Modern virtual reality is an ever growing subject in today’s society. I delved deeper into some key moments in the development of modern virtual reality. Oculus Rift has shown incredible potential. Some developments even seek to envelope the human senses in virtual reality as well.   With several different approaches to the same solution there are many ways that the experience can affect the overall immersion of a consumer into the product.  The tests I performed were primarily focused around the interaction between the human senses and immersion. The immersion can be increased or decreased by basic means of stimulating the human senses. This test was implemented by having volunteers participate in two phases in a supervised environment. In the first phase, the participants were subjected to an increase in immersion by stimulating senses other than their eyes and ears. The second phase involved reducing the participants’ sensory stimulation to see what the difference in immersion would be between the two phases.  The results of the investigation show that manipulating the human senses does have an impact on immersion when using virtual reality. Immersion can be affected by increasing or decreasing the stimuli for the human senses.

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.

Projektet skapades från viljan att framställa en virtuell träningsmiljö där blivande lärare kan öva och bättra på sin icke-verbala kommunikation när dem undervisar. Projektet funkar genom att fånga användarens rörelser och rendera virtuella agenter på en skärm framför användaren. Att stå framför en statisk skärm och undervisa kan dock inte kännas helt realistiskt. Denna rapport kommer gå igenom implementationen av en huvudmonterad display, mer specifikt Oculus Rift, för att skapa en virtuell verklighet och utökningen av de virtuella agenternas beetende och nya sätt att interagera med agenterna. De täcker även resultaten från experimenten där den nya funktionaliteten blev utvärderad. Experimenten gjordes genom att låta 18 personer testa systemet i både den gamla och nya uppsättningen och sedan fylla i frågeformulär efteråt. / This project was created from the desire to provide a virtual training environment for teachers-intraining to practice and improve their non-verbal communication with students. The project worked by capturing the user’s movements and rendering the virtual agent’s to a screen in front of the user. Standing in front of a static screen to hold a lecture might however not feel entirely realistic. This report covers the implementation of a head-mounted display, specifically the Oculus Rift, to create a virtual reality as well as the extension of the virtual agent’s behavior and new ways to interact with the virtual agent’s. It also covers the results of an experiment where the new functionality was evaluated. The experiment was done by allowing 18 persons to test the system in both the old and new configurations and fill in questionnaires afterwards.

While the accessibility and technology behind industrial robots is improving as well as becomingless expensive, the installation and conguration of industrial robot cells still proves tobe an expensive venture, especially for small and mid-sized companies. It is therefore of greatinterest to simulate robot cell installations, both for verication of system functionality as wellas for demonstration purposes for clients.However, the construction and conguration of a simulated robot cell is a time-consumingprocess and requires expertise that is often only found in engineers who are experienced withsoftware programming and spacial kinematics. If the process were to be simplied it would bringgreat advantages not only concerning the more ecient use of the time of software engineers butalso in marketing applications.As this paper will show, the use of Virtual Reality (VR) in simulating, displaying andcontrolling robots is a well investigated subject. It has been shown that VR can be used to showrobot simulation in more detail and to specify path movement in task programming. This paperfocuses upon nding and evaluating an intuitive Human Robot Interface (HRI) for interactingwith simulated robots using virtual reality.An HRI is proposed and evaluated, using the Oculus Rift Head Mounted Display (HMD)to display a 3-dimensional (3D) VR environment of a Robot Cell in ABB RobotStudio. Usingmarker-based tracking enabled by ARToolkit, the user's position in real world coordinates isforwarded to the virtual world, along with the position and orientation of a hand-held tool thatallows the user to manipulate the robot targets that are part of the simulated robots program.The system as an HRI was successful in giving the user a strong sense of immersion andgiving them a much better understanding of the robot cell and the positions of the dened robottargets. All participants were also able to dene robot targets much faster with the proposedinterface than when using the standard RobotStudio tools. Results show that the performance ofthe tracking system is adequate with regards to latency and accuracy for updating user positionand hand-held tool when using a video capture resolution of 640x480.

