Virtual Reality

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VIRTUAL REALITY
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COMPUTER SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS
VIRTUAL REALITY
NADA BATES-BRKLJAC
EDITOR
Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Virtual reality / editors, Nada Bates-Brkljac.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN H%RRN
1. Computer simulation. 2. Virtual reality. I. Bates-Brkljac, Nada.
QA76.9.C65V5723 2011
006.8--dc23
2011039223
Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Chapter 1 Second Life as Educational Space for the Simulation of
Enterprises’ Start up and for Managerial Culture Development 1
Laura Tampieri
Chapter 2 An Intuitive 3D Interface Infrastructure for Virtual
Reality Applications 51
S. H. Choi, X. B. Yang and K. K. Yuen
Chapter 3 Reverse Engineering Tools in Augmented Reality
to Support Acquisition, Processing and Interactive
Study of Cultural and Archaeological Heritage 79
Pier Paolo Valentini
Chapter 4 Presence in Virtual Reality:
Importance and Methods to Increase It 107
H. S. Wallach, M. P. Safir, R. Horef, E. Huber and T. Heiman
Chapter 5 Virtual Reality in Textile Field 125

M. Kosek
Chapter 6 Virtual Reality as a Tool for Machining-Processes
Simulation and Evaluation 143
Markos A. Petousis, Nickolas Bilalis and Nickolas S. Sapidis
Chapter 7 Virtual Reality as a Tool to Improve the Quality of Life
of People with Autism and Learning Difficulties 163
Lucia Vera, Gerardo Herrera and Marcos Fernandez
Index 185
PREFACE
Virtual Reality (VR) was created to fulfill human curiosity about exploring beyond the
reality. Humans establish the experiences of a real world based on the feedbacks from sense
organs, such as eyes, ears, nose and hands. By replacing real images, sound and tactility with
computer-generated illusions, a virtual world can be built for the human user to navigate in
and interact with. In this book, the authors gather current research from across the globe in the
study of virtual reality including education processes implemented in the simulated
environment of the laboratory; an intuitive 3D interface infrastructure for virtual reality
applications; virtual environments for the visualization of cultural and archaeological
heritage; virtual reality in psychotherapy and autism and virtual reality as a tool for
machining-processes simulation and in the textile field.
Chapter 1 - The chapter aims to analyse and discuss the role and the implementation of
Virtual Words (VWs) such as Second Life (SL) in the education area concerning the
managerial culture development by applying the enterprise simulation and business
networking for SMEs’ start up.
The concept of Virtual Worlds is relatively a new phenomenon that emerged from the
recent developments in computer graphics and technological platforms for online game and
social network. VWs can be defined as shared, interactive and immersive environments where
participants can communicate, collaborate, innovate and trade.
Although the criticisms about the role and implementation of SL in education field and its
high versatility owing to the rapid changes in Information and Communication Technologies
(ICTs), the high diffusion of VWs and enterprise simulation in Higher Education Institutions
pushed towards a their increasing implementation for testing new teaching and research
methodologies.
These issues will be discussed by analysing the experimental experiences carried out by
Bologna University - Forlì Faculty of Economics laboratory for managerial culture
development to support the enterprises’ start up mainly in transition countries. The case
Perting, the first simulated enterprise established in an italian University, that delivers
consulting services to the other simulated units of Network EUROPEN together with KK
Personal Robe of fashion sector in Shkoder University (Albania) will be examined. The start
up of this last entrepreneurial initiative represented a result of an international project
realization for SMEs development in transition countries managed in recent years by Bologna
University - Forlì Faculty of Economics.
viii Nada Bates-Brkljac
The advancements of the technological platforms as VWs in the enterprise simulation

implementation determined the start up of the experimentation in SL with the New Fashion
Perspectives (NFP) of fashion sector as a relevant entrepreneurial initiative supported by
Perting on October 2008 and guided by the real enterprise ETNI.
The experimentation in SL provided relevant materials that confirmed this platform as a
powerful tool for achieving added value in the educational activities implementation.
After the description of the enterprise simulation methodology and of the entrepreneurial
cases, the study points out the diversity of the learning principles applied in laboratory and
SL. In the first case the application of the learning by doing principle allows the participants
to acquire skills, competencies and knowledge on “how to do a job”, while in SL this is based
on the realization of 3D operations in the process of graphical visualization making the
learning more instinctive.
Chapter 2 - This chapter proposes a 3D hand input-based interface infrastructure to
improve user experiences for applications in large display virtual reality (VR) systems, such
as the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE). The interface infrastructure enables the
user to interact intuitively with virtual objects in a natural manner without being constrained
by any devices and wirings. Complex, clumsy hardware devices which traditionally have to
be put on the user are eliminated by the incorporation of a set of hand input-based control
schemes. Infra-red (IR) cameras are instead used for tracking hand motions, and two hand
gestures based on natural human behaviours, “grab” and “drop”, are developed as triggers of
VR interaction events. Control schemes can be incorporated by different combinations of
these two triggers for various applications, and a series of gesture-based schemes specifically
developed for forklift truck safety simulation training in CAVE are introduced in this chapter.
The interface infrastructure provides the control computer with an ability to understand
intuitive human behaviours, relieving the user of the need to memorize complicated machine
commands. As such, natural and intuitive interactions with virtual objects can be easily
realized. Practical implementation of the interface infrastructure shows that it is flexible and
effective for integration with CAVE-based VR applications.
Chapter 3 - This chapter deals with the description of recent developmentsconcerning

with both hardware and software implementation for supporting reverse engineering
procedures by using an augmented reality environment. The discussed investigation is mainly
focused on applications in the study of cultural and archaeological heritage. The use of
augmented reality for engineering purposes allows the development of specific analysis tools
in which the computer graphics supports the user with virtual contents that are included and
harmonized in a real context.For the specific reverse engineering implementation, thanks to
this integration, it is possible to perform interactive shape acquisition, geometrical analyses
and assisted reconstruction of shards being supported by efficient computer aided tools and
three dimensional computer graphics. The chapter begins with a brief introduction on the use
of virtual environments for supporting the visualization and the sharing of cultural and
archaeological heritage. In a second part, a detailed description of both hardware and software
implementations is presented. In a third part, the integration of the reverse engineering
algorithms and methodologies is addressed together with some examples of application.
Chapter 4 - Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT) is considered the “treatment of choice”
for a broad range of psychological disorders. Although effective, there are many difficulties
in implementation. Virtual Reality (VR) is a relatively new technology that has been
effectively integrated into psychotherapy for a multitude of disorders, and its technologies
Preface ix
and presentations enable therapeutic endeavor to overcome these difficulties. However, as

with any treatment, VR efficacy varies among clients. One parameter that has been suggested
as increasing VR treatment efficacy is presence. "Presence" is the subjective experience in
which the client/subject feels as if s/he is "in" the situation even though it is not real. Presence
is influenced by personality and technological factors, as well as by the interaction between
the two. The authors’ lab has conducted numerous research projects to elucidate the main
psychological and interaction ingredients responsible for increasing presence. This chapter
presents an up to date summary of their findings that aim to elucidate the optimal VR user
profile.
Chapter 5 - Virtual reality is a very useful mean for inspection of structure of textile
materials and their industrial applications. Basics of virtual reality application are explained
by the use of simple theory. Many results from both the amateur and commercial virtual
reality systems are shown.
Chapter 6 - Recently, virtual reality systems have been presented for simulation of
machining processes, aiming at the determination of specific machining parameters, such as
the required fixtures and the machining environment, the cutting tool dynamics, the chip
shape and volume, and the shape of the cutting tool.
A methodology is presented in this chapter for the development of a virtual environment
for 3 axis milling process simulation. The technological and research challenges involved in
this methodology are described.
The operation of a new system developed by the authors for machining-process
simulation in a virtual environment is presented. This system integrates a virtual reality
environment with computational and graphical models for the simulation of three axis milling
processes. A computational model has been developed for the visualization of the milling
process in the virtual environment and graphical model has been developed for the calculation
of quantitative data related to surface roughness of machined surfaces.
Chapter 7 - In the last 10 years, the research in the area of Technology and Computer
Science applied to specific treatment and training has increased. In the recent literature it is
possible to find research in a wide variety of areas, from applications developed to treat
phobias to systems for learning, training and improving the skills of people with special
needs. Virtual Reality (VR) has been claimed as one of the most powerful environments to
help in the learning and training process of people with special needs. This kind of application
offers the possibilities of teaching in a controlled and structured environment, with
opportunities for repetition and generalization to the real world, and facilitates the social
participation and the representation of abstract concepts. These characteristics are suitable for
helping people with autism and learning difficulties.
In this chapter, the authors focus their attention on the use of VR applications for
improving the learning, training and quality of life of people with autism and learning
difficulties. After revising the most recent developments in the area of computer graphics
applied to people with learning difficulties, they will try to highlight the most relevant issues
of this kind of application to better fit the necessities of the final user. As an example, the
authors describe their two main applications developed for helping people with autism and
learning difficulties in their learning process: a virtual supermarket and a virtual school. On
one hand, the virtual supermarket was developed with the main objective of training people
with autism in concept development and imagination. VR makes it possible to explicitly show
imaginary/magic transformations in how an object can act as if it were a different one, which
x Nada Bates-Brkljac
is useful for training both abstract concepts and imagination understanding. Additionally, this
virtual environment allows the interaction with different virtual objects, making possible to
learn more about their correct usage or how to play with them, both skills where people with
autism has problems.
On the other hand, the virtual school is an application under development with the main
purpose of training people with autism in social understanding and interaction, another
problematic skill for this group. The integration of virtual characters who can interact with the
user allows simulation of social situations in which users can participate and be involved,
obtain affective engagement, and try to develop their social skills and communication. Also, it
is possible to train them in emotion recognition and understanding and associate each emotion
with specific situations.
This chapter concludes with a revision of the methodology used to test this type of
application with people with autism, and with more relevant research outcomes obtained in
this field.
In: Virtual Reality ISBN 978-1-61470-246-7
Editor: Nada Bates-Brkljac © 2012 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Chapter 1
SECOND LIFE AS EDUCATIONAL SPACE FOR THE

SIMULATION OF ENTERPRISES’ START UP AND FOR
MANAGERIAL CULTURE DEVELOPMENT
Laura Tampieri*
Bologna University - Forlì Faculty of Economics
Piazzale della Vittoria, 15
47121 Forlì (FC) – Italy.
ABSTRACT
The chapter aims to analyse and discuss the role and the implementation of Virtual
Words (VWs) such as Second Life (SL) in the education area concerning the managerial
culture development by applying the enterprise simulation and business networking for
SMEs’ start up.

The concept of Virtual Worlds is relatively a new phenomenon that emerged from
the recent developments in computer graphics and technological platforms for online
game and social network. VWs can be defined as shared, interactive and immersive
environments where participants can communicate, collaborate, innovate and trade.
Although the criticisms about the role and implementation of SL in education field
and its high versatility owing to the rapid changes in Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs), the high diffusion of VWs and enterprise simulation in Higher
Education Institutions pushed towards a their increasing implementation for testing new
teaching and research methodologies.
These issues will be discussed by analysing the experimental experiences carried out
by Bologna University - Forlì Faculty of Economics laboratory for managerial culture
development to support the enterprises’ start up mainly in transition countries. The case
Perting, the first simulated enterprise established in an italian University, that delivers
consulting services to the other simulated units of Network EUROPEN together with KK
Personal Robe of fashion sector in Shkoder University (Albania) will be examined. The
start up of this last entrepreneurial initiative represented a result of an international
*
Phone: + 39 0543 374668; laura.tampieri@unibo.it
2 Laura Tampieri
project realization for SMEs development in transition countries managed in recent years
by Bologna University - Forlì Faculty of Economics.
The advancements of the technological platforms as VWs in the enterprise
simulation implementation determined the start up of the experimentation in SL with the
New Fashion Perspectives (NFP) of fashion sector as a relevant entrepreneurial initiative
supported by Perting on October 2008 and guided by the real enterprise ETNI.
The experimentation in SL provided relevant materials that confirmed this platform
as a powerful tool for achieving added value in the educational activities implementation.
After the description of the enterprise simulation methodology and of the
entrepreneurial cases, the study points out the diversity of the learning principles applied
in laboratory and SL. In the first case the application of the learning by doing principle
allows the participants to acquire skills, competencies and knowledge on “how to do a
job”, while in SL this is based on the realization of 3D operations in the process of
graphical visualization making the learning more instinctive.
1. INTRODUCTION
The chapter analyses and discusses the diffusion and the role of Second Life (SL) in the
education area with particular regard to the learning/training process for the managerial
culture development in the application of the enterprise simulation methodology.
Although in recent years the interest of the academic communities for the social structure
of Virtual Words (VWs) rapidly increased [1,2], the topic related to their operative
implementation and the impact of such environments on the improvement of the education
area, concerning the enterprise simulation methodology, has not been yet deeply analysed.
This study, by presenting operative cases, with particular focus on the specific phases of
the simulated enterprises’ start up in laboratory and SL, would enrich the existing researches
on the contribution of SL to the learning/training processes improvement for managerial
culture development.
The analysis faces the following general research question: if knowledge, capacities and
skills linked to the simulated functioning of an enterprise have been developed in a real
context as the laboratory, how can transfer them in the virtual environment of SL? Where
does the interest of building a virtual space lie for enterprises’ start up?
To this purpose the study underlines the opportunities and the limitations of SL usage in
education area for managerial culture development to support entrepreneurial initiatives start
up by analysing the symmetry between the real environment (laboratory) and the virtual one
(SL) in the enterprise simulation methodology implementation.
The progresses produced in ICTs and VWs made the communities less and less
determined by spatial boundaries. Moreover virtual teams are managed to share information,
interests, goals and to overcome social barriers as age, social status and ethnical group.
As stated by Zhu, Wang & Jia [3: p. 201] “We live in a world that is becoming more
networked every day, and the Internet has grown into an essential medium for
communication, socialization, and creative expression. Virtual Worlds like Second Life
represent the future of human interaction in a globally networked world and students who
have grown up with the Internet naturally swim in these waters. These “digital natives”
eagerly embrace tools such as Instant Messaging, social networking spaces and massively
multiplayer online games”.
Second Life as Educational Space for the Simulation of Enterprises’ Start up … 3
This statement pointed out the interactivity and the networking as the two main aspects in
the developments of Web 2.0 on internet that have been argued in numerous researches
particularly on the education sector [4,5,6,7].
VWs and Multi User Virtual Environments (MUVE) as SL are becoming relevant and
sophisticated platforms for educators and students. SL, in particular, has been promoted as an
effective learning and teaching environment in which students can learn not only from the
instructors, but also from the autonomous exploration of this virtual world [8,9].
SL was launched by Linden Labs in 2003 allowing content to be created and owned by its
online community residents identified as avatars. This virtual environment can be defined as a
meaningful platform to undertake business and to manage virtual corporations [10]. Users can
immerse themselves in this world and test the sense of walking, jumping and flying through
structures as well as co-creating virtual objects [11].
In SL the educational sector has been recognized as one of primary markets for Linden
Labs that provides support, through Second Life Educators1 and Second Life Researchers2, to
educators and researchers for collaborating on projects, seeking advice on educational
pedagogy and working together to develop educational opportunities. In some applications of
distance learning educators teach their entire courses in Second Life [12,13].
The implementation of VWs in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) increased in the way
to create a virtual platform for teaching and learning in a fast and cost-effective condition
mainly for managerial culture development [14].
Many educational opportunities can be explored by using SL:
• to provide a networked and social virtual classroom platform where students and
teachers can work together from any places of the world;
• to plan and to implement innovative environments in distance learning, simulations
and teaching;
• to enforce experimental learning, allowing individuals to practice skills, to find new
ideas and to learn from their mistakes with problem solving;
These opportunities have to be balanced with some limitations such as: the high level of
implementation costs, the time required to integrate systems with existing processes, the
network bandwidth access requirements, the lack of ground rules and privacy, security and
legal protection for in-world activities [15].
Although these barriers, the main recognized features [16,17] that express the added
value of using SL for the enforcement of commercial relationships through increased
collaboration, learning and marketing are:
• Immersivity: participants feel a sense of presence in SL that seems to be in the real

one. The choice of the avatar for the users means a very close identification between
the real and the virtual person.
• Interactivity: participants use voice and text communication to interact each other in
a real time. The capacity of residents to share information and knowledge increases
on the basis of the level of engagement with the environment and of the opportunities
1
https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators
2
http://list.academ-x.com/listinfo.cgi/slrl-academ-x.com
4 Laura Tampieri
for discussing and sharing the experiences. All changes provided to the environment
are also relayed in real time as for instance the closing of a door. In this way SL
encourages and provides the conditions for the creation of in-world social groups.
• Customizability: the objects and the contents created in SL derive from the creative
human imagination. The individual efforts are addressed to produce a system that
changes, evolves and sometimes disappears in real time. All residents retain the
intellectual property on all built items that can be protected from unauthorised
copying and modification, given away freely or sold for Linden dollars (L$)3.
• Accessibility: the open and accessible nature of SL, with many free access art
galleries, libraries, museums and science centres, makes it an exciting educational
space.
• Programmability: in SL residents can plan in a detailed way their activities through
the graphical user interface.
The chapter draws on a wider analysis investigating the modalities of connection among
a real enterprise and a simulated enterprise in the laboratory and in the virtual environment
for the educational paths of managerial culture learning fulfilment.
The chapter is structured as follows: sect. 2 is dedicated to the theoretical background
that gives evidence to the main studies in the field; sect. 3 refers to the methodological
framework. Sect. 4 highlights the structure and process of enterprise simulation methodology
applied in Bologna University – Forlì Faculty of Economics laboratory with Perting case. In
the sect. 5 KK Personal Robe experience will be examined while sect. 6 describes the
experimental initiative of New Fashion Perspectives in SL. The main research results are
indicated in sect. 7 while the conclusion (sect.8) summarizes the main limitations of the
findings and the future perspectives.
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ON SECOND

