| Research Projects
NOTE: These pages are being replaced and will include an updated CV/publication list. Please check back; hopefully this will be soon. --Pete Simulation of Wind in Real-Time Virtual Environments - TPAWT Modeling and simulating the wind within a real-time interactive virtual environment has potential for increasing immersion on several levels. From a visual perspective, accessing simulated wind field data can assist in creating a richer dynamic visual experience with leaves blowing through the environment, trees reacting to the wind, or autonomous pedestrians leaning into strong wind gusts. Such visual elements work to create a more dynamic, ambient environment consistent with real environments. With regard to physical interaction, users can feel the wind within the environment on their bodies and relate the visual aspects of the wind's effect (leaves, flags, etc...) to their own actions within the virtual environment. Perhaps the best illustration of this combined visual and physical interaction comes from an urban environment simulation in which the user feels the wind produced in the wake of a bus driving by them as the user stands on a virtual curb. To obtain this system, we are applying graphics hardware (GPUs) to the simulation of wind and particle dispersion modeling in urban areas. We have implemented a Lagrangian particle dispersion model based on the Quick Urban and Industrial Complex (QUIC) Dispersion ModelingSystem on the GPU. With our system, the GPU simulations outperformed the CPU simulations by over an order of magnitude in an urbanized domain with buildings. Our primary challenge has been in exploring visualization and interaction methods that assist the computational fluid dynamics engineers that work on the project. In particular, these engineers have found that real-time visualization and interaction with their flow models (something they have not been able to do until now) has been extremely beneficial for debugging and understanding turbulence models. Our efforts have focused on finding better means to visualize and interact with the components of the flow model. General Research Summary My research efforts are highly interdisciplinary and focus on the problems associated with making human interaction with virtual environments more natural and realistic. This work is greatly enhanced by collaboration with colleagues from psychology, computer science, and engineering. There are two approaches I take with my research. The first is to examine human perception in virtual environments by measuring responses to visual, haptic, or motoric tasks. The second approach investigates the software and algorithms necessary for creating virtual environments in which many dynamic, virtual entities engage and interact with users of the virtual environment. The motivation for this work is knowing that virtual environments can serve as laboratories for the exploration and study of human behavior. Virtual environments afford a significant amount of control over experiment variables and provide ideal conditions under which to conduct studies that cannot be carried out in the physical world. Examples of such research include understanding the effects of distractions while driving, child bicycle safety issues, or flight training. Virtual environments also contribute to the study of basic human perception by allowing for the manipulation of environment cues that would be difficult to control in the real world. Thoroughly understanding the various components of virtual environment hardware and software, including the limitations, will increase their utility and applicability for use in research, training, and education. |
Selected Publications "Resolution Independent NPR-Style 3D Line Textures," K. Potter, A. A. Gooch, B. Gooch, P. Willemsen, J. Kniss, R. Riesenfeld, and P. Shirley. Computer Graphics Forum, in press. "Integrating Particle Dispersion Models into Real-time Virtual Environments," P. Willemsen, A. Norgren, B. Singh, and E.R. Pardyjak. Proceedings of the Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments 2008, p. 57-63, May 2008. "Effects of Stereo Viewing Conditions on Distance Perception in Virtual Environments," P. Willemsen, A.A. Gooch, W.B. Thompson, and S.H. Creem-Regehr. PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 17(1), p. 91–101, February 2008. "Calibration of Locomotion due to Visual Motion in a Treadmill-based Virtual Environment," B.J. Mohler, W.B. Thompson, S.H. Creem-Regehr, P. Willemsen, H.L. Pick, Jr., and J.J. Rieser. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, 4(1), 15pp., January 2007. "Ribbon Networks for Modeling Navigable Paths of Autonomous Agents in Virtual Environments," P. Willemsen, J.K. Kearney, and H. Wang. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 331-342, May/June 2006. "Six Degree-of-Freedom Haptic Rendering Using Spatialized Normal Cone Search," D.E. Johnson, P. Willemsen, and E. Cohen, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, Vol. 11, No. 6, pp. 661-670, November/December 2005. "Steering Behaviors for Autonomous Vehicles in Virtual Environments", H. Wang, J.K. Kearney, J. Cremer, and P. Willemsen, Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 2005, p. 155-162, March 2005. "Throwing Versus Walking as Indicators of Distance Perception in Real and Virtual Environments," C.S. Sahm, S.H. Creem-Regehr, W.B. Thompson, and P. Willemsen, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, p. 35-45, Vol 2, Issue 1, January 2005. [External Link] "The Effects of Head-Mounted Display Mechanics on Distance Judgments in Virtual Environments", P. Willemsen, M.B. Colton, S.H. Creem-Regehr, and W.B. Thompson. ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization, p. 35-48. Los Angeles, CA USA. August 7-8, 2004. [ PDF ] |
