations between criticality, technical, and non-technical skills. This architecture combines domain knowledge, machine learning, and a Bayesian network, to cross the semantic gap between the learner’s perceptual-gestural activity inside the VEL, and the diagnostic of high level, cognitive, NTS. Second, we built a pedagogical module, able to make decisions based on the diagnostic module, in order to build a « journey through criticality » adapted to each of our learners’ characteristics, in order to strengthen said their NTS. This module associates the knowledge about the learner obtained by the Bayesian network, with a reinforcement-learning « multi-armed bandit » algorithm, to reinforce the learner’s NTS through time. Experiments were conducted in order to validate our modelling choices. These experiments were first conducted on real user data, obtained during training sessions performed on a « large scale » driving simulator, in order to evaluate the robustness of the Bayesian network as well as its ability to provide varied diagnostics given its inputs. We then built a synthetic dataset in order to test the pedagogical module, more specifically its capabilities to provide adapted learning situations to learners of different profiles, and to contribute to these learner’s acquisition of NTS through time.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / An RGBZ synthetic dataset consisting of five object classes in a variety of virtual environments and orientations was combined with a small sample of real-world image data and used to train the Mask R-CNN (MR-CNN) architecture in a variety of configurations. When the MR-CNN architecture was initialized with MS COCO weights and the heads were trained with a mix of synthetic data and real world data, F1 scores improved in four of the five classes: The average maximum F1-score of all classes and all epochs for the networks trained with synthetic data is F1∗ = 0.91, compared to F1 = 0.89 for the networks trained exclusively with real data, and the standard deviation of the maximum mean F1-score for synthetically trained networks is σ∗ = 0.015, compared to σ_F1 = 0.020 for the networks trained exclusively with real F1 data. Various backgrounds in synthetic data were shown to have negligible impact on F1 scores, opening the door to abstract backgrounds and minimizing the need for intensive synthetic data fabrication. When the MR-CNN architecture was initialized with MS COCO weights and depth data was included in the training data, the net- work was shown to rely heavily on the initial convolutional input to feed features into the network, the image depth channel was shown to influence mask generation, and the image color channels were shown to influence object classification. A set of latent variables for a subset of the synthetic datatset was generated with a Variational Autoencoder then analyzed using Principle Component Analysis and Uniform Manifold Projection and Approximation (UMAP). The UMAP analysis showed no meaningful distinction between real-world and synthetic data, and a small bias towards clustering based on image background.

A crime scene is a vital part of an investigation. There are however, depending on the situation and crime, issues connected to physically being at the scene; risk of contamination, destruction of evidence or other issues can hinder the criminal investigators to stay, visit or revisit the scene. It is therefore important to visually capture the crime scene and any possible evidence in order to aid the investigation. This thesis aims to, with an initial research question, map out the main visual documentation needs, wishes and challenges that criminal investigators face during an investigation. In addition, with a second research question, it aims to address these in a Virtual Reality (VR) design and, with a third research question, explore however other professions in the investigation process could benefit from it. This was conducted through a literature review, interviews, workshops and iterations with the approach of the Double Diamond Model of Design. The results from the interviews were thematically analyzed and ultimately summarized into five key themes. These, together with various design criteria and principals, acted as design guidelines when creating a high fidelity VR design. The first two research questions were presented through the key themes and the VR design. The results of the third research question indicated that, besides criminal investigators, both prosecutors and criminal scene investigators may benefit from a VR design, although in different ways. A VR design can, in conclusion, address the needs, wishes and challenges of criminal investigators by being developed as a compiled visualization and collaboration tool. / En brottsplats är en vital del av en brottsundersökning. Det finns emellertid, beroende på situation och brott, problem som är kopplade till att fysiskt befinna sig på brottsplatsen. Risk för kontamination, förstörelse av bevis eller andra problem kan hindra brottsutredarna att stanna, besöka eller återvända till brottsplatsen. Det är därför viktigt att visuellt dokumentara brottsplatsen och eventuella bevis för att bistå utredningen. Detta masterarbete ämnar att, med en första forskningsfråga, kartlägga de viktigaste behoven, önskemålen och utmaningarna gällande visuell dokumentation, som brottsutredare möter under en utredning. Vidare ämnar projektet att, med en andra forskningsfråga, möta dessa i en Virtuell Verklighet (VR) -design och, med en tredje forskningsfråga, undersöka hur andra yrkesgrupper i en utredningsprocess skulle kunna dra nytta av den. Detta genomfördes genom en litteraturstudie, intervjuer, workshops och iterationer grundat i tillvägagångssättet Double Diamond Model of Design. Resultaten från intervjuerna analyserades tematiskt och sammanfattades i fem huvudteman. Dessa teman, tillsammans med olika designkriterier och principer, agerade designriktlinjer vid skapandet av en high-fidelity VR-design. De två första frågorna presenterades genom nyckeltemana och VR-designen. Resultaten gällande den tredje forskningsfrågan visar att, utöver brottsutredare, både åklagare och kriminaltekniker kan dra nytta av en VR-design, även om på olika vis. Sammanfattningsvis kan en VRdesign möta utredarnas behov, önskemål och utmaningar gällande visuell dokumentation genom att utvecklas som ett kompilerat visualiserings- och samarbetsverktyg.