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4Monday, June 4thOn
the first day, Ella and I met our mentor, Victoria Interrante at her
office at the University of Minnesota. She showed us the Digital
Technology Center and then the lab where we spend most of our time
working. There we were introduced to two of her PHD students, Lane
and Loren. They proceeded to show us how to use the four main
pieces of equipment we would be working with: the Head-Mounted
Display (HMD), the automatic wheelchair, the Vicon Blade tracking
system, and the Hi-Ball tracking system. We proceeded to run
several programs on the computer, and explored the virtual
environments previously constructed, and looked at the research from
the previous summer. |
5Tuesday, June
5thTuesday was spent reading relevant papers on subjects we would be referencing
in our research and began to tentatively outline both the purpose and the methodology of
the experiment we would be running this summer which would focus on the use of rotational
navigation in a virtual environment, and possibly also on the use of redirection. At the
end of the day, we sat down with our mentor and finalized our experiment to focus on the
use of redirection and rotation in a box search. We also got the opportunity to meet another
professor, Robert Bodenheimer, and discuss with him a paper of his that we had read earlier
that morning. |
6Wednesday, June
6thOn Wednesday we started by reprogramming the wheelchair joystick to only
adhere to rotational input, and ignore translational. We then streamed data on the
physical motion of the wheelchair while rotating, in order to get a sense of how much
translational motion was unavoidable, as well as to start formulating an equation for
how to incorporate the wheelchair motion into the viewpoint algorithms, which will
allow us to create a redirection scenario in the next stage of the experiment. This
day was also useful as a refresher course in C++; I had just finished a semester using
the language in my introductory graphics class, and Ella had learned C++ in a summer
course her junior year of high school. |
7Thursday, June 7th - Friday, June 8th
Thursday and Friday were used to work our way
through a stack of literature relevant to our proposed research.
This was done for two reasons; one, that it was necessary to
understand what had already been studied in order to keep our
experiment from being redundant, and two, because one of the PHD
students required full use of the lab in order to do the research
necessary to make a deadline for a research journal.
Ella and I were excited to learn that our topic may interest not only the
virtual-reality community, but also the psychology community.
However, we did not have a chance to discuss our findings with our
mentor, so we agreed to continue forward with the original plan,
until we talked to her. At the end of the day on Friday, the genius PhD student,
Loren, that we shared a lab with asked us to be his test
subjects. His work is focused on using an XBOX Kinect in
coordination with the HMD to generate an avatar of the user wearing
the HMD, allowing your real body to be visible in the virtual
reality. Testing this was really fun. He also ran a 'vertigo room'
simulation on Ella, which made it appear that she was high in the
air walking on a narrow strip of floor. It made her so dizzy she
almost fell over. |
8Thursday, June 7th - Friday, June 8th
Thursday and Friday were used to work our way
through a stack of literature relevant to our proposed research.
This was done for two reasons; one, that it was necessary to
understand what had already been studied in order to keep our
experiment from being redundant, and two, because one of the PHD
students required full use of the lab in order to do the research
necessary to make a deadline for a research journal.
Ella and I were excited to learn that our topic may interest not only the
virtual-reality community, but also the psychology community.
However, we did not have a chance to discuss our findings with our
mentor, so we agreed to continue forward with the original plan,
until we talked to her. At the end of the day on Friday, the genius PhD student,
Loren, that we shared a lab with asked us to be his test
subjects. His work is focused on using an XBOX Kinect in
coordination with the HMD to generate an avatar of the user wearing
the HMD, allowing your real body to be visible in the virtual
reality. Testing this was really fun. He also ran a 'vertigo room'
simulation on Ella, which made it appear that she was high in the
air walking on a narrow strip of floor. It made her so dizzy she
almost fell over. |
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11Monday, June 11 - Wednesday, June 13This week,
to date, has been comprised of being Loren's test subjects, planning for our experiment while
waiting for use of the lab, as well as actually getting friendly and comfortable with the code.
By Wednesday, Loren had submitted his paper (hopefully!), we had managed to code visual translational
movement and visual rotational movement (with much assistance from Lane in dealing with Quaternions,
nefarious little things), and we were beginning to see what our final product would look like. We
started to think about incorporating 'realism' factors, such as the acceleration of the chair and less
arbitary rotation and translational factors. By Friday we were hoping to have the ability to do a run
through of all three conditions of the box search task, in order to stay on schedule for our July 15 paper
deadline. This would give us another two weeks to possibly code another environment, as well as fix any
errors we have made thus far, and still leave time to test participants.
On Wednesday afternoon we went out to lunch with Professor Maria Gini, her DREU intern Karen, and
her graduate student Elizabeth. This was a great opportunity to talk about options in the field
of computer science, as well as hear testimonials from women in various stages of their computer
science careers. Karen is working with toddler-sized robots, and they were very adorable. |
12Monday, June 11 - Wednesday, June 13This week,
to date, has been comprised of being Loren's test subjects, planning for our experiment while
waiting for use of the lab, as well as actually getting friendly and comfortable with the code.