LIFE AS EDUCATIONAL SPACE

Although the high diffusion of SL [18], given evidence by the massive growth of
residents - from 2 million in January 2006 to nearly 22 million in March 2011 - the academic
researches on the operative impact of VWs usage in the education area mainly concerning the
enterprise simulation methodology are still at an early stage [19].
Under the category of Virtual Worlds, universes as MMORPGs (massive multiplayer
online games, such as World of Warcraft) Metaverses (Virtual Worlds that are primarily
social vs. game oriented, such as SL), MMOLEs (focused on learning and training
environments), Intraverses (putting up a virtual world inside the corporate firewall) and
Paraverses (often also called Mirror Worlds, such as Google Earth) rapidly developed.
These technologies came from the evolution of advancements combination in software
(graphics, web 2.0 communication), hardware (PC’s computational and graphic capacity) and
infrastructure (broadband networks).
3
The virtual trade in SL is based on the currency Linden™ dollar (L$). Residents can buy and sell L$ on the
LindeX™, the official virtual currency exchange of SL. In 2008 more than USD $100 million worth of L$
were bought and sold on the LindeX. http://secondlife.com.
Second Life, Active Worlds, Entropia, HiPiHi and THERE.com represented the
technological frontiers in communication, social networking and electronic commerce [20].
These 3D virtual worlds have grown increasingly producing many opportunities for a wide
variety of professional categories as educators, managers, social scientists and policy makers.
For instance managers use Second Life mainly for collaborative activities such as virtual team
meetings, employee training, but also for product prototyping, customer relationship
management and sales activities [21].
The concept of Virtual World is defined “an electronic environment that visually mimics
complex physical spaces with virtual objects, where people, represented by animated
characters, can interact each other” [22: p. 472].
SL is specialized in the commerce [23] and, according to the definition of Linden Labs, is
“an online, 3D virtual world imagined and created by its residents” [24], where users are
identified as avatars (graphical self-representations) and their interactions take the form of
instant (real-time) two-way communication [25].
The report “The Second Life Economy in Q3 2010” posted by Linden on Oct 28, 2010 in
www.secondilife.com, highlighted that “Second Life economy continued to be steady, with
nearly all key measures staying within a narrow range of just a few percentage points up or
down over the last year. The largest changes compared to Q3 (third quarter) 2009 were an
increase of 7.2% in World Size, a decline of 11% in User Hours and a 115% increase in Web
Merchandise Sales Volume. Over the 2009 the number of people participating in the economy
has also been consistent, ranging from 480,000 to 496,000 (currently 486,000), as has L$
Supply, which has ranged from US$25.4 million to US$26.2 million and was at a 12-month
high in Q3”. In particular the average monthly repeat logins was 789 thousands with 105
millions of user hours in Q3 2010. The average exchange rate of L$ per US$ was 268.3 and
LindeX volume in 28.2. The total sales volume on both Xstreet SL and the new SL
Marketplace was 904 million L$ and the total world size was 2.08 thousand km2.
Duffy & Penfold [17] highlighted that SL provides thousands of simulators and a resident
population of over 15 million (and growing). Residents come to the world form over 100
countries with high concentration in North America and UK. Demographically 60 % are men
and 40 % are women and the main span of age is 25-34.
As argued by Kish [26] Virtual Worlds are fundamentally immersive, visually
compelling and highly social experiences. Trusted relationships, both personal and
professional, quickly emerge in these environments and can carry over into the real world
[27].
From the entrepreneurial perspective, the most diffused first experience in SL is
represented by a store built for marketing and branding purposes [28].
However other relevant areas have been implemented: - Education and training. SL
represents a powerful platform for teaching and learning processes; - Communication and
collaboration. SL is used for meetings, conferences and for connecting work teams located on
different places; - Sales. SL is a new channel for sales, customer relationships, teaching and
media distribution. As products and services get more complex, SL helps customers to
enforce their understanding providing a visual and immersive environment; - Innovation. SL
is a laboratory in which enterprises can experiment and develop products and services
improving their managerial processes [29].
Lee [30] analysed some entrepreneurial experiences in SL such as Toyota, General
Motors, IBM, Sony, Wells Fargo, Kelly Services, Ben & Jerry’s. These have used Second
6 Laura Tampieri
Life to explore business opportunities or to introduce the virtual world in their product
offerings. In some cases enterprises have developed and launched new products (L’Oreal), in
other they sold virtual products (Nike, Adidas, Toyota). IBM, in particular, has been
instrumental in assisting Linden Labs in its Open Source grid.
The virtualization process implemented in recent times by enterprises [31] determined the
realization of reconfigurable virtual environments [32]. On this purpose Orlikowski [33]
argued the sociomateriality of organisational life considering the technology in management
researches. Barnes and Guo [34] identified the motivation that pushes users to move in SL for
the creation of communities and social networks.
Prentice [35] estimated that the 80% of active internet users interact within online VWs
in 2011. Moreover as 50 % of large enterprises will establish a virtual reality presence by the
end of 2012, half of these will fail owing to “lack of tangible goals and objectives” [15].
The lack of interoperating technology standards, the high level of implementation costs,
the time required to integrate systems with existing processes, the network bandwidth access
requirements, the lack of ground rules, privacy, security and legal protection for in-world
activities represent the main risks in using SL.
For a basic usage of SL no special technological skills are required and users can select
from a number of free ready made avatar profiles that could be further personalized. The
creation of any permanent structure needs the usage of more advanced object-building skills,
with the purchase of virtual land and the payment of ongoing monthly fees [36].
The copyright of virtual objects in SL is owned by their residents and it can be shared,
sold for Linden dollars, or exchanged. These possibilities were meaningful incentives for
pioneering users to innovate and create a wide variety of new virtual offerings [37].
Another element refers to the technological dimension that emerges in the failure of
teleports, in the disappearance of inventory and in the stalling of “transaction loops” [38].
Moreover slow service, frequent crashes, the requirement to continually download updated
versions can be remarked in using SL [39].
Although these problems, it is estimated that in the education sector over 400 universities
and colleges currently have some forms of campus presence in SL [16]. This increasing
implementation of SL aims to enforce the distance and e-learning activities and to provide a
richer educational environment able to create a professional profile for their avatars.
VWs and enterprise simulation methodology have several theoretical implications in the
education field: Saeed, Yang & Sinnappan [40] recognized SL as an effective teaching and
learning platform, based on a high interactivity among users, that is largely accepted from
professors, educators and students. Gualdi [41] underlined the didactical relevance of
enterprise simulation methodology application in Universities’ laboratory with the main
purpose of developing managerial culture, according to the learning by doing principle.
Some studies investigated the impact of social structures in VWs and the diffusion of
innovation [42, 43, 44]. VWs facilitate the creation and development of communities which
support the (often real-world) activities of their members.
The increasing interest for SL is linked to its “strong economic and legal connections to
the real world” in order to maximize the quality and quantity of its user-created content [45].
Avatars held meetings, conferences and teaching seminars using a combination of text
and voice chat features and streaming media. The infrastructure in Second Life is designed to
facilitate a virtual economy and to provide services [46, 47], incorporating a Linden Dollar
currency system and supporting the ability to set objects as “for sale” or as replicable on
demand [48].
Salmon [49] stated that the potentialities of learning in VWs only recently have been
moved into the focus of public interest. Educational institutions faced in recent years the
challenges coming from the technological progresses that labelled students as “digital
natives” embracing tools as Instant Messaging, social networking spaces and massively
multiplayer online games [50].
VWs offer a high number of applications that can be implemented for different purposes
as the case of Virtual Technical Trainer developed to enhance learning on how to use milling
machines with multi-sensory feedback [51] and using immersive virtual characters to educate
and train in health sector [52].
In the education sector, as stated by Jones [53], many institutions established a form of
presence in Second Life4 creating a large variety of contexts with different approaches of
study underlining a multidisciplinary perspective that make difficult to produce an unitary
definition. Kafai & Fefferman [54] recognized some advantages in using SL: the ease with
which role-playing scenarios can be set up, the availability of many areas to be explored by
students, the easy access to faraway places and the possibility to invite guest professors to
give their virtual lectures overcoming the physical barriers.
These can improve the educational systems particularly virtual communities that
are composed by individuals that share targets and resources, including the
infrastructures/platforms that allow them to meet and interact [55].
Owing to the evolution of technologies, the communities are less and less defined by
spatial boundaries and the communication process is not based, as it happens in face-to-face
conversation, on facial expressions, gesturing and intonation [56]. This system produces
advantages and disadvantages: people who are shy in face-to-face meetings can use forum
and chat; from the other hand, in virtual environment the probability of misunderstanding is
higher than in personal face-to-face conversation.
The real advantage of using 3D environment over virtual communities based on 2D
technology is the creation of virtual presence, defined as the subjective feeling of “being
there” [57].
Virtual learning environments can be used to build skills [58] focusing on the training
process defined as the extent of retention and application of knowledge, skills and attitudes
from the higher education institution environment to the world of enterprise [59]. In the
specific field of education [60, 61], the transfer of learning is addressed to generate
knowledge and information through an educational system based on the capacity to generalise
and to learn by analogy [62]. This consists in a process in which knowledge constructed in a
particular field (source task) is used in a different context (target task) after being mobilised,
recombined and /or adapted [63].
The diffusion and the role of SL are mainly linked to the fact that they are constrained by
technology and by the acceptance for the foreseeable future so that the exploring of these
4
There are many websites on SL for education sector such as:
http://simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki for Second Life Education Wiki;
http://simteach.com/SLCC06/slcc2006-proceedings.pdf for Proceedings of the Second Life Education
Workshop (August 20th 2006);
http://simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Institutions_and_Organizations_in_SL for the list of Universities
that have locations in SL.
8 Laura Tampieri
environments is very interesting providing a high number of opportunities mainly in the

education sector.
3. THE METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

The methodological framework is based on the following question: if knowledge,
capacities and skills linked to the simulated functioning of an enterprise have been developed
in a real context as the laboratory, how can transfer them in the virtual environment of SL? In
other terms: where does the interest of building a virtual space lie for enterprises’ start up?
To discuss this topic, two research hypothesis have been defined:
H.1 - The relationships among a real enterprise, a simulated one in real world (laboratory)
and in the virtual environment (SL) can be connected to different features of the networking
approach, particularly as it concerns the time, the structure of ties and the flexibility.
H.2 - The learning process set in laboratory is different from the one in SL.
To this purpose the study underlines the opportunities and the limitations of SL usage in
the education area for managerial culture development by analysing the symmetry between
the real environment and the virtual one in the enterprise simulation methodology
implementation.
The analysis considers the existing relationships among three entities: real enterprise (R),
simulated unit in the real - laboratory (Sr) and simulated one in the virtual world - SL (Sv),
with the roles indicated in Figure 1.
So three contexts will be examined: one is related to the real world with the case of ETNI
of fashion sector, another is the simulated environment of laboratory (Perting and KK
Personal Robe case) and the third one refers to the virtual environment SL with the simulated
enterprise New Fashion Perspectives (NFP) of fashion sector.
As it concerns the experimentation of SL carried out by Bologna University – Forlì
Faculty of Economics laboratory, in 2008 Perting and NFP created a space in SL5. NFP is
strictly connected to the real world as it reproduced the activities and products of a real micro
enterprise named ETNI that assumed the role of Lead enterprise providing information and
data on how doing a real business.
Perting and KK Personal Robe, as simulated units set up in laboratory, produce products
for the other simulated units of EUROPEN Network6 while NFP, the simulated enterprise
operating in SL, undertakes virtual commerce through linden dollars convertible into the real
ones.
5
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kouhun/246/248/54
6
EUROPEN – Pen International is the worldwide practice firms network with over 7500 practice firms in 42
countries. It is a non-profit association that was established on the 27th of October 1997. The founder
members of EUROPEN were educational institutions from the following countries: Austria, Canada,
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and
Switzerland. Additional members are: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Brasil, China, Croatia, Czech
Republic, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovac Republic, Slovenia, USA.
Future members: Albania, Bosnia H., Greece, Indonesia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Malaysia, Moldova,
Montenegro, Serbia. http://cms.peninternational.info/
Figure 1. The roles carried out by the real enterprise (ETNI), the simulated one in real (KK Personal
Robe) and in virtual platform (NFP).
The cases study [64] seems to be the more appropriate methodology for this typology of
research in order to make understandable the vision and the behaviour of the classroom over
the time in managerial culture training process implementation.
As this experimentation can be considered as an unique and multidisciplinary project that
requires competencies coming from different business area, enterprise simulation could
generate some relevant implications to be applied to other educational environments.
The research process started with the individuation of the educational paths that connect
the real to the virtual dimension: 1. R - Sr – V; 2. R - Sr - Sv - V; 3. R - Sv – V; 4. R-V, where
R stands for Real Enterprise, Sr for Simulated Enterprise in Real Environment - laboratory, Sv
for Simulated Enterprise in Virtual Environment (SL) and V is the Virtual Enterprise built
and existing only in the virtual environment.

