Positive Technology Journal

The first journal for serious investigators of teleoperators and virtual environments, incorporating perspectives from physics to philosophy. Vol. 13, Issue 5 - October 2004 Articles Article available as PDFSAMPLE ARTICLE - FREELY AVAILABLE!The Role of Graphical Feedback About Self-Movement when Receiving Objects in an Augmented Environment Andrea H. Mason and Christine L. MacKenzie Haptic Interfaces for Wheelchair Navigation in the Built Environment Colin S. Harrison, Mike Grant and Bernard A. Conway Exploring the Roles of Information in the Manual Control of Vehicular Locomotion: From Kinematics and Dynamics to Cybernetics Max Mulder, René van Paassen and Erwin Boer The Importance of Stereo and Eye Coupled Perspective for Eye-Hand Coordination in Fish Tank VR Roland Arsenault and Colin Ware Does the Quality of the Computer Graphics Matter when Judging Distances in Visually Immersive Environments? William B. Thompson, Peter Willemsen, Amy A. Gooch, Sarah H. Creem-Regehr, Jack M. Loomis and Andrew C. Beall Limited Field of View of Head-Mounted Displays Is Not the Cause of Distance Underestimation in Virtual Environments Joshua M. Knapp and Jack M. Loomis An Independent Visual Background Reduced Simulator Sickness in a Driving Simulator Henry Been-Lirn Duh, Donald E. Parker and Thomas A. Furness Toward Systematic Control of Cybersickness Marshall B. Jones, Robert S. Kennedy and Kay M. Stanney Postural Responses to Two Technologies for Generating Optical Flow Thomas A. Stoffregen, Benoît G. Bardy, Omar A. Merhi and Olivier Oullier [ More on Vol. 13, Issue 5 - October 2004 | Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments Home Page | Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments Orders and Renewals ]

By ADAM FLEMING (from www.presence-research.org) December 08, 2004 Say goodbye to your red-and-blue glasses. The once-great gimmick turned movie-house nostalgia could be in the waning hours of its twilight years, as scientists at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center push forward with research in the blossoming field of 3-D technology, otherwise known as stereo visualization. Stuart Pomerantz and Joel Stiles hope to lower the cost and increase the convenience of displaying images and movies in 3-D for large groups of people. “We wanted to be able to show what we do in stereo, but do it, more or less, at the drop of a hat,” Stiles said, “or at very high quality, but very low cost compared to one of these gigantic, multi-projector, multi-screen systems.” The stereo-visualization process adopted by Pomerantz and Stiles involves two separate projectors. Each projector has a linear filter in front of its lens that polarizes the image it projects. Both images are then shown on one screen that is specially designed not to depolarize the images. By wearing a pair of sunglasses, for which each lens is polarized differently, the viewer receives separate images for each eye. And that, in effect, is the essence of viewing in 3-D. “You’ve got to see different images in each eye, just as we always do naturally,” Stiles explained. While reading this article, try covering your left eye. Now cover your right eye while uncovering your left, and you’ll notice that the paper appears to shift slightly. This is because humans see in stereo by forming a composite of two images. Stereo visualization, at its best, is an imitation of this natural process. Attaching polarizing lenses to projectors is not a new development, but Pomerantz and Stiles have coupled the process with new content and playback software. “What we needed to do new was create a pipeline for creating content in the form of movie files,” Stiles said. “We wanted to use stereo as a routine thing, instead of a special case or a one-off demo.” Professors at Pitt have already incorporated stereo visualization in the classroom. Kenneth Jordan and his colleagues in the chemistry department “designed and constructed a 3-D stereo-visualization system in one of the main lecture halls in the Chevron Science Center,” according to an October 2002 article in the University of Pittsburgh Teaching Times. The system in Chevron allows professors to display complex molecules and structures in 3-D, as opposed to the flat models found in textbooks and drawn on chalkboards. With stereo visualization appearing in labs and classrooms, how long will it be until methods of 3-D are available in movie theaters, or even living rooms? For now, the technology is willing, but the space is weak. The projected file size of a feature-length film, packaged for stereo visualization, would be too big for any widely available equipment. But with constant improvements being made in the storage capacity of portable disks, there may one day be a triumphant return of 3-D movies, sans those old paper glasses.