By Wednesday, Loren had submitted his paper (hopefully!), we had managed to code visual translational
movement and visual rotational movement (with much assistance from Lane in dealing with Quaternions,
nefarious little things), and we were beginning to see what our final product would look like. We
started to think about incorporating 'realism' factors, such as the acceleration of the chair and less
arbitary rotation and translational factors. By Friday we were hoping to have the ability to do a run
through of all three conditions of the box search task, in order to stay on schedule for our July 15 paper
deadline. This would give us another two weeks to possibly code another environment, as well as fix any
errors we have made thus far, and still leave time to test participants.
On Wednesday afternoon we went out to lunch with Professor Maria Gini, her DREU intern Karen, and
her graduate student Elizabeth. This was a great opportunity to talk about options in the field
of computer science, as well as hear testimonials from women in various stages of their computer
science careers. Karen is working with toddler-sized robots, and they were very adorable. |
13Monday, June 11 - Wednesday, June 13This week,
to date, has been comprised of being Loren's test subjects, planning for our experiment while
waiting for use of the lab, as well as actually getting friendly and comfortable with the code.
By Wednesday, Loren had submitted his paper (hopefully!), we had managed to code visual translational
movement and visual rotational movement (with much assistance from Lane in dealing with Quaternions,
nefarious little things), and we were beginning to see what our final product would look like. We
started to think about incorporating 'realism' factors, such as the acceleration of the chair and less
arbitary rotation and translational factors. By Friday we were hoping to have the ability to do a run
through of all three conditions of the box search task, in order to stay on schedule for our July 15 paper
deadline. This would give us another two weeks to possibly code another environment, as well as fix any
errors we have made thus far, and still leave time to test participants.
On Wednesday afternoon we went out to lunch with Professor Maria Gini, her DREU intern Karen, and
her graduate student Elizabeth. This was a great opportunity to talk about options in the field
of computer science, as well as hear testimonials from women in various stages of their computer
science careers. Karen is working with toddler-sized robots, and they were very adorable. |
14Thursday, June 14 - Friday,
June 15Thursday was spent mostly coding. Ella and I hit a
few of our more unique problems, such as the Z-axis flipping (making
the ceiling become the floor and vice versa), and the equipment
malfunctioning whenever the chair did not start facing north. We
also were using the official HMD device which still had a few problems
with the visual wiring. We eventually isolated the problems to a section
of code we had worked on with Lane, Victoria's PHD student, and realized
we'd have to wait until the following Wednesday to straighten it out. We
moved on to implementing the second HMD device to act as a type of trigger,
alerting the system to the discovery of a box. On Friday, we continued with
this in the morning, as well as creating these websites which required minor
training in HTML and Putty. At lunch, Victoria took us to the Jewel of India
Restaurant for lunch, and we had a chance to get to know each other. It was
nice to hear a little bit about Victoria's life outside of work, as well as
her experiences in both the university system and the field. The rest of the
afternoon was spent planning out a schedule to make our July 15 deadline (only
a month away!), finishing up the remaining portion of experiment one that was
within our expertise to fix, and discussing the logistics of experiment two. |
15Thursday, June 14 - Friday,
June 15Thursday was spent mostly coding. Ella and I hit a
few of our more unique problems, such as the Z-axis flipping (making
the ceiling become the floor and vice versa), and the equipment
malfunctioning whenever the chair did not start facing north. We
also were using the official HMD device which still had a few problems
with the visual wiring. We eventually isolated the problems to a section
of code we had worked on with Lane, Victoria's PHD student, and realized
we'd have to wait until the following Wednesday to straighten it out. We
moved on to implementing the second HMD device to act as a type of trigger,
alerting the system to the discovery of a box. On Friday, we continued with
this in the morning, as well as creating these websites which required minor
training in HTML and Putty. At lunch, Victoria took us to the Jewel of India
Restaurant for lunch, and we had a chance to get to know each other. It was
nice to hear a little bit about Victoria's life outside of work, as well as
her experiences in both the university system and the field. The rest of the
afternoon was spent planning out a schedule to make our July 15 deadline (only
a month away!), finishing up the remaining portion of experiment one that was
within our expertise to fix, and discussing the logistics of experiment two. |
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18Monday, June 18 - Tuesday,
June 19Ella and I started to work on experiment two, as
experiment one was at a standstill. We decided to search for
materials to build the environment physically. Our current model is
a square column made out of foam board with a wood base and top, and
was surprisingly successful, considering our expectations. We
searched the Google Warehouse to match the objects Ella had brought
from home, including a Pikachu stuffed animal, a bowling pin and a
tiara. Around one, we decided to look back at experiment one, and
managed to isolate some of the errors. We found that the flipping
Z-axis in the visual only state, flipped based on where in the
rotation the joystick was currently located, and that translation in
the rotation only state was still stuck in one direction. The hand
seemed to be moving correctly, and we spent the rest of the day
debugging experiment one. At the end of the day, Victoria stopped
in, and after a few mild suggestions, she approved our column design.
