eScience Lectures Notes : .

Slide 1 : 1 / 15 : Lecture Introduction

Internetworked Virtual Reality

Lecture Introduction : Internetworked Virtual Reality

Comp 6443 : part of the eScience Master (Course Code: < 6701>) "I think, therefore I am", René Descartes (1596-1650). Weekly each Friday commencing 25/7/03 and concluding 24/10/03 in CSIT(Bld 108), N101 at lunch time (from 12am to 2pm)

Slide 2 : 2 / 15 : eScience : Computer Graphics : Lecture : Lecturer

Lecturer : Pascal Vuylsteker

E-mail : pascal.vuylsteker@anu.edu.au or pvk@vuylsteker.net

Conclusion : a mix of Physics, Computer Graphics, Internet

Plus... Contact with France ... Project opportunities ?

Other members of the eScience team

• Any philosophical question and advices : Henry Gardner

• Any administrative question : Bronwyn Schmidt or Sam Ingham

• Any question about the Lab : Hugh Fisher (system administrator, Lab tutor and next week lecturer)

Slide 3 : 3 / 15 : Sources and Thanks

Sources and Thanks

The data presented in those pages are of course based on many sources that you could reach from the links part of this web site, but the more important sources are...

The book "Networked Virtual Environments / Design and Implementation"
by Sandeep Singhal and Michael Zyda / Ed : ACM Press, Addison-Welsey and Michael Zyda Web Site

Le traité de la réalité virtuelle
By Philippe Fuchs, Guillaume Moreau, Jean-Paul Papin
Préfacé par Alain Berthoz, Professeur au Collège de France

Enriching exchanges with Markus Buchhorn <Markus.Buchhorn@anu.edu.au>, in charge of the Grangenet Project at the Computer Science Department (ANU) and with Sam Taylor, Ex Phd at the Computer Science Department (ANU)  and now working at Nokia (England)

Collaboration with the rest of the eScience Team

Slide 4 : 4 / 15 : Lecture Contents

Internetworked Virtual Reality

Comp 6443 : part of the eScience Master (Course Code: < 6701>)

This course covers the design and implementation of real-time, visual simulation systems for animating and interacting with virtual environments.

Virtual Reality Moo, Mud Groupware Online culture Different Level of networked 3D VRML, MPEG4... Networking architecture NVE Research paper / presentation

Slide 5 : 5 / 15 : Lecture Contents

Students Background

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU TAKE THIS COURSE?

Computer Graphics : Prerequisite or Co-requisite : COMP6461/4610

At least some experience of GUI and/or 2D programming for one student per group

Most people taking this course are expected to have taken a course in computer graphics. In case of no previous knowledge, you should at least be involved in this semester eScience computer graphics course. Or you should make sure to partner with a student that as some experience in that subject.

Networking

Understanding that internet and the web is not the same thing.

Notion of different layers of a network. And different models of communication between computers.

Java

All projects will be written in the Java programming language. If you do not already know Java, then you are expected to be familiar with at least one of the following programming languages: C, C++, or Pascal. If you have not seen Java before then you might want to consider buying one of the many primers available on the subject.

And this is a good transition to the slide on books...

Slide 6 : 6 / 15 : books

Books

Official IVR lecture textbook

• Networked Virtual Environments / Design and Implementation
  by Sandeep Singhal and Michael Zyda / Ed : ACM Press, Addison-Welsey

First Edition, 1999 / ISBN 0-201-32557-8
Around 55 US$

Web 3D

• Core Web3D
  by Aaron E. Walsh and Mikaël Bourges-Sévenier / Ed : Prentice Hall PTR

VRML, Java3D, MPEG4 and X3D
First Edition, 2001 / ISBN 0-13-085728-9

Computer Graphics

• See the Computer Graphics Lecture book list

Virtual Reality

• Le traité de la réalité virtuelle
  By Philippe Fuchs, Guillaume Moreau, Jean-Paul Papin
  Préfacé par Alain Berthoz, Professeur au Collège de France

