- Metrics and Models for the
Perceptual Design of Virtual Transparency - Progress (~06/98)
The systems problem preventing low latency
image rendering with IRIX 6.2 has been solved by introduction
of a patch provided by SGI after considerable encouragement.
Performance equivalent to that previously obtained with IRIX
5.3 was achieved in March.
A tower simulation displayed via the custom
stereo head mounted display has been completed for use with the
head mounted display that can allow users to visualize approaching
and departing aircraft as if they were actually located at a
control tower either at SFO (San Francisco) of KATL (Atlanta).
This simulation allows the demonstration of perceptual instability
and distance estimation errors that could obtain in a fielded
head mounted display for use within a tower. Aircraft shapes
are corrected rendered and presented with data tags; the airport
map is presented only as a scanned chart mapped onto the ground
plane as a texture. Calibration for presentation of distant and
near targets is currently being obtained via improved understanding
of the World Took Kit functions needed. These were poorly documented
with respect to mathematical details. The current system could
be connected to aircraft traffic data on the WEB via sockets
and can be used to study the role of the parameters of binocular
presentation to the apparent transparency of the nearby physical
environment when the distant aircraft are presented against it
via the see-through display. A study of the role that latency
plays in disturbing accurate depth localization of virtual objects,
such as are used for the control tower simulation, has been completed
and will be reported at the next meeting of the Human Factors
and Ergonomics Society in October. In general the hardware and
software elements of the testbed planned for the first year of
this project have been completed. Explicit experimental work
with the tower simulation will proceed next year and signal processing
work on the head position signals will also be conducted to aid
image stabilization.
Models for predictive tracking have been
produced via MATLAB and then converted to C code suitable for
realtime use by the C code compilers within MATLAB. New architectures
for the introduction of predictive tracking for presentation
of the virtual objects(aircraft) in the head mounted display. |