Particularly in 1, 2, 3 case the simulation represents the intermediate phase in the passage
from the real to the virtual environment, in 4 the simulation lacks with a direct link from real
to virtual dimension while the cases 5. R - Sr - Sv ; 6. R - Sr; 7. R - Sv do not consider the
virtual dimension and join the real platform with the simulated one (Figure 2).
Naturally it is also possible to state the inverse paths, from the virtual to the real
dimension, in which the enterprise created in SL tests and innovate products and processes
that will be realized in real and everyday activities.
This analysis will consider the path nr.5 R - Sr - Sv in which the simulation realized in
Bologna University laboratory and in SL is guided and supported by a real enterprise,
identified as the Lead-Real Enterprise, that provides information and materials about its
working in the market.
10 Laura Tampieri
Figure 2. The education paths of training/learning from real to virtual environment.
In this path the starting point is the definition of the different educational profile applied
to the enterprise simulation in laboratory and SL (Figure 3).
The enterprise simulation program7 can be applied to different typologies of organisation
as: Vocational Training Centres, Technical and Professional Public High Schools, Real
Enterprises, Universities, Chambers of Commerce and Trade Unions.
One of the main features of this methodology is the autonomy of participants that, once
acquired the minimum skills to develop their activities, they must do the tasks trying to
understand and to solve the problems for reaching alone the expected results.
The target is to allow the individuals to acquire transversal skills enforcing their personal
peculiarities with a particular focus for the managerial culture identified as a set of problem
solving, negotiation, coordination and organizing competencies [65].
This topic, already discussed in a previous research [66], is particularly relevant in the
education area characterized by an emerging gap between the world of enterprise and those of
higher education institutions – Universities. This gap pushed toward a more collaborative way
to operate so that the enterprise simulation, with the recent advancements in technologies as
VWs, can play a central role through the practical approach of training/learning.
Some important elements of the enterprise simulation programme are:
1) Sense of responsibility. This sense is concretized in the documents produced by each

office. Therefore it is necessary that participants understand the own tasks and be
responsible for fulfilling them. The rotation system among the participants is an
instrument for increasing the sense of responsibility.
2) Team working. For the enterprise activities implementation each participant works
together with the other colleagues. It is very important for the learning process that
the group is the focal centre of work with the main purpose of reaching the maximum
efficiency and of meeting the enterprise decisions.
3) Proposal capability. Each participant can express the own opinion regarding the
enterprise functioning and can propose developments, may be discussed with the
other colleagues, for making appropriate decision. It is important taking into account
7
http://www.simulimpresa.com
the motivation during these discussions and, if necessary, help participants to find the
solution.
4) Self-learning. The usage of different materials (on paper, multimedia, videotapes)
provides advice and stimulates participants in different subjects. This is a key
element in the learning process.
The managerial culture development mainly derives from a management by objectives, as

the planned targets and the results are the main criteria of evaluation, and from the
supervision of the activities realization by instructors and tutors.
In SL the main aspect concerns the initial requirement of technological skills in
participants that want to move and use a 3D environment for reproducing business activities.
As showed in Figure 3, the educational profile set in laboratory is different from SL
because in the first case participants learn a job by doing related activities and duties while in
SL individuals learn on how they can graphically manage objects to reproduce products and
activities in this environment to make virtual commerce.
Enterprise simulation in Enterprise simulation in SL

laboratory
Educational target To acquire knowledge, To acquire knowledge, competencies,
competencies, capacities, skills capacities, skills on the virtual
on the activities carried out by a representation of a real enterprise
real enterprise working
Learning results What You do is What You Get What You see is What You Get
Simulation How can we simulate the How can we represent the simulated
question activities of a real enterprise in a activities of a real enterprise in a virtual
laboratory? platform?
Area of learning The laboratory and simulated The entire SL environment
context of EUROPEN Network
Teacher targets Training and education of Training and education of managerial
managerial culture culture

Participant targets Learning on how a real enterprise Learning on how a real enterprise works
works making simulated profit making real profit
Figure 3. The educational profile of enterprise simulation in laboratory and SL.
The main target in using the enterprise simulation methodology in laboratory is to acquire
knowledge, competencies, capacities and skills on the activities carried out by a real
enterprise while in SL all the educational efforts is on the virtual reproduction of a real
enterprise by realizing 3D operation as the creation of offices for avatar-employee and objects
to be sold.
As SL allows users to buy and sell with a virtual money convertible in the real one, the
participants to SL experimentation showed a greater initial impulse to be involved as the real
opportunity to make profit emerges.
The main results of learning process in laboratory refer to do business activities in a way
that is more realistic as the simulation can, while in SL they are linked to the visualization
process of objects that make the learning more instinctive.
The simulation question that emerges in laboratory is connected to the individuation of
the more adequate modalities by which reproducing the functions of a real enterprise while in
12 Laura Tampieri
SL educational efforts are oriented to represent in a virtual dimension the simulated

functioning of a real enterprise.
In SL the participants learn not only from the instructors and tutors, as it happens in the
laboratory, but also from the autonomous exploring of the virtual environment in which many
free access educational centres are located. In this way the area of learning is wider in SL than
in laboratory where the participants directly interact with the others under the constraint of the
physical space.
The enterprise simulation has been applied in Bologna University laboratory as a course8
of 25 hours, articulated on 7/8 meetings of 3-4 hours each, in which, at the beginning, the
teacher assigns the specific goals leaving the participants to think about the best way to do
and to solve managerial problems.
In the enterprise simulation methodology the learning process is more effective as the
environment in which the simulation activities are implemented is real. The simulation
process stimulates the participants to assume an interactive behaviour, through team working,
realizing a continuous feedback on followed processes of learning and on actuated mistakes.
Moreover each decision taken in the simulated environment produces an immediate effect
from an operative point of view giving responsibilities to participants.
In such way each participant acquires competencies related to the specific role in the
enterprise by carrying out the planned duties and tasks of each single organizational position.
A relevant element to be considered in the enterprise simulation application is the time as
the long term vision that characterizes the life of the simulated enterprise has to be combined
with the short duration of the University course (25 hours per semester) and so with the
discontinuity in the composition of participants derived from the end of the course.
The simulation uses an interdisciplinary approach as it is more and more requested by the
environment characterized by dynamism and turbulence [67]. These orientations pushed
toward the search of innovative solutions for business success mainly in human resources
selection and training.
In SL, the educational methodology seems to use a model managed by processes in
which the focal point is the procedure to use 3D tools and to implement related operation in
order to create objects and actions. The main target of the enterprise simulation is to develop
managerial culture required to start entrepreneurial initiatives mainly in transition countries
owing to the application of this methodology in the international projects managed by
Bologna University – Forlì Faculty of Economics.
The process of simulated enterprises’ start up, in both cases of laboratory and SL, begins
with the participants’ selection interested to the experimentation. After this step in SL the
registration of individual accounts to create avatars is needed to enter, move and use this
platform. To buy or rent a land, to build offices and objects and to undertake commercial
activities, the registration as premium is required with the payment of a fee.
As showed in Figure 4, the time of operation realization in SL is very short as the
enterprises can realize the main activities of start up in some days while in the laboratory the
fulfilment of the registration needs weeks.
8
Course of Enterprise Simulation (25 hours per semester – 4 credits) – Bologna University, Forlì Faculty of
Economics.
9
Figure 4. The process of simulated enterprises’ start up in laboratory and SL .
In laboratory the registration, as the formalization of the enterprise, requires the

elaboration of the statute and the constitutive act in which defining all the features of the
enterprise simulation. So the start up process can be measured in weeks as it is necessary the
registration in Network EUROPEN for allowing the simulated enterprises to contact and to
trade with the other units.
The research, on the basis of the mentioned theoretical and methodological frame,
describes the two simulated experiences realized in laboratory: Perting Ltd (Forlì - Italy 2001)
in Bologna University, Forlì Faculty of Economics and KK Personal Robe in Shkoder
University (Shkoder – Albania 2004). Moreover the case New Fashion Perspectives start up
in SL with the support of Perting in 2008.
4. THE ENTERPRISE SIMULATION METHODOLOGY

APPLIED IN BOLOGNA UNIVERSITY LABORATORY
In October 2001, with the creation of Perting Ltd during the course of Business
Management in Bologna University - Forlì Faculty of Economics, the experimental activities
of enterprise simulation laboratory started.
Perting, operating in the sector of management, accountancy and labor consultancy and
merchandising of ICT products (PC, printers, photo camera, modem, software) is the first
simulated unit certified by the Network EUROPEN and established in an Italian University
(Figure 5).
In 2004 the enterprise simulation was included in other courses related to economics and
management disciplines of Forlì Faculty of Economics. The laboratory of Forlì participated,
as distance support center for entrepreneurial initiatives, to its first international project of
9
The length of each rectangle, that identifies the single operation, approximately indicates the duration of the
activity realization.
14 Laura Tampieri
“Education and technical assistance for the development of SMEs in Durazzo harbor district”,
financed by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs – General Directorate for the Economic
Cooperation. During this project the simulated unit KK Personal Robe of fashion sector
started up in Shkoder (Albania) with the support of Perting.
Source: [68: p. 36].
Figure 5. Open space offices in Forlì Faculty of Economics laboratory.
The high educational relevance of the enterprise simulation course is linked to its
recognition by the Didactical Committee of Forlì Faculty of Economics as formative stage
from the Academic Year (A.Y.) 2003/2004.
The enterprise simulation course had a wide participation in A.Y. 2008/2009 with 120
students that made necessary the presence of two instructors and seven tutors to coordinate
and supervise the activities (Figure 6)10. This result is justified by the realization of the
educational experimentation in SL.
The number of customers and suppliers is influenced by the participation to the national
and international fairs of simulated enterprises yearly organized that represent the main
channels of contact and trade with the other simulated units.
Form the learning/training perspective the enterprise simulation methodology requires the
support of a Lead -Real Enterprise that provides information on its functioning in order to
guide the simulation together with the teachers and tutors that undertake coordination and
supervision activities.
10
The Figure contains the updated data to those previously remarked [68: p. 44]
Academic Year
Academic Year
Academic Year
Academic Year
Academic Year
Academic Year
Academic Year
Academic Year
Academic Year
Academic Year
2001/2002
2002/2003
2003/2004
2004/2005
2005/2006
2006/2007
2007/2008
2008/2009
2009/2010
2010/2011
Number
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1
instructors
Number
1 1 2 2 2 2 2 7 2 2
tutors
Number
51 52 48 57 63 54 55 120 76 116
students
Number
50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50
hours
Number
14 11 48 13 121 92 113 70 76 102
customers
Number
7 9 13 7 51 28 45 28 33 40
suppliers
Figure 6. The educational and business profile.
Starting from 27th February 2008 Perting opened a store in Second Life becoming the
first University simulated enterprise operating in this virtual world11 (Figure 7) [69].
The international dimension of this methodology is linked to two activities: the first is the
intervention in international projects that push the participants to contact and support other
entrepreneurial experiences and the second is the participation to international events as the
Global Business Challenge of New York, organized by Merryl Lynch in which the Team of
Simulated Enterprise Course of Forlì, with the financial support of Ser.In.Ar12 and Er.Go13,
won the first place in 200914, and international fairs organized as the main places to realize
networking and trade with customers and suppliers.
Perting carries out different activities such as: planning of macro and micro structures,
personnel selection, keeping of pay register and pay rolls, pay-packet processing, job and skill
evaluation, work cost accountancy, manpower planning, designing of Internet sites and web-
shop. Further activities refer to the participation of Perting in the international projects
managed by Bologna University-Forlì Faculty of Economics in transition countries that have
as main purpose the local systems development based on the valorization and support of new
entrepreneurial initiatives in different sectors as cultural, tourism, textile, mechanical, service
and transport.
11
The sum of visitors from the beginning of the experimentation till 27th January 2011 was 3619. In particular 971
in 2008, 1490 in 2009, 1059 in 2010 and 99 units in 2011.
12
Ser.In.Ar is the society that promotes and supports Bologna University activities in Forlì-Cesena Province. It is
established in 1988 by the Municipalities of Forlì and Cesena, Forlì-Cesena Province, Chamber of Commerce
(Forlì) and “Cassa di Risparmio” of Forlì and Cesena. http://serinar.criad.unibo.it/.
13
Er.Go is the Regional Authority for the Right to Higher Education in Emilia Romagna and was founded with
regional law no. 15 of 27/07/2007. It offers services to students and new graduates of the universities and
higher art and music institutes in Emilia Romagna, foreign students and new graduates on international
mobility and research programmes, researchers and professors from other universities or italian or foreign
research institutes. http://www.er-go.it.
14
In 2008 the team placed the second position and in 2007 the third.
16 Laura Tampieri
15
Figure 7. The premises of Perting Ltd in Second Life .
The simulation is indicated by European Commission as a best practice to promote

attitudes and entrepreneurial competencies through the education [70]. In such way the
simulated enterprise can be defined as a centre of vocational learning that runs like a "real"
business silhouetting a "real" firm's business procedures, products and services.
In laboratory the simulation uses basic technologies as Internet in which the web site
represents the main channel of promotion and sales for the simulated enterprises16 and the e-
mail for the networking realization. In accountancy department a software17 is also used to
make the transaction and to elaborate data and information. In the web site (Figure 8) a WEB
Shop is also located to expand contacts with the over 4.000 simulated enterprises of the global
EUROPEN network and for the merchandising of ICT products.

The organizational chart (Figure 9) is composed by the administrative, commercial and
consulting department with the connected offices and activities.
Administrative department:
- Accounting office: business plan and budget elaboration; analysis of financial and
economic items; management control.
- Administration and Human Resources Management office: preparation of the pay-
register and pay-rolls; wages and tax payment.
- Financial office: financial planning and credits collection.
15
www.secondlife.com; http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kouhun/246/248/54. At October 2011.
16
The web site of simulated enterprises of Network EUROPEN is also indicated in the “Simulimpresa” program
home page www.simulimpresa.com to allow individuals to make acquaintance of each member unit.
17
OS1.
Figure 8. Perting home page. http://www.perting.poloforli.unibo.it
Commercial department:
- Trade office: planning and production control, supplying, distribution, store management
and logistics. It is responsible for sales activities and customer relationship management.
- Marketing office: market and new products launch analysis.
- Foreign affairs office: consultancy to foreign simulated units created in transition
countries (Albania, Bosnia, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Russia and Serbia) in the frame of
the international cooperation projects18 managed by University of Bologna, Forlì Faculty
of Economics.
18
Ministry of Foreign Affair L.212 “ Education and technical assistance for SMEs development in the port of
Durres “ (2004); European Union Project “ Education to European Managerial Culture” (2004); L.R. project
“Social work and Long Life Learning for weak categories in Bosnia” (2004-2006); Simulated Enterprise Program
EUROPEN Network (2005); TEMPUS project “Life Long Learning Siberian Structure Development” (2006);
TEMPUS project “Implementing ECTS at Kazakhstan University” (2007); INTERREG project “Development and
promotion of local systems for innovative SMEs support in Albania, Bosnia and Serbia” SVILOPIM (2007-2008);
Project TEMPUS “Regional Joint Doctoral Programme in Entrepreneurship and SME Management for Western
Balkan Countries” DOCSMES (2010-2013); Project MIUR “ Exploratory seminar on the models and
methodologies for the entrepreneurial and touristic development of low Volga. Interuniversity international
cooperation” 2009-2010; Project TEMPUS “Network for post graduate masters in cultural heritage and tourism
management in Balkan countries” CHTMBAL 2011-2014. At October 2011.
18 Laura Tampieri
Consulting department:
- Organizational consulting office: creation of macro and microstructure, development and

downsizing of enterprises structure.
- Information technology consulting office: design of web site, creation of web portal,
support E-commerce and SL implementation.
- Human resource consulting office: staff administration; contracts consulting, recruitment
plan elaboration, job and skill evaluation.
Figure 9. Perting Organizational chart.
To carry out these activities the participants interact with the National Center of
Simulation19 that provides external services to the simulated enterprises in terms of banks, tax
office, social insurance, chamber of commerce, clients, suppliers and transports. It also
controls the quality of the documents and identifies possible "educational mistakes" (Figure
10).
This Institution supports the start up of new simulated enterprises and the realization of
new educational plans through the organization of monthly meetings with teachers and tutors
also for setting up standards and procedures able to ensure a high quality in the
training/learning processes.
19
www.simulimpresa.com.
Figure 10. The Website of the National Center of Simulation.
In Forlì laboratory the application of this methodology started with the publication of
poster and flyers about the initiative in University buildings. This allowed students to know
the activities and, for the coordinators, to collect adhesions through adequate forms
containing the request of personal and academic qualification data.
The further step, identified in the selection colloquium, made participants already
inserted in the system of strategic and operative decisions, first of all the one linked to the
definition of the entrepreneurial idea.
The planning was the first managerial phase linked to the choice of the organizational
structure and the juridical form formalized in the statute and constitutive act necessary to
register in the EUROPEN Network.
In this phase the distribution of duties and tasks among the participants, on the basis of
their professional attitudes and qualification, was forecasted together with the job rotation that
allows participants to share experiences in all business functions.
In the learning process the management of the departments/offices is a very relevant issue
as this methodology pushes participants to assume responsibilities and make decision
according to the learning by doing and problem solving principles.
Once defined the organizational structure, the commercial area started with the market
and product analysis based on the individuation of potential customers implementing the
marketing strategies decided at the beginning of the experimentation. All these elements are
highlighted in the business plan as in the example indicated in Figure 11.
To perform such activities the passage from a Fordism perspective of “to know how to
do” to an evolved logics of “to know how to interpret” and “to know how to judge” emerges
[71] underlining the evolution of competencies and skills developed during this
experimentation. So the organization identifies the process of action and decision addressed
to achieve values and results. In this way the separation between the concept of system and
actor does not exist [72].
20 Laura Tampieri
Enterprise
Name New Fashion Perspectives
Place Forlì
Activities “Concept Store”
Design of clothes and accessories of “clean” ethnic line.
Production of fashion accessories such as bags in small and
personalised line.
Customer
Customer Single shops and distribution industries
Supply market
Production factors of long Enterprises that operate in textile production and materials for
and short term of accessories
realization
Suppliers of services Organization of events
Products / services promotion
Product / Service
Description of need Need of clothes and simplex accessories with some ethnic links
that is the expression of a life style
Description of product Designs of clothes and accessories
Clothes and accessories of fashion sector
Concept card of product personalization
Commercialization
Plan of communication Public relation, publicity, initiatives aimed of increasing the
customer fidelity through card, internet and virtual reality
(Second Life) for presentation, events and direct marketing
Price method Full cost method
Distribution Direct Channel
Organizational structure
Hierarchical- functional The organizational units are based on: a) production are with the
structure conception of products, their designs and models, b) commercial
area, c) administrative area, d) secretary and general affairs.
Human resources The enterprise counts on 14 employees assigned to the mentioned

organizational areas.
Figure 11. The summary of business plan of a simulated fashion micro enterprise (NFP).
In real enterprises’ start up the external formalization, represented by the definition and
approval of statute and constitutive act of the society with the appointment of boards, the
inscription to the enterprise register in the Chamber of Commerce, the communication of
activities’ beginning to competent institutions, is the most complex phase that requires
weeks/months for its achievement. In the simulated environment these activities are partially
simplified by the support of National Centre of Simulation so that the fulfilment of these
activities requires weeks.
5. THE ENTERPRISE SIMULATION IN REAL ENVIRONMENT:

