title: Dynamic interactions in physically realistic collaborative virtual environments.
abstract: This work describes our efforts in creating a general object interaction framework for dynamic collaborative virtual environments. Furthermore, we increase the realism of the interactive world by using a rigid body simulator to calculate all actor and object movements. The main idea behind our interactive platform is to construct a virtual world using only objects that contain their own interaction information. As a result, the object interactions are application independent and only a single scheme is required to handle all interactions in the virtual world. In order to have more dynamic interactions, we also created a new and efficient way for human users to dynamically interact within virtual worlds through their avatar. In particular, we show how inverse kinematics can be used to increase the interaction possibilities and realism in collaborative virtual environments. This results in a higher feeling of presence for connected users and allows for easy, on-the-fly creation of new interactions. For the distribution of both the interactive objects and the dynamic avatar interactions, we keep the network load as low as possible. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our techniques, we incorporate them into an existing CVE framework.
authors.affiliation: Hasselt University, Expertise Centre for Digital Media, Agoralaan gebouw D, B-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium. pieter.jorissen@uhasselt.be
authors.forename: Pieter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jorissen
authors.forename: Maarten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wijnants
authors.forename: Wim
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lamotte
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D003199:Computer Systems; D003491:Cybernetics / Q000379:methods; D003626:Data Display; D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008328:Man-Machine Systems; D008954:Models, Biological; D009862:Online Systems; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*; D014584:User-Computer Interface