CS 5754: Virtual Environments

Schedule

The class will follow the schedule given below. This course meets on a Tuesday/Thursday schedule. Typically, the instructor will lecture on Tuesdays, and the class will discuss that week's readings on Thursdays. Thus, it is desirable that everyone read the readings by Tuesday, but by Thursday at the latest.

This schedule is subject to change, so check this page often.

Readings are the basis of the weekly discussions and should be read prior to class. For many of the readings, you will need to be able to access the ACM digital library or the IEEExplore library. On-campus users should be able to access these digital libraries directly. Others (connecting from off-campus) will need to know their VT PID and password and login on the library website (click on "Off-Campus Sign In"). A few readings are from the journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments; these are marked (PRESENCE:vol:iss) in the table below. To access these articles, select the proper volume and issue number on the linked page. You should see the desired article in the list.

Lecture notes in PDF format will be available at least 1 day before the class in which they will be used.

Date	Topic	Activity	Readings (Discussants)	Lecture Notes
1/15	Introduction, Course administration	Syllabus, course procedures, lecture	3DUI: chs. 1-2	Introduction (PDF)
1/17	CLASS CANCELLED
1/22	Hands-on introduction to VEs and 3D UIs	Demonstrations (meet in KW2 155/156)
1/24	Current VE applications	Lecture & Discussion	Brooks, What's real about VR Hodges et al, Phobia Schell et al, Theme-park VR	Applications (PDF)
1/29	Immersion and presence	Lecture	Bowman & McMahan, Immersion	Immersion (PDF)
1/31	Immersion and presence	Discussion & talk about projects	Whitton, Compelling VEs (OPEN) Narayan et al., Immersion in CVEs (OPEN)
2/5	VE displays	Lecture	3DUI: ch. 3	Displays (PDF)
2/7	VE displays	Discussion	Balakrishnan et al. volumetric displays (Curtis) Hua et al., SCAPE (Dylan) Foskey et al. Haptic modeler (Eric)
2/12	Real-time 3D graphics for VEs	Lecture	Review your favorite graphics text	Graphics (PDF)
2/14	Real-time 3D graphics for VEs	Discussion	Dietrich et al., Interactive ray-tracing (Sean) Govindaraju et al., GPU-based collision culling (Bobby)
2/19	Augmented and mixed reality	Lecture	3DUI: ch. 12	AR/MR (PDF)
2/21	Augmented and mixed reality	Discussion	Billinghurst et al., Collaborative AR (Curtis) Hoellerer et al., MARS (Dylan) Piekarski and Thomas, Tinmith (Sean)
2/26	Review	Discussion		Discussion questions
2/28	Class projects	Discussion		Discussion questions
3/4-3/6	NO CLASS (Spring Break)
3/11	3D input devices	Lecture (by Tao Ni)	3DUI: ch. 4, section 6.3.2	Input (PDF)
3/13	3D input devices	Discussion (led by Tao Ni)	Froehlich and Plate, Cubic Mouse (Debprakash) Hachet et al., CAT (AJ) Zeleznik et al., Pop-through buttons (OPEN)
3/18	3D interaction techniques: manipulation and travel	Lecture	3DUI: chs. 5-6	Manipulation (PDF) Travel (PDF)
3/20	3D interaction techniques: manipulation and travel	Discussion	Pierce et al., Voodoo dolls (OPEN) Tan et al., Speed-Coupled Flying and Orbiting (OPEN) Usoh et al., Walking (Eric)
3/25	3D interaction techniques and 3D user interface design	Lecture	3DUI: chs. 8-10	3D UIs (PDF)
3/27	3D interaction techniques and 3D user interface design	Discussion	Poupyrev et al., Virtual notepad (AJ) Hinckley et al, Spatial Input (Debprakash) Mine et al, Proprioception (OPEN)
4/1	Evaluation of VEs	Lecture	3DUI: ch. 11	Evaluation (PDF) Practical evaluation (PDF)
4/3	Evaluation of VEs	Discussion	Swan et al. Comparative study (OPEN) Usoh et al., Presence Questionnaires PRESENCE:9:5 (OPEN) Kennedy et al. Cybersickness PRESENCE:9:5 (David)
4/8	Selection, manipulation, and travel techniques revisited	Demos by Ryan McMahan at Black Lab (KW2 building)
4/10	NO CLASS – WORK ON CLASS PROJECTS
4/15	VE software and development	Lecture		Software (PDF)
4/17	VE software and development	Discussion	Conway et al, Alice (Bobby) Dachselt et al., Contigra (OPEN) Staadt et al., Cluster-based rendering systems (David)
4/22	The future of VEs: applications and research challenges	Lecture, discussion	3DUI: ch. 13 Johnson et al., Elementary education (OPEN) Bowman et al., New directions in 3D UIs (OPEN)	Future applications (PDF) Future challenges (PDF)
4/24	NO CLASS
4/29	Project presentations