THE CASE KK PERSONAL ROBE
In the recent years the enterprise simulation laboratory participated to several local
systems development projects managed by Bologna University - Forlì Faculty of Economics
in transition countries such as: - The development of social work and long life learning for
weak categories (Bosnia H., 2004-2006, Project Emilia-Romagna Region Law); - Life Long
Learning: Siberian structure development (Russia, 2004-2006, European Commission); -
Education and technical assistance for the development of SMEs in Durazzo harbor district
(Albania, 2005-2006, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs – General Directorate for the
Economic Cooperation); - Informatization of public transport services for a sustainable
development in Tirana (Albania, 2005-2007, Cultural and Scientific Cooperation
Programme); - Implementing of ECTS at Kazakhstan Universities (Kazakhstan, 2006-2008,
European Commission); - Ecological Engineering in Chemical and Biotechnology (Russia,
2006-2008, European Commission); - Start up of professional education in Elbasan area with
particular regard for weak categories (Albania, 2007-2009, Project Emilia-Romagna Region
Law 24 June 2002, n. 12); - Development and valorization of local systems for innovative
SMEs support in Albania, Bosnia and Serbia (Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, 2007-2010,
INTERREG-CARDS PHARE); - Exploratory seminar on the models and methodologies for
the entrepreneurial and touristic development of low Volga (Russia, 2009-2010, MIUR
Interuniversity international cooperation; - Regional Joint Doctoral Programme in
Entrepreneurship and SME Management for Western Balkan Countries (Albania, Kosovo,
Macedonia, 2010-2013, TEMPUS); - Network for post graduate masters in cultural heritage
and tourism management in Balkan countries (Albania, Kosovo, 2011-2014, TEMPUS).
In these projects the laboratory contributed to managerial culture development specially
of young people through the establishment of simulated units (Figure 12) operating in
different sectors in these Countries mainly characterized by a low level of entrepreneurial
impulse [73].
These entrepreneurial initiatives have been undertaken with an educational structure
based the individuation of participants, training courses based on projects work assignment
and business plan definition. Moreover the simulation methodology, stage in Italy,
partnership between Italian and local enterprises and the first commitment represent the ways
of the networking approach application [74], connected to a pull process20, in which the
creation and maintenance of relationships are identified as the main resources for enterprises’
start up and development.
The enterprise simulation supports the all phases of life cycle of an enterprise but mainly
its start up through the elaboration of business plan, marketing strategies and organizational
and informative systems planning.
The experimentation of simulation has been realized in different sectors such as textile
with the start up of KK Personal Robe in Shkoder (Albania) and services with the cases of
Smile Guard in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Women Magazine in Sarajevo (Bosnia H).
20
Also in virtual environment the relevance of the networking is underlined as an essential condition for enterprise
start up. “Much of the work in a virtual world business--like a real-world business--comes from networking
and building a list of contacts” [75].
22 Laura Tampieri
Country Simulated Sector Year of Duration of State of

Enterprise start up start up work21
Albania KK Personal Robe Textile 2004 1 day Not in
(Shkoder) activity
Russia Exotica Siberian Tourism 2005 2 days Not in
(Novosibirsk) Tourism activity
Russia Siberian Business Consultancy 2005 2 days Not in
(Novosibirsk) Consulting activity
Bosnia Women magazine Services 2005 2 days Not in
(Sarajevo) activity
Italy (Parma) Norisk Consultancy 2006 8 days Not in
activity
Kazakhstan Smile Guard Services 2007 2 days In activity
(Almaty)
Albania Elbasan Tourism 2008 4 days In activity
(Elbasan) Renaissance Tour
(ERT)
Italy (Parma) Glass style Wholesale and 2008 7 days In activity
retail of glass
Italy (Forlì) Interregional Public services of 2010 13 days In activity
Agency for Po territorial
River (AIPO’S) governance
Figure 12. The simulated enterprises’ start up supported by Perting.
Smile Guard started its activities of consulting services provider on business marketing
and events organization in 2007 by University of International Business while Women
Magazine, created in 2005 by University of Sarajevo, had the main mission of promoting and
supporting women entrepreneurship through a magazine based on three editorial offices in
Sarajevo, Tuzla and Mostar22.
Previous researches [76] on the different methodological profile between simulated units
in transition Countries and Forlì unit showed that in first case the vision is mainly addressed
to clustering data and information for internal reporting while Forlì unit carried out activities
for external networking, searching partners and establishing stable relationships with the other
simulated units.
According to the networking process (Figure 13), the usage of enterprise simulation
methodology in these projects represents a step that is usually realized after the survey of the
local scenario and the individuation of participants to managerial training courses in which
projects works have to be prepared. The support, derived from the creation of a network
based on stable and strong relationships among simulated units, is enclosed in the educational
field linked to the learning of “To know how to do business”.
In this process, projects work, enterprise simulation and stage are the three key factors of
the networking approach as they are addressed to net building considered as the basis of
enterprises’ start up [77].
21
At October 2011.
22
Project “The development of social work and long life learning for weak categories in Bosnia”, financed by
Emilia-Romagna Region for the period 2004-2006.
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6
Real enterprise
Local scenario Individuation of Project works Enterprise Stage start up
survey participants and simulation (Partnership/first
training courses commitment)
Figure 13. The process of networking in international projects.
A result of the educational path is the start up of KK Personal Robe of textile sector, with
the support of Perting, in Shkoder (A.Y. 2003-2004, Albania) in the frame of the mentioned
international project managed by Bologna University. The networking applied to Albanian
case enforced the collaboration among the Municipality of Shkoder, University Luigj
Guraquki and Teuleda – Local Agency for the Economic Development created by UNOPS23.
Analysing the organizational structure of this initiative two operative units: one in Italy
and the other in Albania, each managed by an executive coordinator with the support of a
secretary, can be identified (Figure 14).
Source: [66: p.13]
Figure 14. The structure of enterprise simulation in international project.
The Scientific Responsible of the project, with the staff of Technical-Scientific

Committee and Stakeholder Committee, manages the Italian operative unit, in charge of the
enterprise simulation and stage in Italy, and the Albanian unit for the production of projects
23
United Nations Organization for Project Services. www.unops.org.
24 Laura Tampieri
work, as concrete business ideas, and the local laboratory where KK Personal Robe started
and developed its activities.
The analysis of KK Personal Robe case highlights the detailed scheduling of the
entrepreneurial activities started up and developed on 10th May 2004 in Luigj Guraquki
University – Faculty of Economics (Albania).
At the beginning of the experimentation a seminar for teachers and students about the
role of enterprise simulation methodology in the educational system has been realized with, at
the end, the selection of a group of students available to realize this initiative.
Although the initial scepticism showed by the local teachers and the emerging of
technical problems linked to the availability of a room with a continuous internet connection,
21 students of finance, accounting, marketing and business administration course, were very
attracted from this experience. The analysis of their professional and language attitudes
pointed out a significant variety of profiles (Figure 15).
As it is difficult to happen in traditional educational system, the enterprise simulation
valorised and enhanced the participants’ attitudes and competencies such as the knowledge of
a language, the capacity to design, the abilities in sewing clothes and family business. These
elements represented relevant resources that have been considered in the enterprise’ start up.
Considering the timing, the experimentation24 started on 10th May 2004 at 09.45 am and
finished at 6.00 pm with the activities indicated in Figure 16.
Student Language knowledge Specialities Office

1. Blendi Gerdoci Italian, English Communication Strategies and Statute
2. Ermira Repaj Italian, English, French Inventor Strategies and Statute
3. Serjan Llazari Italian, English, French Informatics Strategies and Statute
4. Sidrit Kabuni Italian, English, German Informatics Strategies and Statute
5. Sidita Gushta Italian, English, German, Spanish Inventor External Relation
6. Armela Anamali Italian, English Communication Marketing
7. Shkelqim Malevija Italian, English Accounting Marketing
8. Vilma Hoti Italian, English, Arabic Accounting Human resources
9. Najada Shehi Italian, English Designer Strategies and Statute

10. Desara Gropcaj Italian, English Communication Strategies and Statute
11. Edita Gjylbegay Italian, English Costume designer Strategies and Statute
12. Orsjola Zeka Italian, English Inventor External Relation
13. Kleida Tufi Italian, English, Turkish Coordinator Human resources
14. Fatjeta Sinani Italian, English, Arabic Editor Human resources
15. Bralind Kiri Italian, English, German Designer Human resources
16. Vilma Kraja Italian, English Stylist Foreign affairs
17. Itjana Daija Italian, English Designer Marketing
18. Erinda Gjika Italian, English, Greek Coordinator Marketing
19. Greta Drangu Italian, English, Spanish Stylist Marketing
20. Ardita Bylo Italian, English Designer Strategies and Statute
21. Erjola Sakti English Costume designer Foreign affairs
25
Figure 15. The participants to the experimentation of enterprise start up in Shkoder.
24
Managed by M. Bianchi – Bologna University and in Forlì Laboratory by D. Gualdi (Teacher) and the Author
(Tutor).
25
Data contained in the public reports of project.
Activities Participants Forecasted Effective timing Minutes

timing
Seminar on the project Local 09.30 am – 11.00 09.45 am – 10.45 60
targets and the methodology teachers and am am
of enterprise simulation students
Discussion on the sector and Italian tutor 11.00 am – 12.00 11.00 am – 11.45 45
on the typology of enterprise and students am am
Definition of the structure Italian tutor 12.00 am – 1.00 11.45 am – 12.45 60

with duties and roles and students pm am
assignment
Break and transfer to ICT 1.00 pm – 1.30 12.45 am – 1.30 45
Laboratory pm pm
Activities realization in each Italian tutor 1.30 pm – 3.30 1.30 pm – 4.00 150
office under the supervision and students pm pm
of tutor and in connection
with Perting of Forlì
Discussion and results Italian tutor 3.30 pm – 4.30 4.00 pm – 4.30 30
evaluation and students26 pm pm
Final Report Italian tutor, 4.30 pm – 6.00 4.30 pm – 6.00 90
students and pm pm
local teachers
Figure 16. The scheduling of simulation activities.
As indicated in Figure 17 the positions of: Managing Director, Board of Directors,

Strategies and Statute, External Relation, Human resources, Marketing and Foreign affairs
office structured the KK Personal Robe organizational chart. The position of the Board of
Directors was not activated being an element of structural formalization based on a slow
process of decision that could create impediments in the start up phase. So a Managing
Director was appointed.
Figure 17. The macrostructure.
26
Three students, one of Strategies and Statute Office and two from Marketing Office, interrupted the
experimentation due to transport problems.
26 Laura Tampieri
The first relevant decision by participants, under the stimulation and coordination of the
instructors, was the choice of the sector and of the enterprise typology with the online
connection to Forlì Unit. The participants discussed three proposals with related advantages
and disadvantages: wood sector – manufacturing of furniture; services sector – consulting
agency and fashion sector – production and trade of men wear. The negotiation process,
coordinated by the instructor, pushed the decision of the students towards the men wear trade.
In this way the simulation allowed participants to acquire specific managerial competencies
linked to the negotiation, coordination and decision making to undertake business activities.
So the definition of the mission for each office has been balanced with the composition of the
participants (Figure 18).
Office Targets Results

Strategies and Definition of the elements included Report on the results of a questionnaire
Statute in the Statute and the strategies for participants.
External Relation Individuation of eventual Report with the list of strength points
partnership with italian enterprises related to Shkoder region.
through the analysis of Shkoder area
Marketing Individuation of the logo and Predisposition of Program Evaluation
business image Review Technique (PERT) for the start
up operation
Foreign Affairs Individuation of foreign markets Report containing the list of potential
foreign markets with advantages and
disadvantages
Human resources Definition of language knowledge Report with the list of qualification and
and professional profile for each language knowledge of participants
participant
Figure 18. The targets and results for each office.
During the experimentation participants moved the business idea from a local context to
an international one individuating the main reasons for entrepreneurs to invest in Albania and
particularly in Shkoder region. As showed in Figure 19, after 105 minutes from the start up,
the participants moved to ICT Laboratory for the operative realization of planned activities.
Source: [68: p.56].
Figure 19. The class of KK Personal Robe.
The following question emerged among all participants: why an entrepreneur would
invest money and activities in Shkoder and a customer buy local products? A variety of
answers was discussed by participants: low cost labour, taxes and controls, rich territory,
friendly people and old culture. The participants recognized the meaningful problem of the
scarce visibility of Shkoder area to foreign countries.
To face this context, the main strategies were addressed to create networks of
collaboration and partnership between albanian and other countries enterprises; to manage a
distance support centre of entrepreneurial activities; to implement training courses; to carry
out the informatization of data and knowledge and to establish a georeferenced database
connected to the local system.
The realization of these activities was strongly supported by the local teachers of
different disciplines in order to give sustainability to this experimentation (Figure 20)
Local Teacher Discipline

Sadije Bushati – Local Project Manager (*) Statistics and math
Arjeta Dibra Marketing and Tourism
Drita Kruja (*) Marketing
Brilanda Bushati (*) ICTs
Emirjeta Bejleri International Economics
Dori Deltina Marketing
Elez Osmani Project Management
Blerta Spahija Project Financing
Arjola Dergjini (*) Monetary Economics
Julinda Sokoli (*) Microeconomics and Macroeconomics
Figure 20. Local teachers and the related disciplines.
Once the experimentation of start up finished, only the teachers, indicated with (*),
regularly participated to the further phases of the simulation with the following targets,
decided with the collaboration of Perting:
1. Reports of activities;
2. Elaboration of a business plan for affairs of 100.000 euro in 2005
3. Individuation of simulated partnership.
To understand the practical perspective of managerial culture development, the operative

results of competencies, achieved by each office, can be summarized as follows:
• Strategies and Statute Office
Definition of mission and strategic lines of development

Shpk "ALBANIAN UNDERWEAR" Line-man intimate KK Personal Robe
Mission: Manufacture and sale of intimate items for men with an Albanian brand
Strategic Objective: to penetrate in the Italian market with a quality Albanian brand
Tactical objective: to create in three years a customership that covers a segment (1%) of
the Italian market of quality level man intimate
Target Market: Italian Market of intimate represented by simulated Italian enterprises
28 Laura Tampieri
Modalities: Joint venture between the simulated Albanian unit with the Italian ones
Human Resources: Albanian Labour
Distribution channels: those used by Italian enterprises
Product Line: slips and boxer for men
Collaboration of the simulated unit in Shkoder with a lead enterprise that operates in the
sector.
• External Relation Office
Identification of the strengths of Shkoder district for the appeal:

- People: friendly, generous, fair, honest, hardworking, true;
- Territory: lake, mountains, sea, rivers, climate, the border with Montenegro;
- Culture: rich, old, mediterranean, music, art and theatre;
- Activities: crafts, sports, religious, cultural and fishing.
• Foreign Affairs Office
Identification of potential foreign markets for the product marketing:

Italy: the personage to launch the product is very well known in Italy, especially among
young people and women. Being close to Italy the cost of products transportation is low.
Spain: being closely linked to Italy by a large share of culture and art is an important
market.
• Marketing Office
Creation of logo and head paper (Figure 21)

Figure 21. The logo and head paper.
• Human Resources Office
Definition of professional profile of the team (Figure 15)

