Virtuell träning är ett viktigt sätt att utbilda tekniker för att förbereda dem för underhållsarbete i verkligheten. Tekniker som utbildas för att utföra underhållsarbete på JAS 39 Gripen, genomför delar av utbildningen genom programmet Virtual Maintenance Trainer (VMT), som kan återge en detaljerad simulering av flygplanet under drift. Teknikerna kan delta i lektioner med specifika uppgifter som inkluderar att felsöka interna datorer och delar av flygplanet samt utföra underhållsarbete för att åtgärda fel. Programmet är dock skrivbordsbaserat och för att göra utbildningen mer effektiv, finns det en önskan om att utforska möjligheterna i virtual och augmented reality. Denna rapport undersöker alternativen för utbildningsverktyg i virtual reality och augmentedreality genom en teoretisk undersökning. I undersökningen vägs fördelar och nackdelar för nuvarande implementeringar för att tillhandahålla ett optimalt system som kan fungera för att ge tekniker praktisk erfarenhet i en realitisk träningssimulering. Baserat på resultaten från undersökningen och genom att använda spelmotorn Unity, har enprototypsapplikation skapats som kan simulera teknikerutbildning på en modell av JAS 39 Gripen. HTC Vive och Leap Motion användes för att låta användaren kliva in i simuleringsvärlden och för att möjliggöra realistisk interaktion. En tekniker kan lära sig att utföra underhållsåtgärder genom att genomföra olika träningsförfaranden i simuleringen genom att gå runt och interagera med ett fullskaligt Gripen-flygplan. / Virtual training is a vital way of educating technicians to make them prepared for real maintenance work. Technicians that are educated to perform maintenance work on JAS 39 Gripen, complete parts of their training through the application Virtual Maintenance Trainer (VMT), which can provide a detailed simulation of the aircraft during operation. The technicians are able to complete courses and lessons with specific procedures such as debugging internal computers and parts of the aircraft and performing maintenance work to fix errors. However, the application is desktop-based and to make the education even more effective, there is a desire to explore the possibilities in virtual and augmented reality. This report explores the alternatives of education tools in virtual reality and augmented reality through a survey. In the survey, the advantages and disadvantages of current implementations are examined to provide an optimal system which could work to give technicians a realistic practical training simulation experience. Based on the results of the survey and by using the game engine Unity, a prototype application is built which can simulate technician training procedures on a model of JAS 39 Gripen. HTC Vive and Leap Motion were used to immerse the user into the simulation world and to enable realistic interaction. A technician may be able to learn through completing different training procedures in the simulation by walking around and interacting with a full-scaled Gripen aircraft.

abstract: Virtual Reality (hereafter VR) and Mixed Reality (hereafter MR) have opened a new line of applications and possibilities. Amidst a vast network of potential applications, little research has been done to provide real time collaboration capability between users of VR and MR. The idea of this thesis study is to develop and test a real time collaboration system between VR and MR. The system works similar to a Google document where two or more users can see what others are doing i.e. writing, modifying, viewing, etc. Similarly, the system developed during this study will enable users in VR and MR to collaborate in real time. The study of developing a real-time cross-platform collaboration system between VR and MR takes into consideration a scenario in which multiple device users are connected to a multiplayer network where they are guided to perform various tasks concurrently. Usability testing was conducted to evaluate participant perceptions of the system. Users were required to assemble a chair in alternating turns; thereafter users were required to fill a survey and give an audio interview. Results collected from the participants showed positive feedback towards using VR and MR for collaboration. However, there are several limitations with the current generation of devices that hinder mass adoption. Devices with better performance factors will lead to wider adoption. / Dissertation/Thesis / Final Output / Keynote / Thesis Demo / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2017

