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Miami research team awarded grant for virtual environment

Professors working on HIVE project, a virtual environment allowing research on how people think.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Miami University’s David Waller, associate professor of psychology, and Eric Bachmann, associate professor of computer science and software engineering, with a $312,672 grant to enhance Miami’s HIVE (Huge Immersive Virtual Environment) facility to support multiple users.

Nick Daggy The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Miami University’s David Waller, associate professor of psychology, and Eric Bachmann, associate professor of computer science and software engineering, with a $312,672 grant to enhance Miami’s HIVE (Huge Immersive Virtual Environment) facility to support multiple users.

ENLARGE PHOTO

The National Science Foundation has awarded Miami University's David Waller, associate professor of psychology, and Eric Bachmann, associate professor of computer science and software engineering, with a $312,672 grant to enhance Miami's HIVE facility to support multiple users. Staff photo by Nick Daggy

Staff photo by Nick Daggy The National Science Foundation has awarded Miami University's David Waller, associate professor of psychology, and Eric Bachmann, associate professor of computer science and software engineering, with a $312,672 grant to enhance Miami's HIVE facility to support multiple users. Staff photo by Nick Daggy

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Kevin McCune, Contributing Writer 10:17 AM Thursday, March 25, 2010

OXFORD — At first glance, it doesn’t appear to be an area of scientific research.

With basketball hoops being cranked to the ceiling, it looks like any other big gymnasium. This place, however, is not just another gym. It’s the HIVE.

The Huge Immersive Virtual Environment is located in the basement gymnasium of Miami University’s Phillips Hall.

The HIVE is an immersive virtual environment in which a person wears a helmet and their movements are tracked by infrared censors.

The structure is the largest of its kind, with similar structures at Brown University in Providence, R.I., and Tübingen, Germany, according to Miami psychology professor David Waller.

Waller has been working on the HIVE project since 2005, along with his associates, psychology professor Eric Hodgson and computer science professor Eric Bachmann.

The team was recently awarded a National Science Federation grant of $312,672 to help with technological improvements.

With the money from the grant, Waller explained the team hopes to be able to develop technology that allows more than one person to use the equipment at a time.

Waller says the money will go toward personnel, as well as being able to get multiple users in one space. Waller also explained the team would like to develop virtual educational worlds, such as ancient Rome, and be able to put several people in those worlds.

“We’ll model some world, and let people interact with it,” he said.

According to Waller, there are three types of virtual environments. The first would be like the regular computer screen that most are familiar with. The second type is a cave where images are actually projected onto the walls around you.

The third type is an immersive virtual environment, in which the user wears a helmet and interacts with the world projected in his helmet.

The HIVE has 12 infrared censors lining the wall across the gymnasium. Those censors search for the point with the most infrared in the area. The helmet the user wears has an infrared marker on top of it, and it is this marker that the censors trace.

The user also wears a backpack equipped with a laptop. The virtual world is displayed to the user through his or her helmet, which is fashioned with two LCD screens in front of the user’s eyes.

Waller said that while the user is using the equipment, they are interacting with the virtual world and have no conception as to what’s really going on around them in the gym.

“The more research is just trying to understand how people think and process things,” Waller said.

The team’s main goals are to research and develop a better understanding of space and how people interact or react to it. To do this, movements of the user constantly are fed to the computer and updated 30 to 60 times a second.

The HIVE’s equipment contains many safety features. For instance, according to Waller, the safety system in the software helps to steer people away when they get too close to walls, and if they do end up right next to walls, their display shuts off and tells them to go back.

There also are discrepancies in the system that try and steer users around. For instance, if the user turns 90 degrees, their screen may only turn 80.

One of the major obstacles facing the team in getting multiple users in the interface at one time is developing the necessary algorithms that will help prevent users from running into each other.

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