Various projects highlighting my development for and research into the cognitive effects of immersvie virtual environments.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory -- ESIF Insight Center
K. Gruchalla & J. Marbach (2004) Immersive Visualization of the Hurricane Isabel Dataset. IEEE Visualization 2004.
In this paper, we describe an immersive prototype application, AtmosV, developed to interactively visualize the large multivariate atmosphericdataset provided by the IEEE Visualization 2004 Contest committee. The visualization approach is a combination of volume and polygonal rendering. The immersive application was developed and evaluated on both a shared-memory parallel machine and a commodity cluster. Using the cluster we were able to visualize multiple variables at interactive frame rates.
In this paper, we describe an immersive prototype application, AtmosV, developed to interactively visualize the large multivariate atmosphericdataset provided by the IEEE Visualization 2004 Contest committee. The visualization approach is a combination of volume and polygonal rendering. The immersive application was developed and evaluated on both a shared-memory parallel machine and a commodity cluster. Using the cluster we were able to visualize multiple variables at interactive frame rates.
K. Gruchalla & J. Marbach (2004) Immersive Visualization of the Hurricane Isabel Dataset. IEEE Visualization 2004.
In this paper, we describe an immersive prototype application, AtmosV, developed to interactively visualize the large multivariate atmospheric dataset provided by the IEEE Visualization 2004 Contest committee. The visualization approach is a combination of volume and polygonal rendering. The immersive application was developed and evaluated on both a shared-memory parallel machine and a commodity cluster. Using the cluster we were able to visualize multiple variables at interactive frame rates.
In this paper, we describe an immersive prototype application, AtmosV, developed to interactively visualize the large multivariate atmospheric dataset provided by the IEEE Visualization 2004 Contest committee. The visualization approach is a combination of volume and polygonal rendering. The immersive application was developed and evaluated on both a shared-memory parallel machine and a commodity cluster. Using the cluster we were able to visualize multiple variables at interactive frame rates.
K. Gruchalla & J. Marbach (2004) Immersive Visualization of the Hurricane Isabel Dataset. IEEE Visualization 2004.
K. Gruchalla & J. Marbach (2004) Immersive Visualization of the Hurricane Isabel Dataset. IEEE Visualization 2004.
K. Gruchalla. (2004) Immersive Well-Path Editing: Investigating the added value of immersion. In .
The benefits of immersive visualization are primarily anecdotal; therehave been few controlled user studies that have attempted to quantifythe added value of immersion for problems requiring the manipulation ofvirtual objects. This research quantifies the added value of immersionfor a real-world industrial problem: oil well-path planning. Anexperiment was designed to compare human performance between animmersive virtual environment (IVE) and a desktop workstation. Thiswork presents the results of sixteen participants who planned the pathsof four oil wells. Each participant planned two well-paths on a desktopworkstation with a stereoscopic display and two well-paths in aCAVE-like IVE. Fifteen of the participants completed well-path editingtasks faster in the IVE than in the desktop environment. The increasedspeed was complimented by a statistically significant increase incorrect solutions in the IVE. The results suggest that an IVE can allowfor faster and more accurate problem solving in a complexthree-dimensional domain.
The benefits of immersive visualization are primarily anecdotal; therehave been few controlled user studies that have attempted to quantifythe added value of immersion for problems requiring the manipulation ofvirtual objects. This research quantifies the added value of immersionfor a real-world industrial problem: oil well-path planning. Anexperiment was designed to compare human performance between animmersive virtual environment (IVE) and a desktop workstation. Thiswork presents the results of sixteen participants who planned the pathsof four oil wells. Each participant planned two well-paths on a desktopworkstation with a stereoscopic display and two well-paths in aCAVE-like IVE. Fifteen of the participants completed well-path editingtasks faster in the IVE than in the desktop environment. The increasedspeed was complimented by a statistically significant increase incorrect solutions in the IVE. The results suggest that an IVE can allowfor faster and more accurate problem solving in a complexthree-dimensional domain.
K. Gruchalla, M. Dubin, J. Marbach, E. Bradley. (2008) Immersive Examination of the Qualitative Structure of Biomolecules. In , 2008.