Virtual Reality har existerat i olika former runt 80 år tillbaka, men i dess nuvarande form har den en mer signifikant plats på marknaden. Med detta behövs mer forskning på hur VR fungerar och hur människor påverkas av VR för att kunna utveckla produkter till detta växande medium. Forskningen är idag bristande, så för att bredda förståelsen om VR och framförallt VR som konsol för spel har den här kvalitativa studien undersökt hur skräckelement upplevs i en VR-miljö. Studien undersökte även vad som kan påverka “immersion”, fördjupning i miljön, samt om tidigare erfarenheter kan påverka upplevelser i en VR-miljö. Dessa frågor analyserades utifrån två speltest som gjordes på VR-konsolen HTC Vive. Första speltestet fokuserade på kontroller och “immersion” för att se hur pass lättförstådd och intuitiv konsolen är. Det andra testet undersökte skräckelement i VR och vad för slags element kunde bidra till en mer effektiv och intensiv skräckupplevelse. Totalt deltog 16 personer mellan 19-26 år i speltesterna. Deltagarna var studenter vid Karlstad Universitet eller hade tidigare varit det. Deltagarna blev indelade i olika grupper baserade på tidigare erfarenhet inom spel (första testet) och skräck (andra testet). Med hjälp av observation av videoinspelningar och intervjuer kunde den insamlade datan delas in i teman. De teman som användes för att analysera datan var kontroller, obehag/desorientering, “immersion” och skräckelement. Resultaten visade att HTC Vive har goda förutsättningar för “immersion”. Dock med några problematiska faktorer, utrustning exempelvis, som störde upplevelsen. Trots detta skapade konsolen en stark känsla av “immersion” då deltagarna upplevde sig närvarande i VR-miljön på grund av sådant som bakgrundsljud och naturligt perspektiv på VR-miljön i headsetet. Det som spelade störst roll för “immersion” var att miljön behövde agera verklighetstroget, alltså som spelaren förväntar sig. Den sortens närvaro bidrog positivt till skräckupplevelsen då spelarna tycktes uppleva sig hotade av skräckelementen som att det var riktat mot dem personligen och inte bara en karaktär i ett spel. Gällande skillnader mellan grupperna i erfarenhet fanns det inte många substantiella skillnader. Det kunde märkas lite skillnad i hur kontrollerna hanterades mellan de spelerfarna och icke erfarna. De med tidigare erfarenhet tycktes ha med sig förväntningar om hur kontrollerna skulle fungera. Studien hade, på grund av dess kvalitativa natur, inte möjlighet att få fram generaliserbara resultat. Dock så öppnade den upp för frågor till framtida forskning gällande både VR-spel och dess användare samt om VR-konsoler. / Virtual Reality has existed in different forms since around 80 years ago, but in its current form it has a more significant place on the current market. With this change, more research on how VR works and how humans are affected by it is needed to be able to develop products for this growing medium. The research today is lacking, so to expand the understanding of VR and specifically VR as a console for games, this qualitative study has researched how elements of fear are experienced in a VR-environment. The study also studied what can affect “immersion”, depth in the environment, as well as if previous experience can affect experiences in a VR-environment. These questions were analyzed based on two game tests that were made on the VR-console HTC Vive. The first test focused on controls and “immersion” to see how intuitive and easily understood the console is. The second test examined horror elements in VR and what kinds of elements could contribute to a more effective and intense horror experience. A total of 16 people between the ages of 19-26 participated in the game tests. The participants were students at Karlstad University, or had previously been so. The participants were divided in different kinds of groups depending on previous experiences in digital games (the first test) and horror (the second test). With the help of observation of the video recordings and the interviews the collected data could be divided into themes. The themes used to analyze the data were controls, disorientation/discomfort, “immersion” and horror elements. The results showed that HTC Vive have good qualifications for “immersion”. Though with a few problematic factors, the equipment for example, which disturbed the experience. Despite this, the console created a strong feeling of “immersion” as the participants experienced themselves to be present in the VR-environment because of factors such as background noise and a natural point-of-view of the VR-environment through the headset. The biggest contributor for “immersion” was that the environment needed to have a natural and believable behavior, acting the way the user expects it to. This kind of presence contributed positively to the horror experience as the participants seemed to believe themselves to be threatened by the horror elements as if it was directed at them personally and not just a character in a game.   In the subject of differences between the groups in experience there not a lot of substantial differences. A small difference could be found regarding how the controls were handled between the different groups of game experience. The participants with previous experience seemed to bring expectations about how the controls should work. The study had, because of its qualitative nature, no possibility to receive generalizable results. But the study did open up for questions for future research related to VR-games and their users, as well as VR-consoles.

