“Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

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Sandaruwan KD
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“Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Sandaruwan KD »

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“Vidusayura” Perception enhanced immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D


In this VR Solution (ship simulation system) we use our own computational ship models based on our algorithms and constrain so that we can incorporate any computational ship model to our database which satisfy our algorithms. We have developed several six degrees of freedom computational ship models such as benchmark tanker “Esso Ossaka” and offshore patrol vessel quite identical to “Jayasagara” class which has been locally built by the Colombo dockyard. We used Ogre3D rendering engine with Hydrax which has capability of realistic ocean wave rendering. and create real-time interactive environment. We incorporated real world geographical sceneries with cultural objects, moving/ fixed targets. Several environmental conditions and wide range of visibility effects such as daytime, dusk and night were incorporated into our database.

We modeled a Sri Lankan harbor and incorporated it into to our data base. We used British admiralty charts “Galle harbour and approaches” as shown in the figure 1 and Google earth images shown in the figure 2 for the 3D modeling. Subsequently the shore line was finalized and a sequence of digital pictures was taken from the sea while keeping the same distance from the shore line.Same process was repeated several times to get different image sequences with different distances from the shore line. Various moving and fixed targets and cultural objects were observed in the sea around the selected harbor. The relative sizes of the observed object were recorded with respect to a selected earth fixed object and digital pictures were taken from different distances.

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We used 3D studio max to create mesh models. All naval vessels, moving or fixed targets, and cultural objects, scenes of navigation areas were modeled using 3D studio max. When were modeling the navigation areas and the shore line major objects were modeled with polygonal meshes and the other objects were placed by using the billboards. Throughout this 3D modeling we used appropriate textures to model more realistic scenery. Most of the time we captured the real texture from the digital camera and enhanced by image editing software. Several times we used standard materials from the 3D studio max library. We used OgreMax Scene Exporter to export the modeled scenery from 3D studio max to Ogre 3D. The OgreMax Scene Exporter is a 3DS Max plugin that exports 3DS Max scenes to OgreMax scene files. Finally the virtually created environment is compared with the real environment. The outcome is quite satisfactory level as shown in the figure 3 and figure 4.

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Development of Immersive Environment


Panoramic Vision System

Panoramic images and videos are regularly used in various virtual reality applications such as autonomous navigation and virtual walk throughs. This vision system is based on the client-server architecture. It supports real-time six degrees of freedom autonomous navigation system with 3000 field of view. The server computer sends the navigational instructions (latitude, longitude, altitude, roll, pitch, and yaw) to the six the client computers as below.

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In each client computer the same virtual environment is loaded and the position and the orientation values are received from a parental node. Each virtual camera inherits it’s position and orientation from the parental node while maintaining 60 degrees with respect to adjacent virtual cameras. To create tile 300°field of view (FOV) each virtual camera occupies 600 angle of view. Navigational instructions (latitude, longitude, altitude, roll, pitch, yaw) are send to virtual cameras from the master computer over the network.

We develop a method to synchronize each virtual camera. The sever computer send data set containing latitude, longitude, altitude, roll, pitch, yaw simultaneously to each client computer through net work. Each client PC should place the virtual camera according to the given position and orientation and render the scenery. After completing the rendering process each client machine should send a message to sever computer. Then the sever computer send the next navigational instruction data set after acquiring all six massages from the client computers. This synchronization mechanism reduces the frame rate a little but 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMacs with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphic cards were able to maintain more than 25 Frames per second with a complex scenery.


The immersive environment is composed of 4 standard game PCs – (3 clients and a server) and multi projector seamless tiled display system. It was constructed using three multimedia projectors with 2500 ANSI lumens. This large polygonal screen projected realistic visuals with wide field of view and a real scale bridge was constructed and placed as shown in the figure 5.This brings a sense of seriousness and realism to the users perception hence this strengths the ecological validity of the environment.

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Last edited by Sandaruwan KD on Sat Feb 23, 2013 4:15 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by so0os »

This is amazing! Nice use of Hydrax too ;)
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Beauty »

Namaste Sandaruwan,

thanks for the detailed report of your great simulation and training environment (-:
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Beauty »

By the way - if you need more ship models for your simulation, have a look to this page:
https://savage.nps.edu/Savage

The website contains many free models in different 3D formats (e.g. VRML).

Note:
The site is looking like "unrechable" or "with problem". But there is no problem. (The browser warning is a little bit confusing.)
You need to accept the certificate in your browser (click yes, you like to visit this page), then you will see the content.