Still in French, BUT, free download for students
First Edition, 2001 / ISBN : 2-911762-34-7
540 pages, 16X24 cm, 100 Euros (655,96 FF)
Prix spécial Internet : 95 Euros (623,16 FF)

• Essential Virtual Reality Fast
  By John Vince / Ed : Springer-Verlag Press,

I haven't read it, and am waiting for your comments
First printed: 1998 / ISBN : 1-85233-012-0
192 pages   £16.95, €27.45, $32.95 http://www.essential-series.com/essential_virtual_reality.htm

• Understanding Virtual Reality : Interface, Application, and Design
  By William Sherman, Alan Craig

An excellent one. At least a recent book talking about VR. My recommendation as a second textbook if you want a second one
September 2002
576 pages
US$ 69.95
ISBN 1-55860-353-0

Slide 7 : 7 / 15 : links

Links

Some links for each part of the lecture

Contextual links

Virtual Reality

http://escience.anu.edu.au/links/top_vr.en.html

Networked VR

http://escience.anu.edu.au/links/vr_vrmlweb3dandinternet.en.html

Computer Graphics

http://escience.anu.edu.au/links/top_computergraphics.en.html

Java3D

http://escience.anu.edu.au/links/computergraphics_java.en.html

Slide 8 : 8 / 15 : lecture organisation

Lecture Organisation

2 hours lecture per weeks

Lectures will take place in the Seminar Room, (Room N101, CS&IT building).

Friday from 12 am (noon) to 2 pm.

About 4 x 2 hours labs

The first lab session begin next monday

• Development on some subjects

• Some supervised laboratory session

Laboratories will take place in the eScience Laboratory.

Readings

2 places to meet

• Lectures : Seminar Room, (Room N101, CS&IT building)

• Laboratories : eScience Laboratory (Room XXX, Ian Ross building)

3 types of assignment...

Slide 9 : 9 / 15 : Assesement

Assessment

Assessment is based on two set of presentations, 1 programming assignments, nominally in Java, and one theoretical exam.

• 1 Analysis/synthesis/presentation of a set of research papers about Networked VR  (30 marks)

• 1 programming assignments (30 marks)

The assignment is marked by demonstration and by submission of well commented code.

When you are writing those comment, try to imagine yourself reading your code in ten years... and try to avoid to much OZ slang

One Group (2  people) : From the 6th of April to the 20th of May

Make sure that one of the two students is able to produce a Gui in Swing and some drawing in Java2D

Demonstration of the work will occur during week 12 or 13

• 1 theoretical exam in June (40 marks)

Slide 10 : 10 / 15 : NVE : Research paper presentation

NVE : Research paper presentation

Assignment 2 : Introduction to research : half of the course

Students will make an in-class presentation based on readings and independent research on a Research Paper.

To illustrate the paper, you will have to point to one or two other research papers : they could either explain the context of the studied paper or illustrate some other position to the same issue.

During the presentation and in the lecture note, you have to explain the context of the paper, extract the main idea and then explain the difficult part of it. After your presentation, anybody should be able to read the paper straitforward and to fully understand it

Lecture: 

• 30 mn + 5 mn (questions time)

• Presentation support (Transparent, Powerpoint or HTML recommended)

• Show video, bring props, sing...

• An important part of your presentation is interaction with the students, so try to engage them and leave time for questions

• Presentation : between the 27/04 and the 18/05

• Presentation will be recorded (to help the marking)

• Your grade will be based upon demonstrated knowledge of the subject, as well as interactivity and efficacy of presentation.

• Pictures and diagrams : be creative

• Be targeted at Masters or graduate students in computer science.