The aim of this research was to analyze if current generation PC-driven virtual reality simulations can be used to accurately mimic and therefore, observe behavior at a crosswalk. Toward that goal, the following research tasks were carried out: a) Designing a 3D virtual crosswalk and recruiting volunteers to wear the HTC Vive headset and to walk across the street, b) Setting up cameras near the midblock crosswalk on University Drive at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo to observe pedestrians, and c) Comparing pedestrian behavior data from both the virtual and real midblock crosswalk. The comparison was based on the following criteria: a) Pedestrian walking speed, b) Observation patterns prior to crossing the road, characterized by glancing left and right to detect cars, and c) Pedestrians’ decisions as to where to cross, defined by if they chose to walk directly on or outside of the midblock crosswalk. Walking speed and the number of pedestrians who looked left and right before crossing were significantly different in both the virtual and real environments. On the other hand, the proportion of people who chose to walk on the crosswalk was similar in both environments. This result indicates that there is a future potential in using virtual reality to analyze pedestrian behavior at roundabouts. Although this study showed that PC-driven virtual reality is not effective in replicating pedestrian walking speeds or pedestrian observation patterns at a midblock crosswalk, researchers may expect PC-driven virtual reality to have greater applications within the transportation discipline once the technology improves over the years. Potential improvements in technology that would help include being wireless, allowing users to walk in a non-confining space, and making the equipment more affordable, allowing the technology to become more mainstream.

This paper studies a Virtual Reality (VR) training program for novice industrial robot operators. The VR training program is constructed using Unity and HTC Vive. The paper presents the result of comparative experiments allowing novices to learn and operate virtual and physical robots to complete simple industrial production tasks. The results include their time to complete the task, the pass rate of the task, and the results of the questionnaire survey as evidence of their learning efficiency and user satisfaction. Finally, through data analysis, we compare the impact the two methods have on novices. The two approaches are the VR training program and the conventional physical robot training method. The experiment results show that novices who use the VR training program at first show a high degree of user satisfaction, and they can more quickly and efficiently master the knowledge of manipulating industrial robots and apply it to practice. The findings of this article also show that the use of VR technology in industrial production improves y and is a feasible and reliable method which still has room‌‌‌ or improvement. / Den här uppsatsen undersöker ett Virtual Reality-träningsprogram för industriella robot operatörer som är nybörjare. VR-träningsprogrammet är skapat i Unity för HTC Vive. Uppsatsen presenterar resultaten av en jämförande studie där nybörjare fick lära sig att använda en VR och en fysisk robot för att slutföra enkla industriella produktionsuppgifter. Resultatet inkluderar deltagarnas tid att slutföra uppgifterna, andel lyckade försök samt resultaten av ett frågeformulär som bevis på deltagarnas inlärnings effektivitet samt användartillfredsställelse. Genom en dataanalys jämfördes de effekter ett VR- träningsprogram och en konventionell metod på fysiska robotar hade på nybörjare. Studiens resultat visar att nybörjare som använder VR-träningsprogrammet visar en högre grad av användartillfredsställelse och att dem är snabbare och effektivare när dem bemästrar kunskapen som behövs för att manipulera industrirobotar, samt att tillämpa detta i verkligheten. Resultaten visar också att användningen av VR i industriell produktion förbättrar effektiviteten och är en rimlig och trovärdig metod, men som fortfarande har rum för förbättringar.