If you have problems to import the offered model formats to Ogre, maybe I can help you. In the past I got a model from there and converted it to a mesh.
(Transforming from VRML to 3ds with the application AccuTrans3D. Then it could be loaded by Blender correctly. The following process was time expensive, because of many redundant material definitions. But I wrote a Python-Extension for Blender to remove these redundancies. From Blender you can export the model to Ogre mesh.)
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Sandaruwan KD »

Beauty,

Thank you very much for the link. I will try to get ship models from https://savage.nps.edu/Savage if there is any problem I will contact you.
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Beauty »

The project is so great that I added it to the wiki page Projects using OGRE.

Additionally the Hydrax author created a second forum topic about this simulation environment:
http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=62301

@jacmoe:
Maybe it's useful to merge both topics?


@Sandaruwan:
How did you create the terrain? Did you create it with 3d max, too?

Did you import real terrain data? (e.g. from height maps) If yes, it would be nice to see the way how you convertet the data to Ogre. (I did it for my application, too, but it was a hard way.)

Which Ogre version and which scene manager did you use?

Did you use Caelum or SkyX or something else for your sky simulation?
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Sandaruwan KD »

We created the terrain using with 3d max.
We Imported real terrain data but some time there were assumptions. We used Navigational height maps as given below.

Image

We know the height of the major building in harbor surroundings so by using digital images we approximated the height of unknown object with respect to known objects. Google map images and Navigational maps were very useful to decide top elevation and height but it was the harder part.

We started this project with ogre 1.6.5
But now we are moving to ogre 1.7.2 with VC 2008. I commented some code lines to do it.
We did lot of customization in hydrax to get tiled display, dynamic environment changes, integrate equipments. We use default hydrax skys, scene managers (did customizations)
Up to now we more focused on motion prediction algorithms now we are more focusing on further customization in hydrax for our requirement and integrate naval firing.


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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by syedhs »

I am curious about the way you simulate the ships physics - does it use on on the shelf physics (like PhysX or Bullet) ro did you create it yourself to simulate buoyance, wind-effect navigation (for example, if window blows at certain knot from certain direction) etc. I don't know the correct words, but hope you can understand it ;).
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Sandaruwan KD »

Wow,

That is one of the most interesting part!!!

we developed a real-time ship motion prediction system for simulating ship motion in a
virtual environment. This system simulates ship motions in six degrees of freedom, pitch, heave, roll,
surge, sway, and yaw. This system is simple and responds in real-time to interactions and it is based
on a mathematical ship model. The mathematical model is derived from the famous linear first order
Nomoto ship steering equation, linear sway equation, Newton’s laws, fluid dynamics and other basic
physics. We use multivariable functions to model the ocean surface with superposition of sinusoid
functions and the ship model requires fewer amounts of ship data and the mathematical ship model
can be used with different types of existing ships.

We published Our 6 DoF Ship motion prediction algorithms in International conferences and we got good comments.
http://dl.globalstf.org/index.php?page= ... 1&Itemid=4

Still there is no one to one mapping between Mathematical ocean wave model and hydrax ocean waves now we are working on that.

If you like we can further discuss on this topic.

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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Sandaruwan KD »

We use separate Computer to calculate real-time Ship’s position and orientation with respect to environment condition and user interactions. Then we send time Ship’s position and orientation data to client PCs ( Which generate the tilled display system)
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by syedhs »

Thank you for the paper link - that is very informative. And yeah.. since Hydrax is purely for rendering, and the water simulation is calculated separately it is hard to somehow marry them together. I have not read the paper yet so I have no idea what is the output, but somehow if the calculation result in as a 'noise', then it can be inserted into Hydrax to replace the Perlin noise. The problem may be solved that way, but I could be simplifying things too much. :mrgreen:

Btw I take a look at the diagram and you used 6 computers which connect to 6 monitors (1 computer -> 1 monitor), you can make the setup (and the programming ) somehow simpler by using 2 computers and each of them, have a Matrox TripleHead attached. This way, instead of sending messages to 6 computer, you can just send it two computers. But the more important effect is the 3 display (I noticed there are 3 displays to each side) will be perfectly synchronized ie no lag will be observed (network packets will always have variable latency). But for this you need high spec computer. And you can afford to send less network packet ie 20 packets per second (and interpolate in between) because no-one will notice the rendering 'gap' (both are quite far from each other).