• You may want to use ManyPage to dress your pages (http://www.vrarchitect.net/ManyPage/index.en.html)

• Sources and references

• Presentation support should be submited at the latest on Tuesday before 1600 of the week of your presentation

cd .. (go to the directory in which your 03IVRA1_UstudentID  is located)

tar cvf 03IVRA1_UstudentID.tar 03IVRA1_UstudentID/

gzip 03IVRA1_UstudentID.tar

Mail the file (03IVRA1_UstudentID.tar.gz) as an attached document. Be sure that the title of your mail is '03IVRA1_UstudentID''

Slide 11 : 11 / 15 : Notes about chosing your paper

Notes about choosing your paper

Some short, some longs

Short : sometimes really good, but condensed or sometimes really bad : in all cases, you will need to read/find other papers : either to understand the good one, or to complement, find some of critics to the poor one.

Longs 25 min /2-3  min/slides = 15-9 slides (intro + conclusion + ...) : between 9 to 12 main idea to develop ...
Don't get lost in the paper introduction

Some similar papers : the second presentation should present some original idea (you have to come and listen to the presentation, and you better chose an early presentation slot.

There are some traps (some paper are really difficult ...)

First mail, First saved, First presented

Slide 12 : 12 / 15 : IVR papers

IVR papers / COMP6443 / eScience / DCS / ANU (semester 1 / 2005)

Introduction papers

p3) Taxonomy for Networked Virtual Environments (1997)  
Michael Macedonia - IEEE MultiMedia - http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/macedonia97taxonomy.html

p23) The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat
Chip Morningstar and F.Randall Farmer

p41) Playing in the MUD
Michael O'Brien

Multicast Issues for Collaborative Virtual Environments
Hugh Fisher - IEE Computer Graphics and Applications
http://csdl.computer.org/comp/mags/cg/2002/05/g5068abs.htm

A number striked means that the paper has already been attributed. Eg. : 6

Papers to analyse

Slide 13 : 13 / 15 : Students / Subject

Students

Research paper presentation

Slide 14 : 14 / 15 : Students

Students

Slide 15 : 15 / 15 : Web issues

Web issues

Handouts

All handouts will be available on the eScience web site.

You should still take notes !!!

and as a redirection through the webct web site :

eScience : http://escience.anu.edu.au/lecture/ivr/index.en.html

escience/ivr

The final handouts should be available, at the very latest, the Friday following the lecture.

CSS : Cascading Style Sheet

CSS is the best way to change the look of a web page without touching to its content. It helps to deal with Accessibility issue. The idea is that text content is not corrupted by visual formatting.

Be sure that your web browser accept CCS. Netscape (> 4) and IE (>= 5) should be OK. Go to the W3C web site to check the list.

I will be using CSS in order to use the same document for slides, handouts et even my lecture notes. The differences will be done only by the application of different Style Sheet on the same web pages.

Additional Formats

Both following formats are based on XML and will perhaps be used in the handouts.

They are both new one on the web in the sense that they are not yet set by default in main browsers installation. Nevertheless, good Plug-Ins already exist to visualise that formats into web pages. To learn more about web standards and XML stuff, check the W3C web site : http://www.w3C.org/ .

Even if we don't eventually use theses additional format during in those handout, it is interesting to have a look at them

SVG : Scalable Vector Graphic

SVG is a challenger to Flash and Shockwave, the Macromedia format. Although SVG will
add many capabilities that are not directly available in Flash, by far the biggest difference between Flash and SVG is that the former is proprietary and the latter is public.

Adobe : http://www.adobe.com/svg/

has released a good plug-in for SVG.

MathML : Mathematics on the web

MathML is an XML application for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text.

IBM techexplorer : http://www-4.ibm.com/software/network/techexplorer/

IBM is providing a plug-in for MathML. Not only this plug-in will allow you to visualise MathML, but techexplorer enables the display of TeX, LaTeX and MathML documents and the publishing of interactive scientific material on the Web. Version 3.1 includes full support for MathML 2.0,