Within Gällö skog there is an increasing need for meetings in the forest at a distance. This is because many landowners do not live at or close to their forest property. The aim of this work was therefore to find a 3D conference solution for Gällö skog. The work has been carried out using the design process and Pugh's relative decision matrix. First, a requirement specification was made for both hardware and software selection. Then the Facebook Spaces, Rumii and AltSpaceVR software were investigated against this. When none of the aforementioned software was sufficiently satisfactory for this work, it was decided to develop a software. The developed software is based on a website and was developed by modifying an existing project from github.com. Through the modification made in the project, all requirements in the specification could ultimately be achieved. However, with some restrictions. The software works best in the Mozilla Firefox browser, and is not compatible with the iPhone. The user friendliness of Gällö skog also has development potential. The hardware in this work was chosen by comparing the VR glasses HTC Vive and Oculus Rift against each other and the developed requirement specification. As a result, HTC Vive was bought for the project. This because it fulfilled most of the work requirements, and that it had other features that enabled the headset to be used in future work. Finally, The conclusion of this work was that until this technology has come further, this solution may be insufficient. The idea is good, the solution is good, but the technology needs to come further for fully satisfactory results. When the VR technololgy have advanced further, a solution like this could be something that could be useful to companies. This because the inertaction of a 3D conference is improved compared to today's video chat. / Inom Gällö skog finns ett ökande behov av att hålla möten i skogen på distans. Detta eftersom många markägare inte bor på, eller vid sin skogsfastighet. Målet med detta arbete var därför att hitta en 3D-konferenslösning åt Gällö skog. Arbetet har genomförts med hjälp av designprocessen samt Pughs relativa beslutsmatris. Först togs en kravspecifikation fram både för val av hårdvara och mjukvara. Efter det undersöktes mjukvarorna Facebook Spaces, Rumii och AltSpaceVR mot denna. När ingen av de nämnda mjukvarorna var tillräckligt tillfredsställande för detta arbete så valdes att ta fram en egen mjukvara. Den framtagna mjukvaran baseras på en webbplats och togs fram genom att modifiera ett befintligt projekt från github.com. Genom den modifikation som gjordes i projektet så kunde alla krav i kravspecifikationen till slut uppnås. Dock med vissa restriktioner. Mjukvaran fungerar bäst i webbläsaren Mozilla Firefox, och är ej kompatibel med Iphone. Även användarvänligheten för Gällö skog har utvecklingspotential. Hårdvaran i detta arbete togs fram genom att jämföra VR-glasögonen HTC Vive och Oculus Rift mot varandra och den framtagna kravspecifikationen. Resultatet av detta blev att HTC Vive köptes in till projektet. Detta för att de uppfyllde flest av arbetets krav, samt att de hade övriga funktioner som gjorde att de kan användas även i framtida arbeten. Slutsatsen av detta arbete blev till slut att tills dess att tekniken kring detta har hunnit längre så blir denna lösning möjligtvis otillräcklig. Tanken är god, lösningen bra, men tekniken behöver komma längre för fullt tillfredsställande resultat. När VR-tekniken kommit längre skulle en lösning likt denna kunna vara något som kan bli användbart för fler företag. Detta eftersom interaktionen i en 3D-konferens förbättras jämfört med dagens videochattar.

<div> <div> <div> <p>Patients with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) have limited time with supervised therapy in rehabilitation hospitals. This makes it imperative for them to continue regular therapy at home so they can maximize motor recovery especially for performing Activities of Daily Living (ADL). However, physical therapy can be tedious and frustrating leading to a lack of motivation. A novel upper extremity movement measurement tool was developed using a commercial VR system to rapidly and objectively measure an individual’s range of motion, velocity of movement on an individual gesture basis, and frequency of movements in a three-dimensional space. Further, an exergame with varied and customizable gameplay parameters was developed. Through the analysis of participant interaction with the exergame, we identified gameplay parameters that can be adjusted to affect the player’s perceived and physiological effort. We observed that VR has a significant motivational effect on range of motion of upper limbs in individuals with tetraplegia. The motion data and kernel density estimation is used to determine areas of comfort. Moreover, the system allowed calculation of joint torques through inverse kinematics and dynamics to serve as an analysis tool to gauge muscular effort. The system can provide an improved rehabilitation experience for persons with tetraplegia in home settings while allowing oversight by clinical therapists through analysis of mixed reality videos or it could be used as a supplement or alternative to conventional therapy. </p> </div> </div> </div>