There are other setups which doesn't require Matrox 3H like purchasing three graphics card and they need a motherboard with 3 PCIExpress. This setup allow up to 6 monitors per computer. 1 monitor will have one render window and for six monitors, there will be 6 render windows and Ogre has it supported since 1.7 (I think). And there is also a software-based 3H which requires two graphics card, but the second card is merely used as the 'pipe' so it can be a low spec card.
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Zonder »

Would love to see a video of this looks great
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Beauty »

Hi,

on 31st August 2011 there is a 3D conference called Go-3D in Germany.
One of the two topics is "maritime applications with 3D computer graphics".
This topic includes "Virtual teaching environment for ship navigation".

If you are interested in presenting your great project at this conference, I can help you to get in contact with the organizers.
I know it would need much money for the flight and the participation fees, but if you are interested, I can ask the organizers to grant you a discount.

If you are interested, you have to write a "paper" (at least 2 pages) and submit it until 2nd May 2011.
After this date you will have two extra months to improve your paper.
The presentation time is 20 minutes.
The related paper will be published by the organizator Fraunhofer Society (see Wikipedia and official Website), which is essential for applied research in Europe.

More information about the conference you find on the website http://www.go-3d.de (German only).
I will participate in this conference (presenting my application for underwater vehicles) and I am in contact with the organizators.
If you are interested in a presentation of your project, but can not come to Germany, I offer you to do the presentation for you. (In this case I would need more details.)
Perhaps, it is also possible to practise a virtual conference participation on Skype?
(We do such things at my university and also at my working place.)

Please reply quickly if you are interested in participating.

@Xavyiy
If you are interested in presentating your great Hydrax water simulation there, you can tell me, too.

Paper and presentation can also be mixed.
One part about Ogre/Hydrax and one about the Vidusayura simulator.

This conference would be a good chance to present Ogre and Hydrax to a 3D expert audience in Germany.
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by mcteapot »

Looks Amazing, Great work!

would love to see video of the project.
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Beauty »

There is a second post about this project which includes a video:
http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=62301

Maybe it would be useful to merge both topics, because it's about the same content.
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Sandaruwan KD »

Sorry for the late reply.

This is a great opportunity.

We can write paper and improve it within next few month no problem with that now we have some improvements and future planes.

“VIdusayura” was nominated for World Summit Awards (WSA)2011.

We totally based on Ogre3D this is great chance to present it to a 3D expert audience. We have good real-time ship motion prediction mechanism.
We can do the paper presentation and some kind of demonstration.


The problem will be the funding. if you can arrange some mechanism to get funding then we can do this.

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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Xavyiy »

@Beauty

Hi Beauty and sorry for the delay, but I'm very very busy at the moment! :/ (Having to study is like to live in the hell...!)

It'll be an honour for me to talk about Hydrax in that conference, but unfortunately my exams period starts in two weeks and ends by the middle of July, so I'll not have time even for prepare a little paper.

Anyway, this summer(After my exams) I'll work a lot on Hydrax and Sky since I'm going to integrate them in the Paradise Engine, a lot of new features are comming! (Multiple camera support, structural changes in order to easily allow micro-threading calculations, new visual features such better ocean generation in Hydrax and thunderstorm/precipitation system in SkyX, etc...).
So... if next year is there a chance of talking in any other conference, I'll be pleased to prepare a good paper and making a little presentation =) (Also, Germany is not so far from Spain!)

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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Beauty »

Thanks for your reply.
I will keep you in mind and will tell you when I hear about other conferences.
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Beauty »

Good news!

After a lot of communication between the conference organizers and Vidusayura developers the dream became true.

The project will be presented on the German conference Go-3D in August 31 by Professor Kodikara from the Colombo University in Sri Lanka.

Also thanks to Sandaruwan, who wrote the scientific conference publication and helped to manage the organisational progress.


By the way:
Also the presentation of my project has been accepted.
(Visualisation and sensor simulation for underwater vehicles)

The presentation of two Ogre projects (and Hydrax) on the 3D conference could be a good advertisement for our graphic engine.
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by tafkag »

That's great news! And congratulations on the acceptance of your presentation Beauty!
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

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Awesome work dude!
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Re: “Vidusayura” Immersive VR Solution with Ogre 3D

Post by Sandaruwan KD »

Go-3D conference 2011.08.31

11:00 Virtual Training Environments
"Vidusayura" - Low cost Immersive VR Solutions for Maritime education: Simulation Requirements, Major Development Challenges "Vidusayura" - Low-cost immersive VR Solutions for Maritime education: Simulation Requirements, Major Development Challenges
Nihal Kodikara, University of Columbo, Sri Lanka Nihal Kodikara, University of Columbo, Sri Lanka

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/ ... -yPdPfkJQw
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