UIC campus in VR

Table of Contents

Application

Interaction

Sounds

Contrast between CAVE2 and VIVE

Random Screen Shots from Vive Video Recording

Application

The purpose of this application is to explore some parts of UIC campus virtually, and use the space to turn that in to something meaningful for this area. I tried to make the area as realistic as possible. This application has been tested and can be used for both Cave2 and Vive platforms.

The application have two different mode, day time and night time. Some objects are for all time such as lights, benches, fountain, sculptures. In both scenes there will be a cars that are moving around in Taylor street, and an Ice cream truck on Morgan street, and another car in ERF parking lot.

In day time there are some people in lunch area that are eating pizza, and doughnuts. A person who is playing an electric piano, and another person who is playing basketball. There is a robot exhibition also going on. Some students are showing the robots that they have created.

In night time, there is a movie night, you can see Wall-e movie playing on the screen. You can buy chips, popcorn, and coke from a person near that area. Another person is also on a hammock and he is listening to a lullaby song!

Interaction

This application can support three different interaction.

- there is a fountain and you can turn it off and on when you are near it. You can see the water coming out of the different parts of it when it's on(used unity particle systems to show the water).
- you can turn on a robot in the robot exhibition area in day time and make it rotate around itself, you can turn it off also.
- at movie night area you can buy popcorn(basically grab) and put is somewhere else(table, chair, ground).

Sounds

There are three types of sounds in the application:

- There are some ambient sounds both for night time and day time, such as cars moving around, wind, city, birds, etc.
- Some sounds are always there but you can't hear them unless you get close to them and as you get closer the sound will be louder, such as music from speaker in the right side of a person on hammock at night time.
- Some people talk when they see you(basically when you are near them). For example they want you to see the robot exhibition or interact with a robot or watch the Wall-e movie wt night.

Animation

To avoid having only static objects, multiple people and a car is animated in the scene.

- a car in the Taylor street move around.
- piano player is moving her hands while playing the piano.
- when you are close to some people they start to talk while moving their hands and body, and when you get far the animation and talking will be stoped.
  - in robot exhibition, someone tells that there some students that they are showing their robots and you should talk a look at them.
  - someone else tells you that you can interact with one of the robots and rotate it.
  - in movie night, someone tells you that UIC is showing wall-e and you should watch it.
- a boy enjoys the movie so sometimes, it move his legs while watching wall-e!

Cave:

It uses Polarized lenses for tracking and providing 3D view, also a PS Move controller for tracking and interaction with the application. Circle button, opens the menu and you can go up and down using the up and down keys on the controller. You can go to another menu by pressing circle button again, if a menu is attached to that element. You can press x button to close a menu. You can use the track ball thing on controller for moving. And you can bring your hand up and down or rotate in flying mode.

In system menu you can pick one of the option for navigation, like flying, driving or walking. You can also choose your speed.

In the app menu, you can change the time of the day to see day scene and night scene. You can also transport to 4 different places in the area (start position, SEO, right and left sides of the grove).

You can interact with intractable objects by directing the wand toward them when you are close to those objects and press x button for turning them on and off or press x button and hold that to grab and release when you want to put that object somewhere else.

Vive:

It uses two external cameras and one internal camera on headset to track the movement of body and controllers. You should use both of the Vive controllers tp interact with application. Right controller is for the menu. when you click the circled button it opens the menu and you can press it again if there is a submenu assigned to that. You can close the menu by clicking on the left button on the handle of the right controller. You can go up and down on menu using the right controller pad. You should use left controller pad for moving. You can bring your left hand up and down or rotate in flying mode.

In system menu you can pick one of the option for navigation, like flying, driving or walking. You can also choose your speed.

In the app menu, you can change the time of the day to see day scene and night scene. You can also transport to 4 different places in the area (start position, SEO, right and left sides of the grove).

You can interact with intractable objects by directing the right controller toward them when you are close to those objects and press left button on the handle of left controller for turning them on and off or press and hold that button to grab and release when you want to put that object somewhere else.

