Ebook: Dynamic, Interactive Virtual Environments [PhD Thesis]

Virtual Environments enable the creation of fantastical worlds, limited only by the imagination of their authors. They can come to life through specialized software, constrained only by the prowess of the developer. Unfortunately, the level of sophistication required to make statically modelled Virtual Environments (VEs) come to life is a hurdle that makes such environments uncommon. In contrast, the ability to create such environments is widely desired and recognized as necessary. The success and effectiveness of many application areas hinge on the creation of interesting, captivating, affective VEs. This work focuses on such environments and the tools necessary to create them. The first portion of the research presented investigates such experiential environments. Based on the idea that dynamic and interactive components are what make them interesting and exciting, an exploration and analysis of the design space of Dynamic, Interactive Virtual Environments (DIVEs) is performed. Three main content types are defined and their design spaces explored: Dynamics, Dynamic Interaction, and Interactive Dynamics. The analysis of these components provides insights into the potentials of DIVEs and provides new understanding to what is truly required to create them. Based on requirements and use cases identified in the investigation of the DIVE design space, a framework of support for the development of DIVEs is proposed. The Functional Reactive Virtual Reality (FRVR) framework developed supports DIVE creation in Virtual Reality contexts. FRVR is built up from the combination of the emerging programming paradigm Functional Reactive Programming (FRP) and existing Virtual Reality (VR) software. The FRP paradigm was selected as a basis system, because it is well suited to the hybrid nature of DIVEs and VR. Extensions to the existing functionalities of FRP create a system that meets the requirements for DIVEs and provides many new and advanced functionalities that previous VR systems have lacked. Example applications demonstate how DIVEs can be implemented using FRVR and testify to the flexibility and power of the approach. This dissertation was published in 2009 as a book with ISBN 3868441174 by Sierke Verlag (324 pages)

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Virtual Environments enable the creation of fantastical worlds, limited only by the imagination of their authors. They can come to life through specialized software, constrained only by the prowess of the developer. Unfortunately, the level of sophistication required to make statically modelled Virtual Environments (VEs) come to life is a hurdle that makes such environments uncommon. In contrast, the ability to create such environments is widely desired and recognized as necessary. The success and effectiveness of many application areas hinge on the creation of interesting, captivating, affective VEs. This work focuses on such environments and the tools necessary to create them. The first portion of the research presented investigates such experiential environments. Based on the idea that dynamic and interactive components are what make them interesting and exciting, an exploration and analysis of the design space of Dynamic, Interactive Virtual Environments (DIVEs) is performed. Three main content types are defined and their design spaces explored: Dynamics, Dynamic Interaction, and Interactive Dynamics. The analysis of these components provides insights into the potentials of DIVEs and provides new understanding to what is truly required to create them. Based on requirements and use cases identified in the investigation of the DIVE design space, a framework of support for the development of DIVEs is proposed. The Functional Reactive Virtual Reality (FRVR) framework developed supports DIVE creation in Virtual Reality contexts. FRVR is built up from the combination of the emerging programming paradigm Functional Reactive Programming (FRP) and existing Virtual Reality (VR) software. The FRP paradigm was selected as a basis system, because it is well suited to the hybrid nature of DIVEs and VR. Extensions to the existing functionalities of FRP create a system that meets the requirements for DIVEs and provides many new and advanced functionalities that previous VR systems have lacked. Example applications demonstate how DIVEs can be implemented using FRVR and testify to the flexibility and power of the approach.