Elaboration of meeting register for each participant (Figure 22)
Name - Surname E-mail Mobile Data ( dd/mm/yy ) Activity Results
Figure 22. The meeting register.
The simulation of enterprises’ start up finished at 6.00 pm with the sending of the final
report to Perting together with the Power Point presentation that has been used in the
international conference “The European Enterprise in Net Economy: which perspective for
Shkoder District?” hold in Shkoder on May, 11th 2004 in the main public and private
organizations’ presence.
The simulation of KK Personal Robe was successively prosecuted with a stable and
strong exchange of communication with Perting enhancing the networking approach
implementation as the main condition for enterprises’ start up and development.
The training/learning process focused on the sequence, in terms of didactical validity,
knowledge-capacity-competence: the participants transformed the knowledge, acquired from
the University courses accomplishment, into operative capacities of, for instance, working
team and making decision in order to develop managerial competencies in the specific
business scenario.
The enterprises’ start up is a concept widely argued by Authors [78,79,80,81] that
distinguished the clustering based on the resources mainly of financial assets and of
information in a stock taking perspective, from the networking focused on the continuous
building and maintenance of a net with customers and suppliers starting from the commitment
[82]. The commitment is the first order of work, the main impulse for the enterprises to
undertake the process of relationships creation with customers and suppliers necessary for the
survival in the market.
In the simulated environment the networking is the organizational approach useful to
analyse the entrepreneurial phenomena characterized by the creation and development of
relevant relationships with other experiences. This operative perspective is also underlined by
the path: First commitment - Activity - Stable net, that is coherent with the pull system. While
the clustering is based on the push system: Financial Resources achievement - Activity -
Economic dimension attainment.
The previous survey carried out by Trottoli [83]27 on the satisfaction level of participants
in Forlì unit during the A.Y. 2004/2005 highlighted a positive rating of this experience in
terms of specific knowledge improvement in economic and managerial disciplines, of
capacities and competencies to analyse and solve business problems.
27
Tutor of Enterprise Simulation Course (A.Y. 2004-2005) in Bologna University - Forlì Faculty of Economics.
30 Laura Tampieri
The enterprise simulation methodology faced in recent years the advancements of

technologies moving from internet use, mainly based on e-mails, to virtual worlds
implementation as SL. The diffusion of VWs in this field could improve the educational
system through a more flexible reproduction of business activities.
6. THE ENTERPRISE SIMULATION IN SECOND LIFE:

THE CASE NEW FASHION PERSPECTIVES
During A.Y. 2008/2009, in parallel with the enterprise simulation realized in Bologna
University – Forlì Faculty of Economics laboratory, the pilot project “Using SL to enforce the
educational processes of simulation for managerial culture”28 started in Perting, with the
involvement of 15 students29 under the mentoring of an instructor30, through the creation of a
store in Kouhun island on February 2008.
The main targets of the project were:
- Structuring the research process in SL;

- Verification of didactical potentialities in simulation activities to be carried out in virtual
environment;
- Support to the research on the methodologies of business management applicable in
virtual environment;
- Realization of innovative processes in simulation methodology;
- Technical consulting to the usage of virtual environment SL;
- Predisposition of promotional materials on the enterprise simulation.
In Second Life the enterprise simulation methodology was applied with the main
purpose of making the participants identified by animated avatars able to acquire managerial
knowledge, capacities and competencies. They can control avatar via Second Life Viewer
client software performing a wide range of basic animations such as standing, walking and
flying or predefined gestures that are a combination of animation, text chat and sounds. In SL
text chat, private instant messages or audio streaming are the main tools of communication
and networking among avatars.
In this way the participants to the experimentation undertake a rich multimedia
experience in which human perception and intelligence are needed to evaluate the full stream
of incoming data. Linden Lab also provides to users the Linden Scripting Language (LSL)31
as a tool to attach scripts to objects giving a high number of sensor functions to detect objects
and events in this virtual environment. These scripts are run within SL simulator servers but
are scarcely visible and used in the outside world.
28
This project was financed by Ser.In.Ar and undertaken with the tutorship of the Author.
http://serinar.criad.unibo.it/. Responsible: M. Bianchi and D. Gualdi of Bologna University – Forlì Faculty of
Economics
29 nd
2 Year courses study of Business Economics and Internet Economics Bologna University – Forlì Faculty of
Economics.
30
Simona Rusticali – Ser.In.Ar
31
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Portal
As Second Life is a Web 3D application that provides a simulated three dimensional

environment in which users can move around and interact with others, the human interactions
are realized in a social context where participants play specific roles constrained by the
environment32 (Figure 23).
33
Figure 23. The human interactions in SL.
The experimentation in SL (25 hours articulated in 8 sections/meetings) of the

enterprises’ start up has been analysed as a process, according to the general frame of Figure
4, composed by the following phases:
1. Creation of Account;
2. Registration as Premium Account;
3. Purchase of land;
4. Realization of Primitives34.
To enter and move in SL it is necessary the creation of the account that can be realized
via the website of Second life (www.secondlife.com), in the section “creation of account”
through which the selection of the image, name and surname of avatar (among those listed by
Linden Lab regularly updated) allows to appear in SL.
32
For instance students that attend an in-world lecture should remain quiet till the end of the lecture.
33
View recorded with the collaboration of enterprise simulation course participants and particularly of Gabriele
Branchetti – Forlì Faculty of Economics.
34
A primitive, or prim, is a single-part object. Multi-part objects will have multiple parts ("prims"). In Second Life,
virtual physical objects such as cars, houses, jewelry, and even less obvious things like hair and clothing are
made out of one or more prims. Objects made from prims are usually created in-world using the built-in object
editing tool. This tool is used for all sorts of 3D modeling in Second Life, playing the same role as 3D Max,
Maya, or Blender, but customized for the Second Life way of doing things. Each prim is represented by a set
of parameters, including shape/type, position, scale/size, rotation, cut, hollow, twist, shear, etc. These
parameters are sent from a server to the viewer running on the resident's desktop, where the local video card is
used to render the visual appearance of everything. www.secondlife.com
32 Laura Tampieri
To complete the registration the indication of personal data35 and the downloading of the
specific software are also required.
The passage to an entrepreneurial behaviour for building a store and making virtual trade
requires the registration of a premium account with the payment of a fee 36. This allows users
to realize primitives for creating the infrastructure and the objects needed to start up.
The scheduling and the activities carried out by Perting team within the project, can be
summarized as follows:
1. 16/02/2008: Creation of Account – Name of Avatar: Microbusinesslab; Role: Perting

S.r.L; Name of the Group: Simulimpresa – Perting S.r.L.
2. 16/02/2008: Registration as Premium Account37: Name Land: Laboratorio di
simulimpresa (Economia Forlì – UNIBO)38; Typology of land: Mainland39, Size:
4.608 mq
3. 26/02/2008: Purchase of land
4. From 26/02/2008: Realization of Primitives: number of supported primitives: 937,
number of used primitives 79640
The fulfilment of these phases allowed the participants to start up their entrepreneurial
initiatives through the creation of a store.
As at the beginning of the experimentation the participants did not know SL and its
functioning, the specific educational targets were:
- Learn about Second Life from the web site and from discussions with the instructor;
35
E-Mail, nationality, date of birth, name, surname, sex, password and the security question to recover the
password. Once You have accepted the terms of service contract the user will receive an email with the request
of registration confirmation to access in SL.

36
Monthly $ 9,95, quarterly $ 22,50 and yearly $ 72. At the moment of Perting registration (February 2008)
37
The cost is US $ 9,95 monthly and it includes a weekly wage of 300 Linden $, an initial bonus of 1000 Linden
$, no tax for the first 512 mq of land.
38
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kouhun/228/239/54.
39
The property is of Linden to whom Perting pays the fee. Land on the Second Life grid can either be on the
Mainland or on an Estate. Land can be owned either by an individual avatar or by a group. Estate land can be
created whenever a user pays the start-up fee. Mainland comes into existence only when Linden Lab's
management decides to create some. The grid is made of identically sized regions (also called "sims"), each
65,536 m² in size. Each standard sim can support up to 15,000 prims. There is a limit to how many avatars can
be on a sim, depending on the sim type. Mainland sims can support a maximum of 40 avatars, full regions can
support up to 100 avatars, homestead regions can support up to 20 avatars, and open space regions can support
up to 10 avatars. On private estates, estate managers can set the maximum number of allowed avatars to less
than the hard maximum. An estate is an isolated group of one or more (usually contiguous) regions, all
controlled by an estate owner who rents land to users. The estate owner pays a monthly "tier" fee to Linden
Lab for the use of the space: the standard rate is $295/month for a "Private Region." Non profit users are
eligible for a 50% discount, and sometimes Linden Lab makes regions available for free for special projects.
The servers are owned by Linden Lab itself, not by the estate owner. Most of the land on the grid is on "The
Mainland." This is essentially a giant estate (in several discontinuous pieces) administered by "Governor
Linden" (a persona shared by several Linden Lab managers.) The "tier" for an entire mainland sim is
$195/month (with no discount for non-profits.). For Mainland fees, the fee determines only the area of land
available; the number of prims available is determined by the land itself. Some mainland regions offer more
prims in the same land area. www.secondlife.com
40
At January, 27th 2011.
- Create an avatar and a free account with Linden Labs;

- Send to the instructor an Instant Message within Second Life with the avatar’s name and
the students’ real names;
- Attend office hours in Perting land;
- Find and join the class group within Second Life;
- Explore SL to be able to analyse the educational opportunities in SL;
- Create objects and a Vendor;
- Prepare a seminar in SL with an adequate promotional activity based on Note Card and
Instant Message;
- Participate to a conference in SL via streaming.
To accomplish these targets the first hours of the experimentation were the most
problematic owing to the risk of incoming negative perception about the usefulness of SL and
of the lack of enough technical skills that can function as barriers in the learning process.
Each activity was planned and designed to enhance students learning.
As stated by Bologna University Project Manager “The main target of using SL for
Perting was not only for marketing and branding purposes but also for testing and innovating
new methodologies in didactics and research activities”.
On February 2008 Perting’ land was structured in: main building with offices, forum area
for lectures and conferences and an international projects area as showed in Figure
24a,b,c,d.In the main building, at the reception area (Figure 24a), avatars can register in the
community41 to receive information, in Italian and English language, about activities and
events. Moreover avatars can access to the offices (Figure 24b) grouped in four departments
with the following specific tasks:
- Administration: accounting, finance and treasury, human resources, management

control and secretary. The main activities are: business plan preparation, chart of
accounts, estate general and analytical accounting, treasury management, editing
budget and management control, internal and external corporate communications,

database management, drafting reports for governance bodies.
- Commercial: Italy (purchases, sales and marketing) and foreign Countries
(purchases, sale and international projects), marketing (corporate communications,
website management, organization of fair for simulated enterprises) purchase
(functional and non functional) and sales Services (determination fees, billing). As it
regards the foreign affairs office: support and consulting other simulated units
diffused in transition countries; international project management activities and
international financing.
- Consulting: organizational, information technology, human resources and
accounting area. The organizational consulting is responsible for: designing micro
and macro structures, job analysis. The human resources consulting area carries out
functions relating to the administration, contractual advice, job evaluation and
workloads, staff recruitment and selection. The Information Technology consulting is
engaged in: designing websites and web-shop; supporting the activities management
on virtual platform SL; creating databases and supporting e-commerce activities.
41
28 members joined to Perting Group. At January, 27th 2011.
34 Laura Tampieri
Accounting consulting refers to: Preparation of business plan and budget; analysis of
financial and economic situation.
- Human resources: staff contracts preparation, work documentations; salaries, fees
and contributions liquidation.
42
Figure 24. The main areas of Perting land.
Near to the main building of Perting, the forum area (Figure 24c) has been placed to
realize conferences and lectures while the international projects exhibition (Figure 24d)
shows the project management initiatives in which the enterprise simulation laboratory
participated. During the experimentation of SL in enterprise simulation a public seminar was
organized43 on the topic “The enterprise simulation methodology for managerial culture
development” as showed in Figure 25.
42
Perting building changed in March 2009.
43
At November 26th, 2008
Figure 25. The seminar in SL and in laboratory.
In the laboratory the instructor and the students participated via audio and video
streaming with mogulus.com44 to the seminar of 1 hour with the aim of improving the
understanding of the educational experimentation considering also the discussions come from
the intervention of other experts45 in the field. This event has been promoted with poster and
blog/forum dedicated to the educational sector of Second Life Italia.
A very relevant entrepreneurial decision made by Perting was the change of building in
March 2009 to face the need of a more attractive land (Figure 26a,b).
Figure 26. Perting infrastructure renewal.
The application of SL in enterprise simulation made students directly able to create in

autonomy the offices in order to improve their managerial culture by a better understanding of
business management.
As showed in the following Figure 27, the offices have been created in departments
located in specific areas.
44
http://www.facebook.com/l/4cbd0dUTslV8Hy6-v5LNqiQq53A;www.livestream.com/
45
Avatars from Polytechnic University of Turin and Fiaip Milano participated to this seminar.
36 Laura Tampieri
46
Figure 27. The offices and the forum area.
The forum area is addressed to held seminars, conferences and lectures with the support
of special instruments, such as PCs and displays for teaching. Materials about the enterprise
simulation are available both for students and visitors. For a more interactive use, already
possible with the tools "local chat" and "voice chat" provided by Linden Lab, the Forum Area
arranges a great screen and a desk with a PC for remote control on which scroll texts and
slides.
In October 2008 Perting supported the start up of New Fashion Perspectives (NFP), a
simulated micro enterprises of fashion sector that produces and sells clothes and accessories47
in SL. NFP reproduces the activities of the real micro enterprise ETNI identified as the Lead -
Real enterprise.
ETNI is the micro enterprise, that produces models and fashion accessories, managed by
E.M. who worked in a small company of knitwear.
The main business idea was to "conceive an ethnic and clean fashion of women" with as
products the drawings of models that are made in small batches (sometimes also as individual
product) from small workshops.
The sales, after an initial phase lasting few months characterized by informal mechanisms
of distribution, have been formalized through the use of contracts in five stores of clothing
and accessories in Cesena, Cuneo, Rimini and Forlì.
In particular this business formula involved fifteen products, including bags, bracelets
and belts available in stores with an adequate promotional material (posters, drawings and
brochures) and left for sale in exchange for an agreed fee.
In April 2008, for instance, the presentation of ETNI products in the point of sale of
franchising chain “Isola del Sud” (Cesena – Italy) represented the launch of the brand in the
real market which was followed by the opening of the parallel enterprise New Fashion
Perspectives in SL.
The experimentation has started in virtual environment through the marketing of products
in Italy MySpace48 with blog, personal profiles, photos and video.
46
At December 17th 2009.
47
The business plan was indicated in Figure 11.
48
http://www.myspace.com/
The developments of the recent virtualization process implemented in real enterprises led
to the use of SL with the start up, thanks to Perting support, of an atelier in October 2008 to
test the attractiveness of the products.
The simulation has been realized in laboratory since A.Y. 2008/2009 with Forlì Faculty
of Economics students, as participants, carrying out business functions, assuming managerial
responsibilities, roles and tasks, working in team, as happen in a real enterprise, under the
mentoring of teachers and tutors, according to the learning by doing principle.
In NFP land the equipments and operative tools as clipper, sewing machine and cutter to
create clothes and fashion products were interactive. The mission was to reproduce and
simulate the activities of the Lead - real micro enterprise - ETNI.
The use of VWs as SL requires a dynamic perspective of the entrepreneurial initiative
through many changes, first of all those related to the building, to give more visibility and to
increase the attractiveness of the land and the store.
So the participants decided to renew the NFP building moving from an experimental
atelier-laboratory in 2008, with the main aim of testing fashion products attractiveness, to an
atelier-pavilion on March 2009, with the structure of a store, for the production and virtual
trade of clothes and fashion accessories. In this pavilion posters and models of clothes are
also showed (Figure 28). In SL the products of Fashion Perspectives catalogue, sold at the
price L$ 10, were: Etni Outfit; Melody Outfit; Etni Outfit 2; Etni Outfit 3; Etni Outfit 4;
Black princess dress; Fashionable Silky dress and Bag Etni49.
Source: [29:p. 263].
Figure 28. The renewal of NFP building.
In the initial months of experimentation50 the number of visitors in Perting land

enormously increased highlighting the networking approach aimed at developing
relationships with other units. The infrastructural change of NFP can be analysed in terms of
number of used primitives, as a measure of influence on the organizational settings, that
increased from 76 to 91 (Figure 29).
49 As the data provided by Linden refer only to the transaction of the last month, during the experimentation NFP
sold more than 15 products.
50
February – October 2008
38 Laura Tampieri
Figure 29. The change of building based on the used primitives. On 8th May 2009.
In NFP atelier the products were designed specifically for the virtual world and those for
real market were promoted and merchandised. To this purpose, the sewing machine, scissors
and dummy were made in 3D as interactive for avatars - operators of the fashion industries
and customers/suppliers. The creation of this platform aimed at simulating the main business
activities of a real micro-enterprise allowing the reproduction in the laboratory of concrete
situations together with its experimentation in virtual environment. This infrastructural
change underlined the need to enforce the net of relationships with other entities according to
the networking approach mainly during the start up phase.
Another typology of results achieved by SL usage was linked to the managerial
competencies, behind the technological ones, development in terms of definition of strategies
able to change the vision of the simulated enterprises in the virtual business communities. In
this way the renewal of the building and the launch of new products represented the two main
challenges realized in SL.
At the end of the experimentation the students acquired knowledge on: - How to use the
Search function of Second Life to find businesses to visit;- How to teleport among Second
Life locations;- How to use the Edit function of Second Life to get the properties of an object
such as its creator and owner; - How to find and join a group; - How to communicate with
other avatars using instant messaging and voice; -How to purchase items in retail stores; -
How to build offices and products; - How to make virtual trade; - How to earn Linden dollars.
So the participants in SL acquired knowledge, capacities and competencies not only from the
simulated context in which they operate but also by the exploring of the environment that
provides many free access educational spaces.
The main implications of this experimentation in the education area are linked to: 1. the
application of innovative technologies in distance learning processes; 2. The increasing
visibility of Forlì Faculty of Economics laboratory in the global educational arena. These
produced added value to the learning processes.