Tuesday, while very busy, was spent collecting materials, creating the
graphical representation of the room in SketchUp as opposed to G3D, and
putting together our columns. We found that I am a hot-glue gun ninja,
and Ella is an exacto-knife wizard. The day went so fast, it was 5:30 before we knew it. |
19Monday, June 18 - Tuesday,
June 19Ella and I started to work on experiment two, as
experiment one was at a standstill. We decided to search for
materials to build the environment physically. Our current model is
a square column made out of foam board with a wood base and top, and
was surprisingly successful, considering our expectations. We
searched the Google Warehouse to match the objects Ella had brought
from home, including a Pikachu stuffed animal, a bowling pin and a
tiara. Around one, we decided to look back at experiment one, and
managed to isolate some of the errors. We found that the flipping
Z-axis in the visual only state, flipped based on where in the
rotation the joystick was currently located, and that translation in
the rotation only state was still stuck in one direction. The hand
seemed to be moving correctly, and we spent the rest of the day
debugging experiment one. At the end of the day, Victoria stopped
in, and after a few mild suggestions, she approved our column design.
Tuesday, while very busy, was spent collecting materials, creating the
graphical representation of the room in SketchUp as opposed to G3D, and
putting together our columns. We found that I am a hot-glue gun ninja,
and Ella is an exacto-knife wizard. The day went so fast, it was 5:30 before we knew it. |
20Wednesday, June
20thWhen we came in on Wednesday morning, we finished up the
Sketch-Up model for experiment two. We decided not to use the tiara,
as it was not a good use of our time to model it. After we find the
last item, and place the 3D pillars in the 3D model of the room, the
model will be complete. Loren came in this morning and helped us to
rewrite the code, such that we eliminated our novice use of quaternions.
He explained how to use the CoordinateFrame class to create a 'virtual
wheelchair' object that would control the user's perspective. While our
quaternion method was in the right direction, it left too much room for
error. We also determined the need for a third HiBall sensor, such that
we were now tracking the wand, the HMD, and the wheelchair. Loren and
Ella tested the HiBall system, to make sure it was working properly (as
there seemed to be a significant delay) and although they didn't find
any problems, we learned a little bit more about how the HiBall works.
After getting the three states of experiment one to work, we collected
data from the wheelchair so that Loren could build dynamic models of it in
order to more accurately recreate its movement. Finally, the PhD students
have a meeting at four on Wednesdays, and Victoria has Ella and I sit in in
order to learn more about their research as well as their experiences in the field. |
21Thursday, June 21 - Friday, June 22Thursday
flew by. In the morning we tackled the sinking floor, which I brilliantly solved
(although considering I spent seven hours on the same problem in my intro Graphics
class, a bit less of a win) and the collision detection, which we solved--slightly
less brilliantly--by determining the radius of the room and limiting visual movement
beyond it. We also implemented the ability for physical rotation to be different
than visual rotation, in order to test our theory. We went up to the DTC for
banana bread and coffee, one of the wonderful weekly traditions that UM has to
show their appreciation for their researchers. Friday we worked on the SketchUp model
for awhile, after we encountered a wiring problem with the wheelchair, and we had just finished
when Victoria came to take us to lunch. We ended up at a Himalayan restaurant, which
was quite a treat--delicious and unique all at once. Victoria told us about her time in
Tibet, as well as various places her family has traveled to for work and leisure. Ella
and I were both surprised that there was so much travel for conferences; we both had
thought the life of a university professor was a static one. After lunch--admittedly we were
almost at the end of the day, since we had started late and had gotten lost on the way to
the restaurant, Ella and I did some research on how to import a SketchUp model into our
environment. |
22Thursday, June 21 - Friday, June 22Thursday
flew by. In the morning we tackled the sinking floor, which I brilliantly solved
(although considering I spent seven hours on the same problem in my intro Graphics
class, a bit less of a win) and the collision detection, which we solved--slightly
less brilliantly--by determining the radius of the room and limiting visual movement
beyond it. We also implemented the ability for physical rotation to be different
than visual rotation, in order to test our theory. We went up to the DTC for
banana bread and coffee, one of the wonderful weekly traditions that UM has to
show their appreciation for their researchers. Friday we worked on the SketchUp model
for awhile, after we encountered a wiring problem with the wheelchair, and we had just finished
when Victoria came to take us to lunch. We ended up at a Himalayan restaurant, which
was quite a treat--delicious and unique all at once. Victoria told us about her time in
Tibet, as well as various places her family has traveled to for work and leisure. Ella
and I were both surprised that there was so much travel for conferences; we both had
thought the life of a university professor was a static one. After lunch--admittedly we were
almost at the end of the day, since we had started late and had gotten lost on the way to
the restaurant, Ella and I did some research on how to import a SketchUp model into our
environment. |
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25Monday, June
25thElla and I started the morning by following instructions to fix our wiring issue
from the previous Friday. We then attacked our three goals for the day: to understand the
wiring problem we had had in order to avoid it in the future, find a bug in the code that
caused the HiBall position to reset to 0 and then unaquire every time the program was run, and
to find a way to import the SketchUp model into a code base, in order to start work on experiment
two. By the end of the day, we checked off all three goals, although we were unable to fix the
bug once we found it, and were still struggling to integrate the SketchUp textures. We also
noted that the program was extremely slow because our SketchUp model was much higher polygon
count than we had expected, since we had imported other users' models for our objects, rather
than making our own. |
26Tuesday, June 26 - Wednesday, June 27Tuesday
was spent getting the SketchUp model as complete as possible. We were still waiting on the
dynamic model from Loren, which we received Wednesday morning, although clearly in a process stage.