This thesis explores how virtual reality solutions affect children in their learning through educational games. The goal is to improve educational games in terms of how engaging they are. Therefore, a game was developed for both desktop monitors and VR, some children played both versions and were then interviewed. The collected data indicates that VR engages the pupils more, however it does not seem to necessarily make them learn more. This may be in part because of VR’s novelty, only gaining a mainstream status in the recent years. / Denna uppsats undersöker hur virtuell verklighet (VR) påverkar barns lärande genom utbildningsspel. Målet är att förbättra utbildningsspel för att öka elevernas engagemang. Därför utvecklades ett spel för både datorskärmar och VR-glasögon, några barn fick spela båda versionerna och blev därefter intervjuade. Resultatet av undersökningen indikerar att VR ökar elevernas engagemang, men inte nödvändigtvis att de lär sig mer. Detta kan delvis bero på att VR är relativt nytt och endast börjat bli allmänt förekommande under de senaste åren.

This master thesis explores interactive augmented reality. The aim is to design, create andtest device, which allows interaction between user and augmented reality. First analyzesaugmented reality, devices for its displaying and necessary calibration methods. Then, onthe basis of acquired knowledge, shows design and construction of few prototypes of devicelike this. Finally it shows experiments to test correctness of the concept.

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To display large and complex products at sales meetings or fairs can be a challenge for industrial companies. Customers want to experience the product before purchase, yet this is not always possible due to high shipping costs and logistic problems. Virtual Reality (VR) achieved by Head-mounted Displays (HMD) is growing bigger by every day and is becoming accessible to more people. With this technology, there must be a new way to facilitate the sales process in the industry. The first goal with this master thesis was to investigate what challenges and opportunities there are in today’s sales process and develop a concept for a sales tool that uses the VR technology. The second goal was to explore how today’s technology could evolve and how the future sales process could work. To achieve these goals the Research Learning Spiral was used together with interviews and a workshop. By investigating how the sales process works in today’s industry, through interviews with people that are active in the field and a workshop, a number of challenges were identified. Three of these challenges were: to display large and complex products to the customers, to know what arguments that triggers a specific customer and to explain advantages with the product to the customer. Based on data from the interviews a prototype of a sales tool using VR was designed. The goal with the prototype was to counteract the challenges found in today’s sales process. The prototype uses a tablet where the salesman can control a 3D visualization of the product through a menu with different choices. This tablet is connected to the Samsung Gear VR, which is a VR device that uses a HMD to achieve VR, where the customer can experience the product in a virtual environment controlled by the salesman. With data from the interviews together with a conducted workshop, suggestions for the future sales process were obtained. The future sales process is very likely to use VR as a tool to both display products and to reduce traveling. The technology will possibly be smarter and be able to facilitate the sales process, for instance through artificial intelligence, smart materials and 3D printing. VR as a sales tool for large and complex products has the potential to be a great aid for the salesman during the sales process. Companies will not be required to ship large and complex products to fairs or meetings which will save money for the company and also contribute to less impact on the environment. This area of research is fairly new and there are a lot of opportunities still to be investigated.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Howard D. Hahn / “There is an alarming gap between awareness and action on [environmental issues]” (Sheppard, 2005). Public awareness of how to cope and change with these issues is lacking (Sheppard, 2004; Nicholson-Cole, 2005; Dockerty et al., 2005), but new visualization technologies can begin to bridge the gap through environmental education. Environmental education focuses on the user exploring an environment, environmental issues, problem solving and ways to mitigate these issues. While the younger generations (middle to high school students) are much more aware of current and future environmental issues than older generations, the solutions to these problems may not be so apparent. By combining the need to educate young adults about climate change, regional ecosystem climate mitigation, and ecological management for technologically driven youth, middle and high school students can better understand their environment’s impact on climate-change regulation. Through literature synthesis, documentation of existing visualization exhibits and technologies, and preliminary technology exploration, a production process, criteria, framework, and technology recommendations were established. These components informed the final storyboards, which visually organized a proposal to build a 3D learning environment focused on the Konza Prairie and its ecological management practices.

Virtual reality headsets, like the Oculus Rift, uses visual tricks to enhance the feeling of immersion in virtual reality applications. This thesis explores the possibilities of creating an immersive sound experience to go along with the visuals. A sound propagation model designed for real-time simulations is presented along with techniques to implement binaural synthesis. The thesis includes an implementation of a 3D cube world written in C# using OpenGL for graphics and FMOD for sound. The implementation is evaluated in the context of realism and possible improvements and optimizations are suggested.