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Up until now, the Oculus Rift has been the go-to system for gamers seeking the ultimate immersive experience, offering immersive stereo compatibility with game engines like Unreal and Unity 3D. Recently, the UM3D Lab was able to push this experience even further, with Graphics Programmer Sean Petty adapting the Unreal Engine to work within the …

Proto is a natural science magazine produced by Massachusetts General Hospital in collaboration with Time Inc. Content Solutions. Launched in 2005, the magazine covers topics in the field of biomedicine and health care, targeting physicians, researchers and policy makers. In June, Proto featured an article, “Mortal Remains” that discusses alternatives to using real cadavers in the study …

The University of Michigan Health System, Department of Pathology has recently started making preparations to move to the North Campus Research Complex.  Previously, the Department of Pathology had labs dispersed around the campus.  Now there is a proposed $160 million effort to centralize the labs of the Department of Pathology and other health system branches in a space that will be …

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are used for mapping and analysis of data pertaining to geographic locations. The location data may consist of vectors, rasters, or points. Vector data are typically used to represent boundaries of discrete political entities, zoning, or land use categories. Raster data are often used to represent geographic properties that vary continuously …

Real light is a complicated phenomenon that not only acts upon objects, but interacts with them–light bounces off an object and to another object so that an entire scene is implicated. In graphical applications, however, usually only one surface is lit without taking into consideration the other objects in the scene. Ray tracing is sometimes …

Molly Dierks, as an MFA candidate at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, used resources at the UM3D Lab to create an installation peice called “Postmodern Venus.” Shawn O’Grady scanned her body with the HandyScan Laser Scanner to create a 3D model of her body. The model was then textured to look …

Traditionally, users navigate through 3D virtual environments via game controllers; however, game controllers are littered with ambiguously labeled buttons.  And while excellent for gaming, this setup makes navigating through 3D space unnecessarily complicated for the average user.  James Cheng, a sophomore in Computer Science in Engineering, has been working to resolve this headache by using …

A tea house environment was designed to explore the limits of what is possible in interactivity and textures. Moving freely around the environment, the user could lift up, open, and move around objects. The scene was explored with the MIDEN and had real-world physics applies to the objects.

“Dialogue of the Senses” was the theme for an exhibit of student work from the Department of Performing Arts Technology, School of Music, Theater & Dance (May 2013). Alex Surdu titled his piece, “Different Eyes / I’m Standing in a Vroom.” He designed it for exhibition in the MIDEN, for aural as well as visual …

Sometimes a mess of data is just a mess of data. But sometimes, as Dr. Suresh Bhavnani discovered, it is an opportunity for a new type of visualization. Ted Hall, advanced visualization specialist at the University of Michigan’s 3D Lab, set up an immersive stereoscopic projection of Bhavnani’s data in the MIDEN (Michigan Immersive Digital …

Patrick Dunn, Concetrate Media: “Because there are different paths one can take, it helps to go to one location where there are multiple individuals who are well-versed in those different paths,” Maslowski says. “It really helps people to find their direction.” The accessibility of U-M’s facility makes it a particularly rare gem. The lab provides …

Dr. Alexandre DaSilva discusses his research with respect to opioid activation during a migrain attack which features the MIDEN. From U-M News: ANN ARBOR—Wielding a joystick and wearing special glasses, pain researcher Alexandre DaSilva rotates and slices apart a large, colorful, 3-D brain floating in space before him. Despite the white lab coat, it appears …

FAAC Incorporated provides system engineering and software products including driving simulators for commercial and private training. FAAC reached out to the UM3D Lab to share information and to compare their system performance to the MIDEN’s capabilities. The UM3D Lab had developed an “urban neighborhood” model as a stress test: how big and highest number of …

Robert discusses his work in data sonification in this video which features the MIDEN and the Toroidal Universe project from 1:07 to 1:52. Robert Alexander, a Ph.D. student in Design Science, uses the sun to make music. In the winter 2012 semester, he teamed with Danielle Battaglia, a senior in Art & Design, to compose …