We decided, after three weeks of picnicking in the quad to find a place to eat. We ended up at
The Orchid Cafe, where we split a delicious plate of cream-cheese wontons and ordered some delicious
Vietnamese/Thai food. On the way back we stopped at Dairy Queen before getting back to work.
At the end of the day, Victoria checked in with us, and we discussed the letter Bernard Riecke
(one of the main people whose research was informing our own) had sent us on his personal thoughts
on our experiment and its relevance to the VR community. On Wednesday, we ran the dynamic model,
finished fixing Monday's texture issues and tested it in the 3ds environment. The afternoon was
the PhD check-in, so we had the opportunity to meet with Victoria, as well as see what some of the
PhD students were working on. We discussed with her how to advertise for participants, as we hoped
to start trials as early as the next week. |
27Tuesday, June 26 - Wednesday, June 27Tuesday
was spent getting the SketchUp model as complete as possible. We were still waiting on the
dynamic model from Loren, which we received Wednesday morning, although clearly in a process stage.
We decided, after three weeks of picnicking in the quad to find a place to eat. We ended up at
The Orchid Cafe, where we split a delicious plate of cream-cheese wontons and ordered some delicious
Vietnamese/Thai food. On the way back we stopped at Dairy Queen before getting back to work.
At the end of the day, Victoria checked in with us, and we discussed the letter Bernard Riecke
(one of the main people whose research was informing our own) had sent us on his personal thoughts
on our experiment and its relevance to the VR community. On Wednesday, we ran the dynamic model,
finished fixing Monday's texture issues and tested it in the 3ds environment. The afternoon was
the PhD check-in, so we had the opportunity to meet with Victoria, as well as see what some of the
PhD students were working on. We discussed with her how to advertise for participants, as we hoped
to start trials as early as the next week. |
28Thursday, June 28 - Friday, June 29Thursday and Friday were spent working on dynamic model, as we realized there were some serious problems. The wheelchair
would roll forward an inch, but the visual would leave the room--clearly not an accurate match. We ran some tests for Loren,
using a program that was written to stream data from the wheelchair sensors to the computer about location vs. user input from
the joystick. On Thursday, while Ella and I were having lunch, we were approached by a local news crew to ask our opinion, as
students, on the health care bill that had passed in the Senate. It was a really cool experience, and it was exciting to see
ourselves on TV. Friday, Ella and I finished up our testing on the dynamic model. Victoria canceled our lunch date, as she had
a conflict, but we decided to go back to the Jewel of India anyway. After lunch we strategized about our study, and how to finish
getting the bugs ironed out with the dynamic model before trials. |
29Thursday, June 28 - Friday, June 29Thursday and Friday were spent working on dynamic model, as we realized there were some serious problems. The wheelchair
would roll forward an inch, but the visual would leave the room--clearly not an accurate match. We ran some tests for Loren,
using a program that was written to stream data from the wheelchair sensors to the computer about location vs. user input from
the joystick. On Thursday, while Ella and I were having lunch, we were approached by a local news crew to ask our opinion, as
students, on the health care bill that had passed in the Senate. It was a really cool experience, and it was exciting to see
ourselves on TV. Friday, Ella and I finished up our testing on the dynamic model. Victoria canceled our lunch date, as she had
a conflict, but we decided to go back to the Jewel of India anyway. After lunch we strategized about our study, and how to finish
getting the bugs ironed out with the dynamic model before trials. |
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|
JULY 2012 |
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2Monday, July 2nd Today was one of the most
productive days we had had thus far. Loren came in and helped Ella and I to finish preparing
experiment one for testing. We managed to find some of the errors causing spontaneous freezing,
and worked through some of the issues with unaquiring HiBall trackers. We (i.e. mostly Loren)
developed a Python script to randomize the order of testing, as well as analyze the data that
Ella and I had written to a logfile into charts and diagrams. In the early afternoon, Ella and
I showed a fellow professor's eleven year old daughter around the lab which was really fun.
She was super impressed by most of the equipment, but both her and the professor got cyber-sick
in one of the conditions, which alerted us to the fact that we had some issues to fix. At the
end of the day, Victoria stopped by and we discussed some of the things that needed to be finished
before testing. |
3Tuesday, July 3rdOn Tuesday Ella ran me in
the simulator early in the day, and we realized very quickly that something was very wrong.
I got very cyber sick very quickly and things were very jerky and froze alot. We quickly
sent an email to Loren and Victoria to ask for advice/help, and luckily Loren was able to come in.
The problem turned out to be two things. One was an issue they had faced in a previous experiment
that caused the screen to freeze when the wheelchair had a signal delay for a portion of a second,
and was fixed with one line of code. The second was a slight lag in the graphics that made the
participant feel slightly disoriented. Victoria felt a little off after trying it, and it made
me uncomfortable. However, after discussing other alternatives, we decided to go ahead and run
four participants on Thursday, the results of which would determine whether we continued onward
with our scheduled plan. The rest of the day was consumed with creating the various forms and
surveys needed for the first participants. |
4Wednesday, July 4thUniversity holiday, lab was closed. |
5Thursday, July 5Thursday was our first day with participants. Our first participant (Participant 0) came in at 11, and we had trials scheduled at
12:30, 2:00 and 3:30. However, we had so many problems, that we quickly canceled the middle two participants. The wheelchair would
occasionally turn off and not turn on again until the program was restarted. Participant 0 took awhile to get accustomed to the
environment and completed trials much slower than anticipated. At lunch we discussed canceling the rest of the day, but we decided
to keep our last appointment and take things on the slower side. We were surprised when Participant 1's trials went really smoothly.