YouTube Video Links

Day Mode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSNVhkExuSQ

Night Mode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqyUZPNn1oI

Sounds Data

Day

ambient
source
1. electric piano: https://freesound.org/people/ShadyDave/sounds/276934/
2. I am a Robot: http://soundbible.com/679-I-Am-A-Robot.html
3. fountain: https://freesound.org/people/Tritus/sounds/202914/

Night

ambient
1. wind: http://soundbible.com/1810-Wind.html
2. night time: http://soundbible.com/951-Nightime.html
3. talk: https://freesound.org/people/LeandiViljoen/sounds/502090/
source
1. movie trailer
2. fountain: https://freesound.org/people/Tritus/sounds/202914/
3. lullaby: https://freesound.org/people/Bram/sounds/18174/

Talks

https://www.text2speech.org/ and http://www.fromtexttospeech.com/
1. day - hey man! do you want to play basketball with me
2. day - some of the computer science students are showing the robots that they have created. You should take a look at them.
3. day - hey guys, you can interact with this robot and make it rotate around itself. Do you want to try?
4. night - hello, do you want to buy some popcorn?
5. night - hi, have you seen wall-e? they are playing it here tonight! it's awesome!

Models Data

All

People

https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=sitting

Day

regina
ch37
malcom
ch22
ch42
ch12
ch28
ch23
ch08
ch02
ch22

Night

ch31
remy
ch26
ch33
ch01
aj
jasper
ch21
claire
ch29

My Models

List of models Created by me

chair
table
bench
lunch table and chair
fountain
movie screen
trash can
ground light
stand light
street light
traffic light
UIC sculpture
basketball ball
car in Taylor street, recreated
creature robot: recreated by me from LinkedIn learning course

Bench

Chair

Fountain

Ground Lights

Lunch Table

Robot!

Movie Screen

Standing Light

Street Light

Table

Traffic Light

Trash Can

Car

Ball

UIC

Source Code

The source code for the application can be found here:

https://github.com/panteaa/Pantea-Chicago-UIC

To Install and Run the application, simply clone the repository. The app is built using Unity Version 2019.2.11f, but it should work with other versions. You can use Unity Hub and add the project, or install that version of Unity and open it.

How to build?

This application can be build on PC without any problem. All controls of Vive and Cave2 are mapped to keyboard and mouse buttons.

If you want to run it on Cave2:

https://github.com/uic-evl/omicron-unity/wiki/Guide-for-running-Unity-in-CAVE2#building-on-cave2

If you want to run it on Vive:

Simply open the project and from the Omicron menu in the nav bar, choose build for Vive, and play it while a Vive device is connected to your PC.

Contrast between CAVE2 and VIVE

Field of view

- Cave2 has a larger field of view than Vive.

Body parts

- you can see your body parts while in Cave2.

Collaboration

- you can see other peoples body and show them objects directly in Cave2
- other people can also see when you are interacting with something or pointing to something in Cave2
- converting the app to multi player app will be much easier for Cave2

Controllers

- one controller is enough for Cave2 and the other hand is free
- you should use both hands when interacting with Vive and sometimes it's harder to interact with objects / push buttons when events are triggered by both controllers on Vive

Cost

- Vive is cheaper but Cave2 is not because of all the cameras and multiple displays

Immersion

- you feel more immersed while using Vive because your real world view is completely blocked
- seeing display and display lines in Cave2 makes it less immersive

Quality

- Frame rates for the Cave and Vive was different, for some parts Cave had less frame rate probably because of clustering.
- The images on Cave2 looked better generally.

Sound Quality

- Quality of Sounds was so much better in Cave2

Comfort

- Vive headset was not comfortable at all because of heaviness and some balance issues
- Cave glasses are light weighted and much more comfortable

Motion Sickness

- Vive made me so sick while working with it after using it just for few seconds! but using Cave was much more better. The reason is that it doesn't block your whole view and you can see your body and objects around you in real world especially the ground.

Tracking

- Tracking quality for the Cave2 was better because of having multiple cameras.
- Area of movement was larger for Cave2.

Setup

- Setting up the system was a little bit easier for Vive.
- For Cave you need to do 2 to 3 little steps to be able to run it.

Comparing to reality

- Both Cave and Vive environment felt much smaller than the real world. Probably because of the actual feel of movement in real wold and speed.
- The provided base environment was a bit different than the actual UIC grove, especially in the number of threes. The real environment has more space than the this VR world.
- In real world there are other senses in play such as smell and touch that it couldn't provided for VR world.
- In reality you can not pass some objects or jump high from some objects, fly or teleport to different places quickly but in virtual world you can do that.
- In real world you can interact with objects using different parts of your body but in Vr world it's limited to hands and and head rotation.
- VR was a great tool to experiment and prototype, put different objects and see how they look. But doing that in real world is impossible or cost a lot.
- Obviously real world is immersive and you have the sense of complete presence and you are more comfortable while in it.