  Rebecca Davis, professor and researcher at the Grand Valley State University, received a research grant from the National Institute of Health to research how patients with Alzheimers disease navigate their living space. Assisted living homes can be drab or nondescript with long hallways adding to the confusion and frustration for those living in these …

The Kinect exploded on the gaming and natural user interface scene. People had it hacked within a few days and a collective desire to see how a depth sensing camera can be used was born. Caught up in the same energy the UM3D Lab started playing with the hacks coming out and seeing how they …

Through some innovative work done by Dr. Alexandre Dasilva and his team in the School of Dentistry, the UM3D Lab was presented with some exciting new data related to migraines and their effect on the brain. We had to quickly turn the data into an image suitable for a pending journal submission. While we can’t …

In preparation for a potential exhibit we took a look at developing a pipeline for bringing 3D models with very high resolution textures into the MIDEN. Our subject for this test consisted of several rooms a gorgeous 3D model of Oplontis (a town near Pompeii), which was provided by John Clarke as part of the …

Genetic algorithms aim to mimic natural selection in the design process. A set of parameters or “genes” characterize a “species” of artifact. Individuals within the species express different values for those genes. A fitness function evaluates each individual’s health. The algorithm works by assigning random gene values for several individuals, evaluating them, discarding the weakest …

  Spooksville, a haunting and dimly lit basement environment, was originally designed by Andrew Hamilton, optimized  developed by the UM3D Lab, and brought into the MIDEN as an experiment in immersive environments. The user in this environment can walk up rickety stairs, see the cobwebbed and otherwise grimey surfaces in a basement, and knock over old …

    A passenger ferry was designed by a student team from the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Schools, for both their final project and the Puget Sound. The vessel, named Wahoo, is 57 meters long, 18 meters wide,  and seats 350 passengers with a top speed of 45 knots.  The students modeled the ferry …

Theodore W. Hall, Mojtaba Navvab, Eric Maslowski, and Sean Petty have authored an invited chapter, “Virtual Reality as a Surrogate Sensory Environment,” for the book, Advances in Robotics and Virtual Reality (Chapter 11, p. 251-273). The chapter summarizes lessons learned from past and current simulation projects in the MIDEN as well as analysis of its …

From January 13 to February 24, 2006 at the Duderstadt center on the University of Michigan north campus, the Kelsey Museum mounted an exhibition on the Roman site of Antioch of Pisidia in Asia Minor (Turkey)—a Hellenistic city refounded by Augustus in 25 BC as a Roman colony. Located along a strategic overland artery between …

Created using of anthropometric measurements of a human ear, this digital fabrication can be used in sound scaling studies to analyze how the ear receives sound, and how sound is modified as it travels toward the eardrum. Humans locate sound in three dimensions: in distance (both above and below), in front and behind, and to either side. This …

The Virtual Jet Ski Driving Simulator allows a user to drive a jet ski (or personal watercraft) through a lake environment that is presented in an immersive virtual reality MIDEN system. The user sits on a jet ski mockup and controls the ride via handlebar and throttle. While the mockup is stationary (does not move), …

One of the biggest problems with interactive applications is how to suck the user into the experience, suspending their sense of disbelief so that they are completely immersed in the virtual world created for them. After receiving the extremely powerful SDK and accelerators from Ageia (now NVIDIA), we aimed to use this technology to bring …

Every year students dedicated to the art and science of engineering work on a combined project that requires the complete design and fabrication of a vehicle for the Formula SAE competition. “The Formula SAE® competition is for SAE student members to conceive, design, fabricate, and compete using small formula-style racing cars . Restrictions are placed …

The designing of architectural spaces provides unique challenges, especially when those spaces are intended to serve specific functions as well. The Ross School of Business recently constructed a new building which strived to meet the needs of the school’s faculty and students. Within the new construction was a plan for new U shaped classrooms. Since …

This ongoing project is an interdisciplinary effort at the University of Michigan involving the Medical Center, the Department of Emergency Medicine, the Digital Media Commons (formerly the Media Union), and the Virtual Reality Laboratory at the College of Engineering. The objective is the development of a “Virtual Reality-Enhanced Medical Readiness Trainer” (MRT) that integrates advanced …