We finished in about an hour and forty-five minutes, close to our projected time. After a short discussion, we decided to keep the
trials for the next day scheduled, but sent everyone a warning that they might be canceled if technical difficulties occurred. |
6Friday, July 6On Friday morning, we ran Participant 2. He had some problems getting used to the virtual environment and struggled slightly with
some cybersickness. However, we managed to finish the trial even with all the delays. After lunch we ran Participant 3, but quickly
had to call an end because they had a commitment and it was clear we were not going to finish on time, considering the technical
difficulties from the previous day had resumed. We spent the remaining time trying to solve the mechanical problem with the wheelchair
and thought we had managed to isolate it. Our last participant of the day (Participant 4) loved the virtual environment, and we had some problems with
him running into various pieces of equipment in his enthusiasm to explore the virtual environment. However, the technical difficulties
soon continued, and we were forced to send him home. We canceled our Saturday trials, as the earliest Loren could help us with the
wheelchair was Tuesday. We decided, if the paper deadline still seemed reasonable, to work the following weekend. |
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9Monday, July 9 - Tuesday, July 10Monday was incredibly slow. The wheelchair was out of commission, the latency (a delay between the physical motion and the visual cues)
with the HMD was unresolved, and participant scheduling was put on hold. Ella and I worked on our websites, did a little searching in
the code for possible fixes, and exchanged emails with Victoria about possible next steps. Victoria said that based on the initial trials,
it did not appear that latency would be a problem, as it appeared that the cybersickness was well within normal realms. For lunch,
Ella and I walked to Qdoba in Dinkytown and ate outside in the sun. The weather had been beautiful all summer, and when it wasn't, we
were treated with amazing thunderstorms. On Tuesday, Loren came in and spent the morning tinkering with the Arduino (the device sending
information about the wheelchair to the computer) and managed to completely fix the problem of the wheelchair turning off during a trial.
Victoria came in and we showed her the fix and discussed what our next move should be. We decided to continue with testing, and that
afternoon we ran Ella as Participant 5. We had no problems and managed to run her in the alotted 90 minutes. |
10Monday, July 9 - Tuesday, July 10Monday was incredibly slow. The wheelchair was out of commission, the latency (a delay between the physical motion and the visual cues)
with the HMD was unresolved, and participant scheduling was put on hold. Ella and I worked on our websites, did a little searching in
the code for possible fixes, and exchanged emails with Victoria about possible next steps. Victoria said that based on the initial trials,
it did not appear that latency would be a problem, as it appeared that the cybersickness was well within normal realms. For lunch,
Ella and I walked to Qdoba in Dinkytown and ate outside in the sun. The weather had been beautiful all summer, and when it wasn't, we
were treated with amazing thunderstorms. On Tuesday, Loren came in and spent the morning tinkering with the Arduino (the device sending
information about the wheelchair to the computer) and managed to completely fix the problem of the wheelchair turning off during a trial.
Victoria came in and we showed her the fix and discussed what our next move should be. We decided to continue with testing, and that
afternoon we ran Ella as Participant 5. We had no problems and managed to run her in the alotted 90 minutes. |
11Wednesday, July 11Wednesday morning we ran Loren as Participant 6. Besides slight cybersickness in the Rotation Only condition, he did fine and we finished
on time. We learned that it was important to encourage participants to take off the HMD any time they experienced even slight cybersickness
in order to prevent them from getting too cybersick. The Python script was working, at this point, so we were able to generate the
graphs to see how each participant did in each of the conditions. Next, we ran me in the simulation, as Participant 7. I hadn't been in
the HMD for such an extended period of time, and we quickly learned that I am very prone to cybersickness. I managed to finish the trials
but had to take a break to go outside and get some fresh air. Our Partial Movement trial had felt really uncomfortable, as in addition to
the latency, there was an obvious conflict between the visual and physical movements. Next, we ran Participant 8, who was a pilot and
was used to wearing an HMD for flight simulations. He finished, but also alerted us that he didn't feel great after the trials. We considered
the possibility that cybersickness would be more of a problem than originally thought. Participant 9, however, had no problems, despite the
fact that she had had little experience with HMDs. After her, we ran Participant 10, an adult woman. She made it until the last trial,
and then was sick. We quickly got her water and food, and then debated seriously about whether or not to continue. Participant 10
did a trial in the Rotation Only condition and then decided to opt out; however, he had had medication earlier that morning that we
thought probably contributed to such a quick onset of cybersickness. We decided to keep the appointments for the following day, and play
it by ear. |
12Thursday, July 12Our first participant of the day did half the trials before deciding not to continue. We had urged her not to continue if she began to
feel sick, and it was unclear if it was simply uncomfortable, or causing her to truly feel sick. We ran Participant 12, who also quit early,
but it was again unclear if our urging to quit if they felt sick contributed to the early end of the trial. At this point it was too late
to cancel Participant 13, so we decided to base continuing off of the results of that session. Participant 13 was a young adult male, with
a lot of experience in first-person shooter games, and we were hopeful that his background would make him more comfortable with our environment.
