Training veterinarians with haptic gloves, 3d and a plastic cow
If you thought virtual cows were restricted to Farmville, think again.
Professor Sarah Baillie, a veterinary & computer sciences scholar, has created tools for training veterinarians with haptic gloves and 3d environments and projections. kudos.
Professor Baillie said: “The virtual environment of the Haptic Cow simulates the bovine reproductive tract, including models of the cervix, uterus and ovaries with a wide range of fertility cases, pregnancies and some examples of pathology.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-virtual-reality-cow-simulator-global.html#jCp
Real Time Motion Capture
It has been a while since my last post, and it is time to pick up the slack. This next video demonstrates immersive synchronous real world to virtual world interaction. Users are wearing immersive goggles through which they see the world and each other as they move around ‘freely’ inside an area. Monitors/sensors tracks their movements and translates that into the virtual world for that user.
Using this technique it is going to be possible to do practise training of medical procedures while operating in a team. Would be interesting to see someone develop that one.
Virtual World Campus tools: Recruitment In The Browser
Tipodean Second Life & Open Simulator webviewer goes Beta as BuiltBuy.Me
Browser based virtual worlds are key to mainstream acceptance of the medium. Therefor I am happy to see the Tipodean viewer go one step along the road and open up shop as BuiltBuy.Me. The service allows anyone with an OpenSimulator installation or Second Life account to connect to their world and view it in the browser.
Alot of features have been added since the last demo I saw over christmas 2010. To test it I logged into Second Life (Instructions in ‘read more’ section) and managed to have instant messaging chats with friends. A number of interface icons dont seem to work, like friending nearby avs and muting, so keep in mind its a beta. Though its missing alot of the goodies we take for granted in an average Second Life or Open Simulator viewer, it has all the ingredients needed to become a great service for casual interaction with the online world.
I visited two sims, that are both pretty busy. One being a hub, the other sim with a dance venue with quite alot of avatars. Prims and basic colors rez pretty quickly, but dont count on avatar shapes, meshes or detailed clothing for the appearance in the webviewer. The experience of walking around is pretty good, even at these otherwise heavy locations. I found myself stuck in the water at some point, flying up got me out of that.
Besides offering the viewer they have also tagged on a service to setup a large area of sims in one go if you have your own open simulator server running. I have not tested it, though it seems like an application that should be a part of a management suite for a grid.
For the future I hope the interface gets a good upgrade, on the webpage and in the viewer window. As the viewer is rooted in Unity, it would be a nice step to see this service become available as a iPad app for couch surfing the metaverse.
Kitely as a collaboration tool with openVCE
Kitely is the recently launched service to host your sim-in-the-cloud for a penny fee per hour. At the setup of your Second Life like world, it gives you three options; Start off with an empty sim, upload a OpenSimulator file or install an openVCE on your sim. I decided to have a look at the openVCE offering (open virtual collaboration environment).
After starting my world and logging in to my sim at Kitely, (which was very very easy), I ended up in the basic openVCE offering as a collaboration environment. The next movie is from 2009, but it explains pretty precisely what you can get out of open VCE. (The setup in Kitely looks like this too in the layout of the buildings).
Tho openVCE seems like an interesting offering and Kitely offers openVCE’s basic buildings, I am still missing the components in Kitely that make a collaboration environment interesting. At the landingpoint I have the choice out of 8 boxes ranging from textures to housing, but I would be better off in this situation with a powerpoint presenter and inworld note making tools. Also the absense of voice is paining, as collaboration and brainstorming runs alot smoother when spoken instead of typed on a keyboard.
I hope Kitely gets round soon to supplying users of any premade environments with the right content and tools to actually use it succesfully. If handled properly, they have a good case, expanding the premade options with other systems like RiversRunsRed’s collaborative environment or moodle for e-learning.
Communicating touch and feelings from virtual worlds to real life
Bournemouth Ordinance survey as 3D environment
More at New Scientist, including explanation of techniques
Interfacing opensim through multi touch screen
Done by IMG512, a multi touch screen company
OpenSim pioneers start hosting company
DeepThink has launched a service to the public to host OpenSim regions, grids and intergrid connections. The team behind the hosting includes oldtimers Adam Frisby (OpenSim developer) and James Stallings (longtime OSgrid tech administrator).
It is called SimHost and drives a good bargain when it comes to prices starting at $50 a month, together with a well documented range of supportive services. Good addition to the club of upcoming 3D hosting companies.
related : hypergridbusinessnews
sketchworld starts 3D hosting platform in netherlands
Congratulations Jules, nice piece of work. Jules and his company have just gone more public with their 3D environment hosting service to be found at Sketchworld. Their world is based on the OpenSim 3D environment expanded with ModRex (Modrex is mainly a graphical enhancement pack).
OpenSim in itself is largely based on Second Life and its interface, though it is easier to expand the system as it is an open source offering.
Sketchworld have neatly utilized the open back end to the core of OpenSim, and allow you to import Google Sketchup straight into the world. The service also includes direct web-based uploads of the models you make in .mesh format. (Read more about this)