I denna studie som utgår från Huizingas begrepp ”den magiska cirkeln” undersöksapplikationen Tilt Brush för VR headsetet HTC Vive med avseende på dess bild ochljud samt hur detta tolkas och används under interaktionen med applikationens verktyg.Begreppet utgår ifrån att användaren kan låta sig uppslukas i ett spel så längeförväntningarna enligt spelets regler inte störs. Genom en fallstudie har applikationenstuderats med metoder som autoetnografi och multimodal analys utifrånsocialsemiotiska begrepp, samt öppna intervjuer med inslag av ”think-aloud”. Deliknande iakttagelser som framkommit med hjälp av olika metoder får anses styrkastudiens resultat. Resultaten i studien pekar på att det för interaktionens del är viktigt attvissa aspekter av ljudet, som har med positionering eller fysikens lagar att göra,stämmer överens med våra erfarenheter från verkligheten och att detta i sin tur stämmeröverens med det visuellt representerade. För bildens och ljudens meningserbjudanden iövrigt är användaren beredd att gå med på vilka oerhörda illusioner som helst så längebild och ljud kommuniceras i överensstämmelse och på ett trovärdigt sätt som lever upptill användarens förväntningar inom den magiska cirkeln, platsen för själva spelet.Förväntningarna behöver då inte ha med verkligheten att göra. Vad som uppfattas somhög modalitet styrs av vilken genre användaren förväntar sig att möta. Detta i sin turrelateras till användarens tidigare erfarenheter och sociala och kulturella bakgrund.

People call the year of 2016 as the year of virtual reality. As the world leading tech giants are releasing their own Virtual Reality (VR) products, the technology of VR has been more available than ever for the mass market now. However, the fact that the technology becomes cheaper and by that reaches a mass-market, does not in itself imply that long-standing usability issues with VR have been addressed. Problems regarding motion sickness (MS) and motion control (MC) has been two of the most important obstacles for VR technology in the past. The main research question of this study is: “Are there persistent universal access issues with VR related to motion control and motion sickness?” In this study a mixed method approach has been utilized for finding more answers related to these two important aspects. A literature review in the area of VR, MS and MC was followed by a quantitative controlled study and a qualitative evaluation. 32 participants were carefully selected for this study, they were divided into different groups and the quantitative data collected from them were processed and analyzed by using statistical test. An interview was also carried out with all of the participants of this study in order to gather more details about the usability of the motion controllers used in this study. The results of this study has validated several existing frameworks for VR. And in conclusion, this study has also shown that both previous motion sickness experiences and gender factors weren’t significant in terms of general accessibility issues on PCVR platforms. There are hints showing that the VR technology on PC platform could be universal accessible, since both of the quantitative and qualitative results has provided some evidences supporting this finding. However, more similar studies need to be carried out in order to identify more possible factors that would give an impact on user experiences in VR. The results of this study has also given implications of that today’s VR technology is developing on the right track and it could slowly become adopted by the mainstream and mass-market in the future.

Videoconferencing is one of the most common telepresence methods today and educational videos is rising in popularity among distance learners. Traditional videoconferencing is unable to convey gestures and mutual eye contact between participants. This study aim to propose a Virtual Reality telepresence solution using game engines. A literature study confirmed the effectiveness achieved in VR is comparable to the effectiveness in face-to-face meetings. The suggested solution implements whiteboard functionality from a real-life perspective, confirming it is possible to include new functionality and directly transfer old functionality to the VR system from the communication systems today. The system was evaluated based on the response time, packet loss, bandwidth, frame rate and through user tests. The evaluation shows it is possible to design a telepresence system with VR capable of passing the Turing Test for Telepresence. The participants of the user tests did not experience discomfort and they were positively inclined to the telepresence system. Though, discomfort may emerge if the VR character is used with a common office workstation. Future studies in this topic would involve modifications of the third person camera, making the head's rotation follow the direction of the camera view and implementing movable eye pupils on the VR character using the upcoming eye-tracking accessory.