He did very well, very low signs of cybersickness, until the last session (Partial Movement) where he took off the HMD in the middle of
the trial and was sick. He explained that he hadn't felt very sick until that moment, and it was clear that we did have a severe problem
with latency on top of conflicting visual and physical cues. The timing was unfortunate, as Victoria had a demo to lead in that room in
fifteen minutes, so we made sure he ate something and drank some water and then paid him for his time. We cleaned up, and then helped
with the demo. Neither Ella nor I had eaten, so after we helped Victoria move some stuff to her car, we picked up food in Dinkytown and
brought it back to the lab. We canceled all further trials, and helped Loren test the HMD latency. |
13Friday, July 13In the morning, Loren sent us the results of the latency testing, and the general conclusion was that using three sensors was causing a strong
enough latency to account for the cybersickness results we had been seeing. There was no quick fix solution, and when we went out to lunch
with Victoria (at a Greek restaurant in Dinkytown) we discussed how the experiment could be altered to use two sensors instead of three.
The main difficulty was that any good solution involved a higher level understanding of graphics than either Ella or I currently possessed.
Therefore, it was decided that our focus would be on completing the second experiment. We also decided to concede that we didn't have
enough data collected to submit a paper by that Sunday, and decided any paper we would work on would have to be submitted for the September
deadline. The rest of the afternoon we spent testing the HiBall sensors in different combinations, and creating a spreadsheet to show
how different sensor's updating speeds were affected by the number of sensors plugged in, and the order they were connected. |
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16Monday, July 16 - Tuesday, July 17Monday morning was a little worrisome because we came in to the HiBall machine completely dead. We emailed Victoria and Loren, but were
unable to find a solution that didn't involve turning off the machine and turning it back on. As it had been several years since the
computer had been shut down, we were hesitant to make that decision without Victoria present. The rest of the day we spent on the digital
model of experiment two. On July 17, Peng (one of the PHD students) came in and gave us a tutorial on how to use the Vicon system. We
learned how to open character files (and how to create them, although luckily, it wasn't necessary), how to run the system, how to recalibrate,
how to reorient, and how to debug various problems we might encounter. It was a really nice experience, and one of the skills I was most
excited to learn this summer. Peng also took a look at the HiBall while he was there, and determined that it most likely needed a reboot,
but we all decided it was best that Victoria make the final call. |
17Monday, July 16 - Tuesday, July 17Monday morning was a little worrisome because we came in to the HiBall machine completely dead. We emailed Victoria and Loren, but were
unable to find a solution that didn't involve turning off the machine and turning it back on. As it had been several years since the
computer had been shut down, we were hesitant to make that decision without Victoria present. The rest of the day we spent on the digital
model of experiment two. On July 17, Peng (one of the PHD students) came in and gave us a tutorial on how to use the Vicon system. We
learned how to open character files (and how to create them, although luckily, it wasn't necessary), how to run the system, how to recalibrate,
how to reorient, and how to debug various problems we might encounter. It was a really nice experience, and one of the skills I was most
excited to learn this summer. Peng also took a look at the HiBall while he was there, and determined that it most likely needed a reboot,
but we all decided it was best that Victoria make the final call. |
18Wednesday, July 18 - Thursday, July 19Wednesday was spent emailing Peng, Loren, and Victoria about the HiBall issues, while simultaneously continuing to modify the Experiment
2 scene file to contain objects with lower polygon counts. The final decision was that the HiBall needed to reboot, so Victoria came in
and did that during the PHD meeting. On Thursday, Ella and I determined that 3DS would not be fast enough, regardless of how many polygons
we could reduce the scene file by, and set up a time (Friday) for us to learn how to integrate our code in Ogre with Peng's help. |
19Wednesday, July 18 - Thursday, July 19Wednesday was spent emailing Peng, Loren, and Victoria about the HiBall issues, while simultaneously continuing to modify the Experiment
2 scene file to contain objects with lower polygon counts. The final decision was that the HiBall needed to reboot, so Victoria came in
and did that during the PHD meeting. On Thursday, Ella and I determined that 3DS would not be fast enough, regardless of how many polygons
we could reduce the scene file by, and set up a time (Friday) for us to learn how to integrate our code in Ogre with Peng's help. |
20Friday, July 20On Friday, Ella and I spent the morning working on various Experiment 2 tasks, as well as our websites and research journals. In the
early afternoon, we took Victoria to Annie's, a local burger place she had never been to. We discussed some of the prosepective problems
with the experiment, and also talked a little about school and what we planned to do in the future. It was nice that we were able to
mix work with talking about things like grad school, and what other options are, as that is a huge emphasis of this program. In the
afternoon, Peng came by and walked Ella and I through the intricacies of using Ogre, but it quickly became clear that it would take us
the rest of our time here to rewrite his code to even simply import our scene file, there was so much new learning. Peng offered to clean
up his code for us, and walk us through it next week, which we gladly accepted. |
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23Monday, July 23This week was going to be odd as Ella had surgery for a mass on her wrist that Wednesday, and appointments leading up to it, that meant
I was up to my own devices most days. On Monday, Peng came in after Ella left for her first check-up and helped show me how to use the
cleaned up version of the Ogre code base. He showed me the different functions, and then walked me through how to connect things to the
Vicon system. We managed to set up the scene so that it rendered, and then after Peng left, I debugged some of the axis errors (Ogre used
a different frame of reference than Maya had when exporting the files) and worked on setting up new lights in the scene. Two of the walls
had disappeared, and I sent an email to Loren to ask whether it was a texture problem, or a lighting one. |
24Tuesday, July 24 - Wednesday, July 25Tuesday, I worked on creating the physical and virtual structure of experiment two with all the angles matching accurately. This proved