Source: [68: p.70].
Figure 30. The real – virtual symmetry.
The analysis of the symmetry ETNI - NFP (Figure 30) represent a relevant issue in the
application of SL in enterprise simulation. This identifies the enterprise as an organizational
system based on the sequence inputs-processing-outputs: Inputs as information, gathered by
magazines and elaborated with PC, and raw materials; Processing with a desk and small tools
such as scissors, sewing machine, forceps and designs; Outputs as bags and other fashion
accessories.
40 Laura Tampieri
This sequence began with the conception of the product by using fashion magazines and
computer. E.M. selected raw materials mainly in terms of scraps and clippings that are
processed on the desk next to a mannequin. Once finished the product, it is packaged and
labelled using cards containing customizable messages.
This symmetry ETNI - NFP, pointed out a different level of reproduction: the real raw
materials are represented very similar in SL while the avatar-entrepreneur in SL is a women
and in the real world is of male gender.
So the real enterprise can be reproduced with a different level of reliability in the
simulated and virtual platform. The enterprise simulation applied in the real environment,
managed by human agents, allows participants to reproduce activities in a very reliable way
due to the use of the same documentation and informative systems of the Lead-real enterprise.
The connection between the simulated unit and the National Centre of Simulation also allows
to undertake simulated transactions of real situations with bank and tax office.
Another difference is the physical space based on the layout of PC, printer and desks that
in the laboratory is already determined at the beginning of the experimentation without any
possibilities of change by the participants.
Instead in SL avatars can personalize the land creating buildings, offices, desks, PC and
objects with a certain freedom of action that is constrained only by the financial and
technological system managed by Linden Lab and by the technical skills owned by
participants.
As it concerns the time, in the simulated context the duration of start up activities
accomplishment is characterized, as it happens in the real world, by a long term process due
to bureaucratic constraints, while in SL by short term as key element for reaching the added
value.
7. THE RESEARCH RESULTS

The analysis of the simulated units start up in laboratory (KK Personal Robe) and in SL
(NFP) together with the real enterprise ETNI, as Lead enterprise, aimed at verifying the
following hypothesis:
H.1 - The relationships among a real enterprise, a simulated one in real world (laboratory)
and in the virtual environment (SL) can be connected to different features of the networking
approach, particularly as it concerns the time, the structure of ties and the flexibility.
H.2 - The learning process set in laboratory is different from the one in SL.
To this purpose three were the analysed contexts that identify the following
entrepreneurial cases: real enterprise (ETNI), simulated in the real - laboratory (Perting and
KK Personal Robe) and simulated in SL (New Fashion Perspectives).
The analysis of the relationships among the real enterprise, the simulated one in the
laboratory and in SL focused on three variables: 1. The time of start up; 2. The structure of
ties and 3. The flexibility, that have been identified from the Organizational Theories
[84,85,86,87,88] as the three main challenges faced by SMEs to survive and compete in the
global market.
1. Time of start up. If we consider the recent reduction of life cycle time of technologies,
products and enterprises, the time of start up is the period needed to an enterprise to establish
the strategic and operative conditions of networking. In the enterprise simulation applied in
laboratory the formal start up time finishes with the official registration in Network
EUROPEN that allows to contact and realize trade with the other simulated units, while in SL
with the registration as premium the enterprise can sold products and start to activate
relationships with the other virtual enterprises.
Moving from real to simulated in real and in virtual world where the increasing use of
ICT facilitated the streamlining of procedures, the time of start up ranges from an order of
year to month and to day [81].
2. The structure of ties. This element plays a significant role, especially for real
enterprises that had to increasingly compete in a global market realizing agreements and
alliances with the other units. The ties are distinguished in weak and strong ones. The first
belong to an exploring strategy and prevail in the virtual environment where the speed of
transactions make difficult to convert a short contact into a long-term relationship [89].
Instead the strong ties are characterized by a low renewal and long-term relationships
representing the strategic targets of real enterprises, and also in the simulated context of the
laboratory, in order to face the complex and dynamic market and to realize the networking
activities.
3. The flexibility. This is an issue closely related to 1 and 2. It prevails in virtual
enterprises where the speed of change and the versatility of virtual reality usage have greatly
expanded its field of action.
If we consider the real enterprises, mainly of small size, they suffer from excessive
bureaucracy and formalities that delay the fulfilment of competitive actions and forbid rapid
changes in management and organization. The high level of formalization in start up
procedures represents one of the main problems for real enterprises that want to accomplish in
short time all the administrative and bureaucratic matters.
As it regards the hypothesis nr. 2, the learning process set in laboratory is different from
the one in SL as in the last case it is not easy to undertake the first experience owing to the
presence of several barriers such as technical and technological requirements, trust of users in
the system and learning attitude.

In particular a computer with high specification, in terms of RAM and graphics capability
together with a good broadband connection, is required for moving in SL as it uses a
significant amount of bandwidth.
SL operates on a high degree of trust in different contexts: first the trust that Linden will
continue to provide services, secondly that SL will remain commercially viable because if
Linden ceased to trade then all built items would be lost. Although the intellectual property
still remains with the individuals, any tangible representation of it may not.
At the beginning of the virtual experience the range of possible actions and the number of
new commands and keystrokes can be confusing and a disincentive to explore further. Is in
the first hours (6-9) of the educational experimentation that is needed strong assistance and
support because is the time that decides the willingness to continue of using this platform.
In laboratory the learning process is based on a regular growth with a step by step
approach as for each operative section/meeting educational targets are planned and verified in
order to accomplish the entire educational program (Figure 31a). In SL the learning process
meets at the beginning some barriers that have to be overcome to develop itself in a
increasing trend (Figure 31b) determining a mix of technological and managerial culture
development.
42 Laura Tampieri
Figure 31. The learning process set in laboratory and SL.
In laboratory the real dimension prevails on the virtual one in the way that the
participants move in an environment characterized by individuals as employees using real
equipments as PC, armchairs, desks, fax and telephone. In SL, the managerial culture learning
by participants is realized in delay owing to the technical requirements of software together
with the specific technological skills and competencies required for using this platform.
Moreover the most important barrier is the perception of usefulness of SL in everyday
business. Participants are represented by avatar and move themselves in SL with a certain
level of freedom in the exploring of many free access educational lands, constrained by
technological and ethical issues.
CONCLUSION
Summarizing the educational profile achieved in the laboratory and in SL, the
comparison highlighted relevant aspects as the level of participants selection, human
interaction and ethical issues.
As the starting point in the training process is the selection of participants, in laboratory
the students are selected among those interested to the experimentation and attending
University courses. In SL, in addition to the mentioned requirements, we have to underline
that to use SL advanced technical skills are required. In NFP experimentation none of
participants owned these skills making the first hours very important to motivate participants
and to train on technical and technological competencies of the participants allowing them to
perceive positively the usefulness of SL in everyday activities.
In this way the learning of managerial culture in SL delays respect to that linked to the
transfer of technological skills and software requirements.
The level of selection should be higher in SL in order to choose experienced participants
in 3D as a condition for the validity of the experimentation.
The usage of SL allows to overcome the physical barriers for the social interactions
among avatars, that identify students and teachers, facilitating the realization of courses.
In SL there are also many ethical issues that seem to be detached from the fear of
consequences in the real world [90], as illegal file-sharing (copyright infringement),
spamming, multiple identities, identity deception and illicit materials [91]. Moreover
Schroeder [92] and Shutkin [93] individuated other ethical cases of privacy breach,
professional ethics, confidentiality, proprietary information, crimes as harassment, vandalism
and unauthorized use of computer information (passwords), intellectual property and
trademark infringements.
In laboratory the ethical issues are overcome with the direct intervention of instructors,
tutors and with face-to-face communication process. In this way participants can create a
community in which share information and data.
Two main limitations emerge in the cognitive value of enterprise simulation implemented
in laboratory and Second Life: the limited time available for the experimentation and the lack
of the specific managerial knowledge, and the technological ones in SL, owned by the
participants.
The temporal dimension in which the simulation takes place in laboratory and SL is an
important issue related to the need of balancing the discontinuity of the University course
with the continuity needed for enterprise’ activities fulfilment. The time of the
experimentation in laboratory and SL (25 hours per semester usually articulated in 7/8
meetings) is limited compared to the required one for the planning and implementation of
complex business activities.
The other aspect concerns the lack of specialized knowledge in economics and business
disciplines by the participants, especially for those who are at the beginning of their
University studies. This makes the accomplishment of the learning process very difficult
without a strong intervention of instructors and tutors.
Even with the intervention of educators, making hypotheses on the specific knowledge
acquired on business processes through the simulation methodology is not easy. This can be
partly overcome through the intervention of the Lead-real enterprise, as mentor, that has
direct and professional experience and expertise stimulating the managerial processes
realization of a real enterprise.
Many Studies [94, 95] underlined the connection between IT and knowledge
management with particular focus on the sharing process of data and information. On this
purpose the performance of ICT addressed to knowledge sharing mainly derives from the
participation of the individuals that carry out social actions in the organizations.
The virtual relationships created in SL seem to be mostly weak owing to the rapidity and
multiplicity of transactions among all the residents. However these links are considered as the
basis for the trade of virtual products/services that interfaces the real world by using virtual
money convertible in the real one. Connected to this element is the time of start up that,
moving from real to simulated units in laboratory and in SL, decreased due to the velocity of
transactions that features SL.
The project results of using SL for education purposes underlined some educational
limitations: the lack of tangible targets and the relevant position of game dimension. As in the
simulated environment the managerial culture of an enterprise is the main content of the
learning processes, in SL after the initial learning about 3D environments and operations, the
game dimension seems to gather high relevance. This confirmed the initial enthusiasm of
44 Laura Tampieri
students in participating to the experimentation together with the possibility to make real
profit rather than the simulated one.
Although these criticisms that seem to underline the game perspective and the scarce
managerial culture diffusion in SL owing to the dominance of technological skills and of the
virtual dimension, the project actuated in Bologna University laboratory determined a more
significant popularity of the course so that in A.Y. 2008/2009 more than one hundred students
participated to the enterprise simulation programme and, among them, 15 to the
experimentation in SL. Moreover the high visibility in the local, national and international
educational arena achieved by enterprise simulation laboratory increased in the recent years.
Naturally the frame on the relationships among real unit, simulated one in real and in
virtual has to be further deepened with other factors and changes in view of the dynamism
and diversity that characterize the fields of study in technology and education.
These underlined a great variety of cases and solutions that may be proposed and
analyzed. Another future research perspective is to create an evaluation system based on
quantitative and qualitative metrics in order to make a more deepened comparison between
the laboratory and SL platform seeking to find the more effective, efficient and adequate
educational system.
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Chapter 2
AN INTUITIVE 3D INTERFACE
INFRASTRUCTURE FOR VIRTUAL
REALITY APPLICATIONS
S. H. Choi*, X. B. Yang and K. K. Yuen

Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering,
The University of Hong Kong,
Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a 3D hand input-based interface infrastructure to improve user
experiences for applications in large display virtual reality (VR) systems, such as the
Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE). The interface infrastructure enables the
user to interact intuitively with virtual objects in a natural manner without being
constrained by any devices and wirings. Complex, clumsy hardware devices which
traditionally have to be put on the user are eliminated by the incorporation of a set of
hand input-based control schemes. Infra-red (IR) cameras are instead used for tracking
hand motions, and two hand gestures based on natural human behaviours, “grab” and
“drop”, are developed as triggers of VR interaction events. Control schemes can be
incorporated by different combinations of these two triggers for various applications, and
a series of gesture-based schemes specifically developed for forklift truck safety
simulation training in CAVE are introduced in this chapter. The interface infrastructure
provides the control computer with an ability to understand intuitive human behaviours,
relieving the user of the need to memorize complicated machine commands. As such,
natural and intuitive interactions with virtual objects can be easily realized. Practical
implementation of the interface infrastructure shows that it is flexible and effective for
integration with CAVE-based VR applications.
Keywords: Virtual reality, human-computer interaction, hand motion tracking, large display,
CAVE simulations.
*
Corresponding author email: shchoi@hku.hk
52 S. H. Choi, X. B. Yang and K. K. Yuen
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The Virtual Reality Application Interfaces
Virtual reality (VR) was created to fulfil human curiosity about exploring beyond the
reality, and it has remained a controversial topic ever since. The idea is seemingly simple, in
that humans establish the experiences of a real world based on the feedbacks from sense
organs, such as eyes, ears, nose, and hands. Therefore, by replacing the real images, sound,
and tactility with computer-generated illusions, a virtual world which is “indistinguishable
from the real world” [1] can be built for the human user to navigate in and interact with.
However, most of the traditional interface solutions developed so far for virtual world
immersion tend to “isolate and mechanise” the human user with complex and chunky
accessories, such as head-mounted displays, data-gloves, laser pointers, or joystick
controllers.
Many may claim that virtualization or mechanization of the human user is necessary and
not inconvenient. But to most non-technologists, the interface is nevertheless too complicated,
and the immersion quality fails to make up for the sacrifice – hindered movements and indeed
the clumsy appearance. This dilemma was described by Thomson [2] as the technology that
“has promised so much and delivered so little”.
1.2. The Current Trend of Interface Development
Over the years, researchers have spent huge efforts to develop the ultimate user-
computer interface (UI) suitable for VR applications, from classic desktop input devices to
biological tracking technologies like motion tracking, voice recognition or even brain-
computer interfaces, such as the brain-computer interface (BCI). Some have gained great
commercial success and, more importantly, provided possibilities to realise the long-due
promise.
1.2.1. The 2D Multi-Touch Technology

First debut in 2007, the iPhone has now successfully brought the gesture-based touch
control into the spot light of the modern mobile phone interface development. Its interface
infrastructure consists solely of a relatively large multi-touch display screen, on which the
user can interact in intuitive manners, such as tap, drag, scroll, pinch, etc. With the multi-
touch technology, the touch screen does not only serve as an input / output (I/O) device, but
also provides an infrastructure based on which different styles of user interfaces can be
implemented. In a single iPhone application, the user can directly pan / zoom a map, input
letters / numbers, and make menu operations, all on the same display surface based on the
infrastructure – multi-finger tracking and gesture recognition. The control schemes of
applications are no longer constrained to any physical keypads or buttons often used on
traditional smart phones. It is therefore deemed beneficial to both developers and consumers
to take advantage of this infrastructure. On the one hand, developers can easily produce
platform-independent applications since they can share the same interface design; on the other
An Intuitive 3D Interface Infrastructure for Virtual Reality Applications 53
hand, consumers can enjoy better user experiences by interacting directly and intuitively with
the applications.
Commercial implementation of the multi-touch technology has highlighted the current
trend of human-centred interface design, for which the infrastructure now tends to base on
hand gesture inputs. Specific control schemes of applications are often highly customized to
shorten the user’s learning curve.
1.2.2. Body Motion Control in Gaming Industry