The purpose of the sixth International Conference on Disability, Virtual Reality and Associated Technologies is to provide a forum for international experts and researchers to present and review how advances in the general area of Virtual Reality can be used to assist people with Disability. This international conference will encompass all aspects of technology used in Virtual Reality systems. Papers are sought in which technical innovation is backed up by evidence of original and practical implementation, or which promise practical implementation in the very near future. Presentations which include video material and/or experimental systems are particularly welcome. Facilities for presenting such material will be available at the conference.

The research presented at the conference will be published in a peer reviewed Proceedings which will be made widely available. It is hoped that the conference will act as a focus for international collaboration.

ICDVRAT 2006 follows on from the success of the conference series: Maidenhead, UK (1996), Skövde, Sweden (1998); Alghero, Sardinia (2000); Veszprém, Hungary (2002); and Oxford, UK (2004). Full papers presented at all previous conferences are available here. Final abstracts from all papers accepted for ICDVRAT 2006 will be made available at the same site at the time of the conference with Full Proceedings book and CDROM archive available to delegates at the conference itself. Papers from 2006 will be made available online in Spring 2007.

The rapid growth of the mental health conference has mirrored the continuous advances and discoveries made by over 400 investigators who use virtual reality and other simulation and advanced technologies to help patients with both mental and physical disorders. There have been several hundred publications over the past five years that showcase virtual reality in the assessment and treatment of anxiety disorders, eating disorders, neuro-psychiatric and neuro-psychological assessment and training, rehabilitation, adjuncts for training in the disabled population, sexual dysfunction, distraction from unpleasant or painful medical procedures, as well as a wide a variety of other fascinating ideas and new concepts.

This new conference will seek input from a wider segment of the scientific community, and is interested in attracting experts in rehabilitation, disabilities, social science, cognitive science, as well as those interested in the meeting's core topics. There is also an interest in continuing to apply cutting edge technologies such as shared virtual worlds, avatars, video game virtual reality (VGVR), augmented reality, force feedback methods, and non-invasive physiological monitoring (heart rate variability, fMRI, PET, cardiac output, ultrasound and others) in virtual worlds.

This year's theme acknowledges the increasing use of interactive media in both training and therapeutic interventions (mental health, disabilities, and rehabilitation).

http://www.e-therapy.info/

Technologies include virtual reality simulations, telehealth, videoconferencing, the Internet, robotics, and non-invasive physiological monitoring devices. By utilizing technology for training and therapy, we are able to improve existing protocols, and disseminate care to a wider segment of the population.

EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing

Special Issue on

Advanced Signal/Image Processing Techniques for Bioinformatics

Call for Papers

The success of bioinformatics in recent years has been prompted
by the advanced signal processing technologies, in particular,
estimation theory, classification, pattern recognition, information
theory, networks, imaging, image processing, coding theory, and
speech recognition. For example, Fourier analysis methods are used
to elucidate the relationship between sequence structure and function;
wavelet analysis methods have been applied in sequence comparison
and classification; and various image processing methods have been
developed to improve microarray image quality.

The development of advanced high-throughput technologies, such as
genome sequencing and whole genome expression analysis, creates new
opportunities and poses new challenges to the signal processing
community. It provides an interesting application domain for signal
processing that analyzes data for life science problems such as time
series simulation and prediction, casual modeling, and structure
prediction. It is drawing a growing interest from the signal processing
community. The goal of this special issue is to present cutting-edge
signal processing methods with applications to bioinformatics. While
such research is of interdisciplinary nature, this special issue will
focus on computational aspects of bioinformatics research.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

o Tracking in fluorescent imaging
o Protein folding and protein structure analysis
o Superposition methods for protein structure comparison
o Multiple 3D protein structure alignment
o Protein structure classification
o Protein secondary structure prediction
o Microarray image analysis
o Data mining from microarrays
o Sequence analysis
o Gene and regulatory signal discovery
o Biological system pathways and networks

Authors should follow the EURASIP JASP manuscript format
described at the journal site http://asp.hindawi.com/
Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their
complete manuscript through the EURASIP JASP's manuscript
tracking system at journal's web site, according
to the following timetable.

Manuscript Due May 1, 2005
Acceptance Notification September 1, 2005
Final Manuscript Due December 1, 2005
Publication Date 1st Quarter, 2006

GUEST EDITORS:

Xue-wen Chen, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-7621,
USA; xwchen@ku.edu

Sun Kim, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-7000,
USA; sunkim@bio.informatics.indiana.edu

Vladimir Pavlovic, Rutgers University, Piscataway,
NJ 08854-8019, USA; vladimir@cs.rutgers.edu

David Casasent, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh,
PA 15213-3890, USA; casasent@ece.cmu.edu