to be really helpful when debugging the program, because it quickly became clear the orgin was off by a certain amount. I re-measured
the room and adjusted the virtual world accordingly. I also bought a protracter and used it and a tape measurer to set up the physical
version. On Wednesday, Loren fixed the distortion correction (which eliminated a fishbowl affect we had noticed after the switch to Ogre)
and set up the Wiimote response from the computer. I learned how to connect the Wiimote and run it with a program, and later Victoria
stopped in to discuss the progress on the experiment. |
25Tuesday, July 24 - Wednesday, July 25Tuesday, I worked on creating the physical and virtual structure of experiment two with all the angles matching accurately. This proved
to be really helpful when debugging the program, because it quickly became clear the orgin was off by a certain amount. I re-measured
the room and adjusted the virtual world accordingly. I also bought a protracter and used it and a tape measurer to set up the physical
version. On Wednesday, Loren fixed the distortion correction (which eliminated a fishbowl affect we had noticed after the switch to Ogre)
and set up the Wiimote response from the computer. I learned how to connect the Wiimote and run it with a program, and later Victoria
stopped in to discuss the progress on the experiment. |
26Thursday, July 26 - Friday, July 27On Thursday, Ella and I decided to work outside talking about the intricacies of Experiment 2. The design was based off of Bernhard Riecke's
spatial updating experiment, and we needed to figure out how to differentiate it. We realized that we had never discussed the problem
of how to use a virtual environment in a study where participants were supposed to have their eyes closed the majority of the time. We
decided to ask Victoria how she had expected us to use our virtual creation. We did that at lunch on Friday, and Victoria was stumped on
how to procede. She told us she would take the weekend to think it over, and in the meantime to focus on reading the literature in the
area of spatial processing. |
27Thursday, July 26 - Friday, July 27On Thursday, Ella and I decided to work outside talking about the intricacies of Experiment 2. The design was based off of Bernhard Riecke's
spatial updating experiment, and we needed to figure out how to differentiate it. We realized that we had never discussed the problem
of how to use a virtual environment in a study where participants were supposed to have their eyes closed the majority of the time. We
decided to ask Victoria how she had expected us to use our virtual creation. We did that at lunch on Friday, and Victoria was stumped on
how to procede. She told us she would take the weekend to think it over, and in the meantime to focus on reading the literature in the
area of spatial processing. |
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30Monday, July 30 - Tuesday, July 31On Monday, we focused on doing the readings, eight of which Victoria had personally recommended. We took notes and talked about potential
paths we could pursue. A lot of this time was also spent working on our websites (seen here) and emailing with Victoria. She was finishing
up her summer class, so there was little we could do until we knew how to procede. Ella and I worked on Ella's abstract for the Grace Hopper
Conference--I couldn't submit one, since I would be in London during the conference presentations, but I was glad to be able to help. |
31Monday, July 30 - Tuesday, July 31On Monday, we focused on doing the readings, eight of which Victoria had personally recommended. We took notes and talked about potential
paths we could pursue. A lot of this time was also spent working on our websites (seen here) and emailing with Victoria. She was finishing
up her summer class, so there was little we could do until we knew how to procede. Ella and I worked on Ella's abstract for the Grace Hopper
Conference--I couldn't submit one, since I would be in London during the conference presentations, but I was glad to be able to help. |
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1Wednesday, August 1 - Thursday, August 2Wednesday was busy because Victoria scheduled two demos with kids attending a UMN tech camp. Ella and I ran the Vertigo Demo, which
makes the viewer believe they are on a bridge high above the ground. We then have the kids stand on a wood block, so they can feel the
virtual edge line up with the real one, and it was fun to see how they reacted. We even (adhering to Victoria's suggestion) put a pair
of scissors under the block so that the kid in the HMD wobbled when stepping on the block, triggering vertigo in those prone to it. It
was interesting to see how quickly kids lost awareness of their surroundings, and would forget that they had to be careful of real world
obstacles. I particularly enjoyed this, since I work with elementary school kids both at home and in college, so this was right up my
alley. Although this took up the majority of the time, we both got a little time to talk about the paper, and then I worked on my website
when Ella had to go to an appointment to remove the stitches from her wrist surgery. |
2Wednesday, August 1 - Thursday, August 2Wednesday was busy because Victoria scheduled two demos with kids attending a UMN tech camp. Ella and I ran the Vertigo Demo, which
makes the viewer believe they are on a bridge high above the ground. We then have the kids stand on a wood block, so they can feel the
virtual edge line up with the real one, and it was fun to see how they reacted. We even (adhering to Victoria's suggestion) put a pair
of scissors under the block so that the kid in the HMD wobbled when stepping on the block, triggering vertigo in those prone to it. It
was interesting to see how quickly kids lost awareness of their surroundings, and would forget that they had to be careful of real world
obstacles. I particularly enjoyed this, since I work with elementary school kids both at home and in college, so this was right up my
alley. Although this took up the majority of the time, we both got a little time to talk about the paper, and then I worked on my website
when Ella had to go to an appointment to remove the stitches from her wrist surgery. |
3Friday, August 3Ella at a family reunion, I worked from home on my website, and took some notes for our technical paper. |
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6Monday, August 6 - Tuesday, August 7On Monday, Ella and I came in and talked with Elizabeth,
one of Professor Maria Gini's PHD students, who said we could upload our websites in her lab on Tuesday morning, which led us to dedicating
the majority of the day to finishing writing up long neglected research journals and doing last hasty HTML/CSS adjustments. I was now on
the fourth or fifth iteration of my site, and was excited that I had learned so much about web design from trial and error. Before lunch,
Victoria came to the lab to discuss our plans for the week, and we made a plan to pass our research materials over to Loren in the hopes that
he could run participants in the two studies we had constructed. At lunch, Maria and Victoria took Ella, Elizabeth and I out to a Vietnamese restaurant.