The gaming industry has also benefited from recent improvements in interface
technologies. According to Gutiérrez [1], video games represent the non-immersive VR
applications. Although individual gaming interfaces vary greatly, the basic control schemes
depend heavily on the infrastructure of the game console interface.
The current generation of game consoles is represented by three major branches, namely
Wii from Nintendo, Xbox 360 from Microsoft, and PlayStation 3 from SONY. Since its
introduction in 2006, Wii has earned the prestige as a game console that players of all ages
can enjoy playing intuitively. Instead of using a complicated control gamepad, Wii relies on
the Wii Remote – an IR camera-based motion controller as the major input device. Most of
the popular Wii games are sports-related, in which people can play basketball, baseball, golf,
etc. in the way they play in real life without being constrained to any joysticks and / or
buttons to interact with the virtual world. Following Nintendo’s success (67 million units by
2009 [3]), Microsoft announced the “Project Natal” as a full body motion tracking accessory
for Xbox 360 in June 2009 (the project was later officially announced as “Kinect” in E3
2010), while Sony followed immediately with the “PlayStation Move” for PlayStation 3. By
Q3 2010, all of the three branches have been competing in the motion tracking game market,
which is now considered by Microsoft as “the next-generation of home entertainment” [4].
The body motion tracking schemes of the three game consoles above are based on the
same interface concept, in that the player is immersed into the virtual world through partial or
full body motion tracking, with which the player can interact with the virtual objects
intuitively and naturally. While the multi-touch on the smart phone advances a feasible
approach to building intuitive 2D interface infrastructures, the motion control technologies
focus on 3D space tracking. However, since the major output media of video games are
standard TVs, players are not fully immersed into the virtual world. In fact, instead of the
players interacting with the virtual world directly, there are very often avatars in the game
copying the captured motions of the players. Indeed, this lack of immersion diminishes the
players’ sense of feeling considerably. Sony addressed the issue during the demonstration of
the PlayStation Move, in which 3D display and augmented reality (AR) technologies were
introduced to enhance immersion experience. However, this solution still relies on physical
controllers as the major interface.
1.3. The CAVE System and Intuitive Interface
Despite the success of multi-touch interface for mobile phones and the body tracking
control for computer games, development of interfaces for more complex VR applications,
such as advanced product development and engineering simulations, remains a challenging
task. In general, complex VR applications require large, surrounded 3D displays for
immersion experience and direct interactions. The Cave Automatic Virtual Environment
(CAVE) is considered one of the best platforms that support high quality, surrounded 3D
display and various kinds of interfaces.
1.3.1. The CAVE System

As an integrated VR solution derived from large projection displays, the CAVE system is
developed with the goal to overcome the common weakness of other VR solutions [5]. It is
capable of providing “higher-resolution colour images and good surround vision without
geometric distortion” and is able to “mix VR imagery with real devices”. Although CAVE
VR is still considered by Gutiérrez [1] as semi-immersive, in all it manages to establish a
good balance between interaction quality and immersion experience. Most CAVE systems
support at least four views: front, left, right, and floor. Thus the user is able to have a
complete field of view (FOV) of the virtual world. Additionally, head tracking and stereo
surrounding sound are both part of the standard configuration of modern CAVE systems,
providing even more convincing illusions.
Head tracking is introduced to enhance 3D display illusions. As illustrated in Figure 1.1,
the user’s head movements are constantly tracked within the CAVE space. The tracked data
are then transferred to a computer to calculate the distances between the user and each of the
projection walls. Thus, the computer can adjust stereo images accordingly when the user
walks around in the CAVE.
Figure 1.1. Head tracking in CAVE.
This chapter therefore proposes a 3D hand input-based infrastructure for large display VR
applications, particularly in CAVE. It enables the user to interact intuitively with virtual
objects in a natural manner without being constrained by any devices and wirings. As such,
human users can “move around in the virtual world and see it from different angles”, and to
“reach into it, grab it, and reshape it” [6]. The proposed infrastructure is designed to meet the
following objectives:
• Direct interaction between the user and the virtual world;

• Control schemes based on the infrastructure should be intuitive, and with simple UIs
that mimic the natural human behaviours;
• No electrically triggered devices attached, and no complex gestural commands;
• Relatively low cost, easy to implement, and can be seamlessly integrated with
different VR systems.
1.3.2. Major Challenges

Since most of the current interface technologies are 2D-based and machined-centred, two
major obstacles are expected in the development process of the proposed infrastructure:
• Dimension paradigm shift from 2D to 3D

Most of the traditional generic interfaces are 2D-based, such as moving along the X
or Y axis, pointing and selecting on a certain surface. In reality, this experience can
be related to board games like chess or other activities that can be projected into a 2D
plane without abandoning critical information. In the 3D world, however, there is no
specific surface to interact on. Every virtual object has multiple surfaces, and six
degrees of freedom (DOF). Therefore, 3D interactions in real world cannot be
directly translated into a certain 2D control scheme without changing the critical
control methods. Moreover, using the traditional 2D-based interface in a 3D virtual
environment (VE), such as CAVE, can be very disturbing since it reduces the
immersion experience by requiring the user to memorize unnatural and complicated
control schemes. Therefore, the idea of relying solely on physical devices is
incompatible and needs to be revamped for 3D virtual environments.
• Interface paradigm shift from machine-centred to human-centred
In the real world, it seems odd for one to point at an object from a distance and to
pose strange hand or body gestures to manipulate it. Instead, it would be more natural
for one to approach the object, observe it from different angles, pick it up, and
interact with it directly. Therefore, in CAVE VR applications, it is vital to translate
and categorize natural human behaviours into machine languages so that the user can
interact intuitively without learning complicated commands or wearing heavy
biological tracking devices.
The remaining part of this chapter will first give a brief review of the related works on
traditional interfaces in VR applications. Section 3 will then describe the details of design and
implementation of the proposed infrastructure. This is to be followed by a case study in

Section 4 to demonstrate how the infrastructure can be integrated and applied in a CAVE-
based simulation system for forklift truck operations to enhance user-friendliness and
immersion experience. Finally, Section 5 will summarise the chapter.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Interfaces for large display VR applications can be categorized chronologically into three
major areas: device-based, gesture-based, and biological tracking-based. Most of the
traditional interfaces are device-based, because of the technology margin and immature
researches on vision recognition and biological tracking. However, recent studies show that
the trend is shifting to the latter two, which fit naturally into the ultimate goal of establishing
unconstrained and direct interaction between humans and the virtual world.
2.1. Device-Based Interfaces
Device-based interfaces are commonly developed based on physical devices to connect

the user with the virtual world. Most of them are derived from traditional interfaces that have
been widely used in other areas. Based on their originalities and characteristics, they can be
further divided into four major kinds, namely 3D mouse, traditional generic devices,
customized devices, and data gloves.
2.1.1. 3D mouse
Similar to 2D mouse, “pointing and selecting” is the major control model of 3D mouse.
Supplemented with an additional support of 3D space tracking, 3D mouse is often customized
into different forms to meet specific application requirements. Sreedharan [7] used Wii
Remote as a motion tracking device to control the avatar in the virtual world and
implemented five gestures to trigger certain avatar behaviours. Patel [8] discussed 3D
interactions based mostly on handheld 3D mouse, and stated the importance of human-
centred approach in product design and evaluation. Wesche [9] introduced the ToolFinger,
which served as a stylus or pointer for large display VEs. Cao [10] developed the
“VisionWand” for projection display interactions, while Smith [11] used a 6-DOF wand with
a gamepad to incorporate CAVE VR training; in both cases, the wand was used for motion
tracking. Grossman [12] investigated double-handed interaction for 3D modelling on large
displays. He used a 6-DOF tracker with momentary switch but only the 2D locations of hands
on the display surface were tracked. Dormüller [13] used a physical tracker for real-time hand
tracking to work on a projection table; he also planned to implement a marker glove and IR
cameras for finger tracking.
3D mouse interfaces are easy to adapt and can be used as infrastructures to develop
complex control schemes. However, the “pointing and selecting” control model often isolates
the user and diminishes immersion experiences, because during interactions it constantly
reminds the user of being an outsider of the virtual world. The 3D mouse solution also
provides poor functionality to applications, as it relies heavily on the user interface design,
similar to the case of the 2D mouse that relies on the operation system to function as one of
the input devices.
2.1.2. Traditional Generic Devices

Besides 3D mouse, another kind of interface is based on devices for generic I/O purposes.
Rekimoto [14] implemented palmtop computers for digital white board interactions and
developed a natural “Pick-and-Drop” gestural control mode. Schuchardt [15] used a laser
pointer for interaction in CAVE. Hachet [16] developed the “Interaction Table” as an input
device for large display VEs, which was a combination of several traditional controllers, such
as touch pads, joysticks, etc. This solution is very convenient to apply, and the technologies
involved are mature, providing great preciseness and quick reaction. However, similar to the
3D mouse solution, the user still interacts with the virtual world indirectly and therefore
remains an outsider. To improve user experiences, some researchers have developed
interfaces based on traditional devices that are designed for specific VR applications – the
customized devices.
2.1.3. Customized Devices

Interfaces of this category are made to suit specific VR applications that simulate real
world experiences of using physical equipment. A general concept is to physicalize a part of
the virtual world with tracking equipment, so that the user can interact with the virtual world
through the equipment.
CavePainting [17] combined CAVE VR and art through tracked brushes and gesture
recognition. Lebram [18] developed “Sidh” – a fire-fighter training program built on CAVE,
in which a fog-fighter nozzle was implemented to track the user’s hand motion and an air
mask with radio unit to establish simulated communication with the user. Zitzewitz [19]
designed a rope robot as a haptic interface for simulations of boat rowing in CAVE. LaViola
Jr. [20] discussed using several gadgets to track and imitate certain human behaviours such as
walking, pointing, and data-glove-based hand tracking. Similarly, Rey [21] presented a shoe-
alike gadget with infra-red (IR) camera tracking as the input device for VR navigation.
In general, customized devices are designed as specific interfaces between virtual worlds
and the real world. They can mostly enhance immersion experience with great accuracy and
efficiency. However, since they are made to fit into certain situations, there is hardly any
common, generic interface infrastructure, making it difficult to incorporate into other VR
applications.
2.1.4. Data-Gloves
Data-gloves are used to track hand movements so that the user can interact directly with
virtual objects. A variety of technologies are involved, including motion tracking, gesture
recognition, and haptic interaction. However, data-gloves are often wired and may be
cumbersome for the user to wear and move around freely. In general, the drawbacks of
device-based interfaces are that the user can only interact with the virtual world indirectly,
and that there is no common interface infrastructure for various VR applications to share.
2.2. Gesture-Based Interfaces
As visual recognition technologies have become more mature, gestural interfaces tend to
gain attentions, and various technologies are introduced for different interface models.
Gesture-based interfaces rely on human hand or body languages as the major means of input.
The user can therefore interact with the virtual world through natural gestures or direct
controls. In comparison with device-based interfaces, this approach focuses on the user
experience and supports more intuitive control schemes. Gesture-based interfaces are
characterised by the tracking mechanisms, which fall into two main categories, namely visual
recognition and marker system.
2.2.1. Visual Recognition

Gestural interfaces based on visual recognition track the user’s bare hand movements for
integration into the virtual world. They are mostly desktop-based or large single display-
based. CAVE may not be the ideal setup for visual recognition since it consists of surrounded
projection screens and the environment lightings are often dimmed for better display quality.
As a result, it is very hard to track hand movements in CAVE. Cabral [22] managed to
develop a 2D gestural interface in CAVE for simple navigation control. However, the user
could not interact directly with virtual objects. Dhawale [23] integrated bare-hand gesture
commands into 2D desktop interactions, where intuitive hand gestures were incorporated with
desktop applications. Song [24] focused on 3D finger tracking for desktop VR gaming
interactions to enhance immersion experience. Wu [25] also adopted finger tracking to
develop a single camera-based “Virtual 3D Blackboard”. This interface could track finger
movements in more open and complicated environments in comparison with Song’s solution,
despite its accuracy and smoothness were not as good. Malik [26] designed a vision-based
“Visual Touchpad” using a pad for visual recognition for bare hand input in both desktop and
large display VR applications. Hardenberg [27] worked on human-centred finger tracking
interface and developed a prototype for 2D surface interactions. Using IR cameras for 2D
hand tracking, Oka [28] and Sato [29] both developed tracking models for desktop VR
applications.
Generally, vision-based tracking solutions are used in desktop or single large display VR
applications, because it requires high contrast for visual recognition of the user’s hand. The
more complex the environment, the harder it is for the tracking system to process gestures in
real-time. This is particularly so for large, surrounded display VEs with dim illumination,
such as CAVE, in which hand gestures are very hard to capture by visual recognition.
Moreover, the quality of vision-based tracking solutions is still far below the standard of
device-based interfaces.
2.2.2. Marker System

To alleviate the problems of visual recognition, visible markers can be attached on the
user’s hand. As such, the tracking quality and speed can be boosted significantly since the
location calculation is made much easier and quicker. Invisible light source is commonly used
in marker systems. Kim [30] used ultraviolet light source and marked the user’s fingertips
with white paper to develop an interface for projection display VR application. Grossman
[31] adapted the “IR camera + passive marker” model for 3D volumetric displays. Based on a
similar model, Vogel [32] transformed the hand into a portable “pointing and clicking” 2D
input device for large display interactions. Similarly, Dorfmüller-Ulhaas [33] developed a
natural 3D AR interface capable of grabbing and moving virtual objects for AR applications.
The marker system strikes a balance between interaction quality and immersion
experience. It is similar to vision-based tracking systems but uses the same accurate and
stable tracking model of device-based interfaces. As a result, the user can interact with virtual
objects naturally and intuitively. However, the topics such as taking advantage of the
immersive 3D display in direct interactions, and designing intuitive UIs for 3D control in
CAVE, still remain untouched.
2.3. Biological Tracking Systems
Besides the above tracking models, biological tracking has become popular in recent
studies, among which brain-computer interface has attracted much attention. Touyama [34]
and Krepki [35] presented different approaches to accomplishing simple tasks by tracking
human brain activities.
Eye tracking is also widely used to assist VR interactions. Steptoe [36] developed an eye-
gaze system – the “EyeCVE” – to assist remote immersive VR interactions. Eye tracking is
also commonly embedded in flight fighter pilot control interfaces.
At the current stage, biological tracking remains experimental and inaccurate, in that it
can only accomplish simple tasks, with interaction quality far below that of device-based
interfaces. Moreover, biological tracking requires expensive tracking devices.
Based on the above observations, the proposed infrastructure will adopt a combination of
IR cameras and passive markers for motion tracking system. This is indeed an effective and
inexpensive approach because IR cameras are now part of the standard configuration of
modern CAVE VEs. The proposed infrastructure will also incorporate a highly simplified
gestural control scheme, with which interactions can be triggered by different combinations
of natural hand motions.
3. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

This section presents the conceptual design of the hand input control model, as well as its
practical implementation and limitations of the IR tracking system in CAVE. The
implementation consists of hardware and software integration and hand gadget development.
On the hardware side, the challenge is to integrate the IR motion tracking system into the
imseCAVE; on the software side, it is to establish the code framework of the interface
infrastructure.
3.1. Control Model Design
The development of the proposed control model is inspired by and derived from the 2D
multi-touch control model. In pursuit of simplicity and intuition with extension into 3D
spaces, the principles of the 2D multi-touch are modified by replacing the key control factors
with hand input. In addition, the paradigm of the operation scheme is shifted from a 2D
definite surface to a 3D coordinate system.
3.1.1. From 2D Multi-Touch to 3D Hand Input

The principles of the modern 2D multi-touch interfaces can be summarized as follows:
• Pointing and Clicking

This principle focuses on replacing the traditional “pointing and clicking” of a 2D
mouse-controlled system. The user places a finger on the touch surface and drags
around without lifting the finger; the computer can thereby track and translate the
finger’s movements into mouse cursor movements. Notably, the mouse cursor needs
not be visible, since the user’s finger operates directly on the display surface. Instead,
an invisible indicator follows the user’s finger movements and its position is
constantly calculated so that the user can interact with the display content.
Tracking the user’s finger motion is not enough, otherwise it will be like using a 2D
mouse without any buttons – the user needs a switch to initiate interactive actions,
such as “clicking” on a button. The “clicking” action is a simple on-off switch

traditionally triggered by clicking on the analogue button on the mouse. On the
multi-touch surface, “clicking” acts instead on the display content, i.e., touching the
content on the surface with a finger means “on”, while releasing the finger from the
surface means “off”.
• Multi-touch and gesture control
With support for multi-finger tracking, the user can take advantage of using more
than one finger, such as “pinching” with two fingers moving towards each other to
zoom out a picture, or “rotating” with two fingers moving in a circular trajectory, etc.
Building on the concept presented above, the proposed 3D hand input system will be able
to constantly track and translate the user’s hand movements into 3D coordinates in the virtual
world. And there should be certain gestures to be defined as the “on-off” switch to enable the
user to interact with virtual objects. For instance, there is a clear difference between putting a
hand on the handle of a virtual teapot and grabbing on it to lift the teapot up. Similar to the
concept of 2D multi-touch, a set of “grab” and “drop” gestures are adopted as the triggers of
action events. The user makes a “grab” gesture by closing the fingers to set the switch “on”,
and a “drop” gesture by expanding the fingers to set the switch “off”.
Although complicated finger gestures can be possibly designed to accomplish more
functions, motion tracking based solely on finger gestures is neither accurate nor practical for
implementation of VR applications in large display VEs like CAVE, which is typically of a
space of 3m × 3m × 2.5m. After evaluating different solutions, double-handed motion
tracking is adopted as the optimal model for CAVE applications. Finger tracking is applied
only for the recognition of the “grab” and “drop” gestures, while dedicated hand markers are
implemented for hand tracking. Combining hand motions and finger gestures, several
intuitive 3D gestures are designed to enable direct interaction between the user and the virtual
world. Table 1 briefly compares the 2D multi-touch and the proposed 3D hand input control
model, with respect to improvements in four major areas.
Table 3.1. Transformations from 2D multi-touch to 3D hand input
2D Multi-touch 3D Hand input