We studied the added value in using immersive visualization as a molecular research tool. We present our results in the context of "embodied cognition", as a way to understand situations in which immersive virtual visualization may be particularly useful. PYMOL, a non-immersive application used by biochemistryresearchers, was ported to an immersive virtual environment (IVE) to run on a four-PC cluster. Three research groups were invited to extend their current research on a molecule of interest to include an investigation of that moleculeinside the IVE. The groups each had a similar experience of visualizing a feature of their molecule they had not previously appreciated from workstation viewing; large-scale spatial features, such as pockets and ridges, were readilyidentified when walking around the molecule displayed at human scale. We suggest that this added value arises because an IVE affords the opportunity to visualize the molecule using normal, everyday-world perceptual abilities that have been tuned and practiced from birth. This work also suggests that short sessions of IVE viewing can valuably augment extensive, non-IVE based visualizations.
We studied the added value in using immersive visualization as a molecular research tool. We present our results in the context of "embodied cognition", as a way to understand situations in which immersive virtual visualization may be particularly useful. PYMOL, a non-immersive application used by biochemistryresearchers, was ported to an immersive virtual environment (IVE) to run on a four-PC cluster. Three research groups were invited to extend their current research on a molecule of interest to include an investigation of that moleculeinside the IVE. The groups each had a similar experience of visualizing a feature of their molecule they had not previously appreciated from workstation viewing; large-scale spatial features, such as pockets and ridges, were readilyidentified when walking around the molecule displayed at human scale. We suggest that this added value arises because an IVE affords the opportunity to visualize the molecule using normal, everyday-world perceptual abilities that have been tuned and practiced from birth. This work also suggests that short sessions of IVE viewing can valuably augment extensive, non-IVE based visualizations.
K. Gruchalla, J. Marbach, M. Dubin. (2007) Porting Legacy Applications to Immersive Virtual Environments: A Case Study.
In , 2007.
Immersive virtual environments are becoming increasingly common, driving the need to develop new software or adapt existing software to these environments. We discuss some of the issues and limitations of porting an existing molecular graphics system, PyMOL, into an immersive virtual environment. Presenting macromolecules inside an interactive immersive virtual environment may provide unique insights into molecular structure and improve the rational design of drugs that target a specific molecule. PyMOL was successfully extended to render molecular structures immersively; however, elements of the legacy interactive design did not scale well into three-dimensions. Achieving an interactive frame rate for large macromolecules was also an issue. The immersive system was developed and evaluated on both a shared-memory parallel machine and a commodity cluster.
In , 2007.
Immersive virtual environments are becoming increasingly common, driving the need to develop new software or adapt existing software to these environments. We discuss some of the issues and limitations of porting an existing molecular graphics system, PyMOL, into an immersive virtual environment. Presenting macromolecules inside an interactive immersive virtual environment may provide unique insights into molecular structure and improve the rational design of drugs that target a specific molecule. PyMOL was successfully extended to render molecular structures immersively; however, elements of the legacy interactive design did not scale well into three-dimensions. Achieving an interactive frame rate for large macromolecules was also an issue. The immersive system was developed and evaluated on both a shared-memory parallel machine and a commodity cluster.
K. Gruchalla, J. Marbach, M. Dubin. (2007) Porting Legacy Applications to Immersive Virtual Environments: A Case Study.
In , 2007.
Immersive virtual environments are becoming increasingly common, driving the need to develop new software or adapt existing software to these environments. We discuss some of the issues and limitations of porting an existing molecular graphics system, PyMOL, into an immersive virtual environment. Presenting macromolecules inside an interactive immersive virtual environment may provide unique insights into molecular structure and improve the rational design of drugs that target a specific molecule. PyMOL was successfully extended to render molecular structures immersively; however, elements of the legacy interactive design did not scale well into three-dimensions. Achieving an interactive frame rate for large macromolecules was also an issue. The immersive system was developed and evaluated on both a shared-memory parallel machine and a commodity cluster.
In , 2007.
Immersive virtual environments are becoming increasingly common, driving the need to develop new software or adapt existing software to these environments. We discuss some of the issues and limitations of porting an existing molecular graphics system, PyMOL, into an immersive virtual environment. Presenting macromolecules inside an interactive immersive virtual environment may provide unique insights into molecular structure and improve the rational design of drugs that target a specific molecule. PyMOL was successfully extended to render molecular structures immersively; however, elements of the legacy interactive design did not scale well into three-dimensions. Achieving an interactive frame rate for large macromolecules was also an issue. The immersive system was developed and evaluated on both a shared-memory parallel machine and a commodity cluster.