After lunch, we continued work on the websites. On Tuesday, we put the finishing touches
on our websites (sans the last few research journals and a picture or two) and spent the morning working with the AI computers to use Unix
machines to upload them to our cs account homepages. We learned alot about changing file permissions, recursion, and the importance of executable
functionality in Unix. The afternoon we spent outlining our technical paper.
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7Monday, August 6 - Tuesday, August 7On Monday, Ella and I came in and talked with Elizabeth,
one of Professor Maria Gini's PHD students, who said we could upload our websites in her lab on Tuesday morning, which led us to dedicating
the majority of the day to finishing writing up long neglected research journals and doing last hasty HTML/CSS adjustments. I was now on
the fourth or fifth iteration of my site, and was excited that I had learned so much about web design from trial and error. Before lunch,
Victoria came to the lab to discuss our plans for the week, and we made a plan to pass our research materials over to Loren in the hopes that
he could run participants in the two studies we had constructed. At lunch, Maria and Victoria took Ella, Elizabeth and I out to a Vietnamese restaurant.
After lunch, we continued work on the websites. On Tuesday, we put the finishing touches
on our websites (sans the last few research journals and a picture or two) and spent the morning working with the AI computers to use Unix
machines to upload them to our cs account homepages. We learned alot about changing file permissions, recursion, and the importance of executable
functionality in Unix. The afternoon we spent outlining our technical paper. |
8Wednesday, August 8 - Thursday August 9On Wednesday, Ella and I spent half the day working on various pieces of
our technical paper: analyzing data spreadsheets from the experiment, citing our references, figuring out the technical names of the equipment we'd used, etc.
The other half of the day was spent running demos for the local kids camp. This Wednesday, we had much larger groups, which in a way made it easier because we rarely
ended up with time to spare at the end, and it kept everyone focused on making sure every kid had a chance to use our Head Mounted Display. This was easily
one of my favorite parts of this experience because my passion for computer science stems in part from camps and experiences like this, and it was exciting
to be a part of possibly helping someone find out they have a passion for computer graphics. Thursday, we took all the analyzations and writing we had done the day
before and put it into a Latex-ed file and worked to make sure nothing was missing. Loren and Victoria were in the lab for part of the day, and we were able to get a
working paper before the end ot the day. |
9Wednesday, August 8 - Thursday August 9On Wednesday, Ella and I spent half the day working on various pieces of
our technical paper: analyzing data spreadsheets from the experiment, citing our references, figuring out the technical names of the equipment we'd used, etc.
The other half of the day was spent running demos for the local kids camp. This Wednesday, we had much larger groups, which in a way made it easier because we rarely
ended up with time to spare at the end, and it kept everyone focused on making sure every kid had a chance to use our Head Mounted Display. This was easily
one of my favorite parts of this experience because my passion for computer science stems in part from camps and experiences like this, and it was exciting
to be a part of possibly helping someone find out they have a passion for computer graphics. Thursday, we took all the analyzations and writing we had done the day
before and put it into a Latex-ed file and worked to make sure nothing was missing. Loren and Victoria were in the lab for part of the day, and we were able to get a
working paper before the end ot the day. |
10Friday, August 10Friday, Ella and I came in early bringing with us the final props for experiment two. We worked on finishing
up these lovely research journals, linking our paper to our websites, and various other chores before Loren came in. In the late morning, we gave all of our files to Loren,
so that he could help Victoria finish the experiments after we leave. Victoria came in around noon, and we went to lunch at Loring Pasta Bar, a very nice restaurant in
Dinkytown. When we got back, she had to leave to for a meeting, so Ella and I uploaded the last photo or two to our websites, submitted everything necessary for our final
DREU submission and returned our keys as the Digital Technology Center was closing. This summer has been an interesting experience, and I've learned alot about research
and grad school, and it's definitely helped to shape the decisions I have to make about what to do with my degree. |
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