Active Area Display surface 3D space (3D display)
Pointing 2D tracking 3D tracking
Clicking Touch / Non-touch Grab / Drop
2D gestures with multiple 3D gestures with double-
Gesture Control
fingers input handed input
3.1.2. From 3D Hand Input to Intelligent Interface

Since there is no dedicated operating surface for the 3D hand input control model,
interactions are activated by detecting collisions of the user’s hands with virtual objects,
which is natural for direct manipulation in the virtual world. However, for navigation and
other complex VR applications that require better accuracy, it is essential to establish a
referential coordinate system so that movements can be easily measured and calculated. A
possible approach is to establish all interactive events based on the virtual world’s static
coordinate system, in which the triggers of the events are scripted and located in static
positions. More specifically, all virtual objects and hence interactive events are part of the 3D
world, such as a light switch on the wall of a virtual room or a door handle on a virtual car.
However, since the user’s movements in CAVE are confined to within a cubical space, the
solution is impractical in VR scenes of scale larger than the CAVE’s cubical space.
A second approach is similar to the 2D multi-touch interface, where all control elements
such as buttons refer to the referential coordinate system of the 2D display surface, regardless
of the virtual world coordinate system. In CAVE VR, the elements can be positioned within
the cubical space, wherever the user is in the virtual world. Interactions with the control
elements, such as “move forward” and “turn left”, result in collisions of the user’s hand with
the virtual buttons, which are relatively static in the CAVE space. Navigating is to fly the
CAVE around like an aeroplane in the virtual world. This approach solves the previous
navigation issue, but the control model is not intuitive enough. Furthermore, the accurate
locations of the control elements restrict the user’s movements, diminishing the immersion
feeling.
Eventually a dynamic and intelligent interface design based on head and hand tracking is
developed and implemented in the proposed infrastructure. Depending on different
application functions, the positions of the user’s head and hands are selected as referential
coordination systems so that the right information or control elements will show up whenever
and wherever needed without blocking the user’s view or constraining the user’s movements.
For instance, the user can activate the navigation functions with a set of simple and intuitive
hand gestures, and then navigate freely with one hand. The user can also activate a pop-up
menu by making a gesture; the menu will then show up right in front of the user where it is
operated based on the relative locations of the user’s eye, hand and the menu elements. When
navigating through the virtual world, the computer constantly tracks the user’s sight direction
to decide and select which virtual object is being “looked at”, and then activate it accordingly
for interaction.
3.2. Hardware Implementation
Figure 3.1 shows the schematic flow of the infrastructure design proposed above.
Virtools 4 serves as the software kernel of the CAVE VR; it renders all 3D models and
handles all I/O events. In order to link the user with the virtual world generated by Virtools,
IR motion capture system is adapted to recognize the user’s head and hand movements, as
well as hand gestures. TrackingTools, a software package bundled with the IR tracking
system, calculates the positions of the user’s head and hand, and transfers the coordinates to
Virtools through local area Ethernet connection under the VRPN protocol. Eventually, the
user is brought into the virtual world with which he or she can interact directly and
intuitively.
Figure 3.1. Hardware infrastructure of the proposed interface.
3.2.1. IR Motion Capture System

An IR camera can capture live images of near infra-red spectrum, as ordinary video
cameras do with visible spectrum. When lit up by arrays of IR LEDs, objects with IR
reflective coatings will be captured by IR cameras as vivid markers distinguishable from the
rest of the image. In the prototype design of the hand input control model, three segments of
reflective tape are stuck to the user’s thumb fingertip, middle finger tip, and palm’s edge, to
be lit up as vivid markers by IR lights and captured into TrackingTools, the 2D positions of
the markers are then combined and calibrated to reconstruct their 3D locations that are finally
visualized as virtual trackers. By selecting three or more virtual trackers to form a certain
shape, such as the triangle in Figure 3.2, a so-called “rigid-body” can be constructed for
motion tracking of the object attached with those markers. Later in the development, thin
black cotton gloves sewed with the 3M Magic Tape are used to make it easier to shift the
positions of trackers for tune-ups and experiments. It should be noted that although the users
in the demonstrations to be presented in the following sections are all wearing black gloves, it
is completely feasible to attach the markers on bare-hands to conduct interactions without the
gloves. Nevertheless, the gloves are handy to put on the markers.
Figure 3.2. Hand tracking prototype design.
3.2.2. The imseCAVE

Figure 3.3 shows the schematic layout of the CAVE VE system developed in the
Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at the University of Hong
Kong. It is called the imseCAVE [37], and measures 3m × 3m × 2.5m. It is installed with a
set of six IR cameras along the top edges of the surrounding projection screens for motion
tracking. The cameras are connected to a dedicated computer that runs TrackingTools.
During the implementation, several experiments have been carried out to optimise the
tracking coverage of the cameras, as shown in Figure 3.4. As such, TrackingTools can now
cover over 70% of the imseCAVE space. Each IR camera is able to track up to 100 frames
per second with a resolution of 640×480; the latency is less than 5ms and the tracking error is
within mm scale.
Figure 3.3. Schematic layout of the imseCAVE with 6 IR cameras.

Figure 3.4. The cameras’ locations and tracking coverage in Tracking Tools.
3.2.3. Calibration of IR Motion Tracking System in Imsecave

When the IR motion tracking system is integrated into the imseCAVE, calibrations on
both sides are needed to accurately combine their 3D spaces to align with the physical CAVE
space.
Firstly on the IR motion tracking system side, calibration of the six IR cameras is vital
after installation. For each IR camera, it only recognizes 2D positions of the IR markers. The
system collects all the 2D positions from different cameras of the same marker to calculate its
correct 3D coordinates. This calculation is based on the referential coordinates set during the
calibration process. In order to calibrate the system, a person holds an IR marker, moves it
around, and tries to fill the CAVE space with the trace of the marker, such that the system
records all its positions for reconstruction of the 3D space. After generating the 3D space, an
“L” shaped frame with IR markers is positioned in the geometric centre of the CAVE space.
The frame is then captured by the tracking system to align the 3D space with the physical
CAVE space.
Subsequently in Virtools, a virtual CAVE space is built in the exact scale of the physical
one. To calibrate the virtual CAVE with the 3D space of the IR tracking system, a marked
object is positioned in the CAVE. The object is then moved along the X, Y, and Z axes, while
its orientation variables are tuned in Virtools until the object and its avatar are synchronised
in the virtual world.
After calibration, each “rigid-body” will be correctly cast into the virtual world as a
virtual tracker with position and orientation data to be used for head and hand tracking.
3.2.4. Hand-Input Model Implementation

The standard motion tracking system of most CAVE VEs is mainly built for tracking
large objects, such as head and foot. We therefore make use of the current equipment but add
hand input control. The IR tracking system from NaturalPoint can track passive markers of no
less than 1 cm diameter, and an interval distance of more than 3 cm between the markers. In
order to track the user’s finger, no less than three markers are needed to form a shape
recognizable by TrackingTools as a “rigid-body”. It is however quite difficult to place
markers on the finger’s surface without violating the “3 cm” rule, not to mention multi-finger
tracking. On the other hand, in most VR applications, accurate tracking of the user’s hand
motion is good enough for immersion experience. Therefore, hand motion tracking is adopted
as the main control model, together with finger tracking for hand gesture recognitions.
According to the concept design presented in Section 3.1.1, the “grab” and “drop” gestures
are selected as the control scheme of the hand-input interface. This combination is deemed to
be naturally intuitive for most human users, since interactions with objects in the real world
generally involve grabbing up and dropping down behaviours.

The prototype design of the hand input model is further improved for faster motion
tracking with better precision. In the original design, the “drop” gesture is chosen for hand
motion tracking, because there is no dedicated set of markers for this purpose. However,
during the implementation, the scheme is found to have demanded too much steadiness of a
hand gesture. Since the hand tracking is based on the recognition of a “rigid-body” of a
certain shape, the markers would need to stay still relative to each other. As a result, the user
is required to maintain a certain hand shape when moving around. This is indeed unnatural
and inconvenient. Therefore, a dedicated set of trackers fixed on a customized supporting
gadget, as shown in Figure 3.5, is now used for hand motion tracking. Two of the markers are
shared by a fourth marker on the middle finger for hand gesture tracking. To pick up
something, the user’s hand makes a “grab” gesture, while to put down the object, the fingers
loose up. Consequently, the shape formed by the relative positions of the markers changes
from “grab” to “drop”. The user’s gestures are sampled and defined in TrackingTools. The
three markers are comprised of one marker on the middle finger and two of the three
dedicated markers, represented by the yellow triangle in Figure 3.5, where the red and green
ones show different shapes when the user makes “grab” or “drop” gestures. The “3+1” model
is found an effective and practicable solution during implementation. Generally, the middle
finger is the longest among others; therefore it makes the biggest movement when making
“grab” or “drop” gestures, resulting in the most obvious change of hand form to be detected
by the motion tracking system. Additionally, the marker located on the tip of the middle
finger is least likely blocked by other fingers.
Figure 3.5. The “grab” and “drop” gestures and the corresponding tracked shapes.
3.2.5. Implementation of a Hand Tracking Framework in Virtools

Since Virtools is the software kernel of the imseCAVE, most of the programming work is
therefore done in its integrated development environment (IDE). It is essential to establish an
interface infrastructure in Virtools by building a proper framework for processing tracked
information.
In its essence, Virtools is a graphics engine. But with add-on packs it is capable of
handling complex VR applications and simulations. For general coding, pre-defined “building
blocks (BBs)” are mainly used to build VR applications. Each BB is like a simplified C++
object. It has logical I/O, parameter I/O, and packed methods for certain functions, for
instance, the “Binary Memory” BB in Figure 3.6 changes the binary status of the Boolean
value “Action_GRAB/DROP”. Virtools also supports user-defined BB, which can be built
using the “Virtools Script Language (VSL)”, like the “MENU_Area_Selector” BB in Figure
3.6.
The UI of Virtools is demonstrated in Figure 3.7, and programming in it is to link BBs to
build various interactive events/process. Since Virtools does not directly support 3D
modelling in IDE, all the virtual objects are built by modelling software like 3DS Max or
Maya, and then imported into Virtools.
Figure 3.6. Building blocks in Virtools.
Figure 3.7. The Virtools UI.
In order to implement hand tracking in Virtools, TrackingTools is set to broadcast the

tracked information under the VRPN protocol. Then, a BB is set up in Virtools to receive the
data and initiate them into virtual trackers, each tracked “rigid-body” is assigned to a virtual
tracker. Figure 3.8 presents the program for hand motion tracking. When the “rigid-body” for
the user’s hand is detected in TrackingTools, the “Vrpn Tracker” BB will activate the “Set
Quaternion Orientation” BB and the “Set Position” BB to assign the hand’s spatial data to a
virtual avatar in the virtual world, thus it will copy the hand movements.
Figure 3.8. Program for hand motion tracking.
Hand gesture tracking is shown in Figure 3.9. The “rigid-bodies” for the “grab” and
“drop” gesture are defined as different VRPN trackers in Virtools. When a “grab” or a “drop”
gesture is detected, the corresponding “Vrpn Tracker” BB will activate the “Binary Memory”
BB to set a Boolean value “Action_GRAB/DROP” to “TRUE” or “FALSE”. As a result, the
hand gestures are translated into ON/OFF triggers.
Figure 3.9. Program for hand gesture tracking.
3.3. Limitations of the Tracking System
The software kernel of the imseCAVE, Virtools 4, can only support up to five virtual
trackers through VRPN. For each hand, three virtual trackers are captured by TrackingTools
and transferred to Virtools, i.e., one tracker for hand motion tracking, one tracker for the
“grab” gesture, and one tracker for the “drop” gesture. In total, at least six virtual trackers are
needed to implement double-handed tracking with gesture recognition for each hand. This
issue can be solved by assigning a “command” hand with full motion and gesture tracking,
and the other as an “assisting” hand with hand motion tracking only. Thus, a total of four
virtual trackers are used for double-handed motion control, and the fifth one is reserved for
head tracking. However, the limitation of Virtools on the number of virtual trackers causes
difficulties in building multi-user CAVE VR applications with the proposed infrastructure.

Nevertheless, this limitation can be alleviated by adding extra computers to process, combine,
and transfer the trackers from different users into the virtual world.
4. CASE STUDY – A CAVE-BASED VR FORKLIFT

TRUCK SIMULATION SYSTEM FOR SAFETY ENHANCEMENT
4.1. Background
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed interface infrastructure for integration

with VR applications, a CAVE-based VR simulation system for safety enhancement of
forklift truck operations is presented in this case study.
Forklift truck is a versatile and powerful machine commonly used in warehouses for
cargo manipulation and transportation. However, it often causes serious work-related
accidents, inflicting huge damages, injuries and deaths, losses in profit, as well as legal
liabilities [38]. Forklift truck safety is therefore of vital importance to the operations and
productivities of companies, especially those in the logistics industries. Training courses for
forklift truck drivers have been proven among the most effective means to address the safety
issue. According to Occupational Safety & Health Administration [39] in America, about
70% of forklift truck-related accidents can be avoided if drivers are provided with proper
safety training. To further enhance the driver’s skills and the awareness of hazardous
operations, the training can be categorized into several focus scenarios. A CAVE-based VR
simulation system is therefore developed to provide immersive scenario-based simulation of
forklift truck operations in virtual warehouses to improve the safety awareness and mentality
of forklift truck drivers. It is integrated with the proposed interface infrastructure to enhance
user-friendliness and sense of immersion during VR simulation of forklift truck operations.
Figure 4.1 shows the forklift truck safety simulation system developed in the imseCAVE.
A force feedback wheel with gas and brake pedals is used to control the forklift truck, while
Virtools is adopted for 3D rendering and physics simulations.
Figure 4.1. The forklift truck simluation evironment.
One of the leaps taken in the development of this simulation system is the integration of
body motion control-based interface to replace the traditional input devices and to enhance
the system functionality. An enhanced head tracking scheme is also developed to

conveniently alter the driver’s view point. Moreover, a hand input-based menu system is
implemented based on the “grab” and “drop” gestures.
4.2. Enhanced Head Tracking
As one of the standard installations of the CAVE system, head tracking is originally
introduced for the computer to calculate and generate correct stereoscopic images according
to the user’s location in the CAVE space. A set of four virtual cameras facing the front, the
left, the right, and the floor are located in the geometry centre of the CAVE space, as shown
in Figure 4.2(a). Images captured by these cameras of the virtual world are projected to the
corresponding surrounded projection walls. When the user moves around in the CAVE, the
distances between the user and the projection walls are tracked and calculated to adjust the
projected stereoscopic images, but the cameras are always located in the centre.
Figure 4.2. The enhanced head tracking.
Figure 4.3. Stereo galsses with passive IR marker for head tracking.
The head tracking presented in this chapter, however, is improved so that the VE will
interact with the user’s head movements to create more realistic immersion experience. As
demonstrated in Figure 4.2(b), the cameras will now follow the user’s movements in CAVE.
Therefore, not only will stereoscopic images be altered according to the user’s location, the
display contents will also change as the user moves. For instance, if the user moves forward,
the objects in the front become larger as the camera also moves forward.
Implementation of the design is similar to the hand tracking, but instead a set of three
passive IR markers are fixed above a pair of stereo glasses, as illustrated in Figure 4.3, for the
user to wear. The markers form a triangular shape to be captured in TrackingTools as a
“rigid-body” virtual tracker and then merged into the virtual world.
4.3. Intuitive Menu Operation
Instead of porting the traditional pointing-and-clicking 2D menu system, an interactive

and intelligent menu system based on natural hand input controls is developed to achieve
following objectives:
• Activate/deactivate a menu through intuitive hand gestures;

• Track the user’s view point to calculate and show up in the best position possible;
• Mimic the natural manner of the real world interactions;
• Be robust and tolerant of incidental operations.
To operate the forklift truck, it is necessary to alter several key parameters in real-time.
This is to be achieved by menu operations in the simulation. The desired functions are listed
below and implemented in accordance with the objectives above so that the user is able to
interact with the menu while “driving” the virtual forklift truck:
• Altering scenes with different terrains;

• Changing the loading’s weight in real-time;
• Switching cameras for the driving view, chase view and free navigation view;
• System functions: reload, reset and exit.
Figure 4.4. The function menu design.
The functions are designed into a curved four-section 3D menu, as shown in Figure 4.4,
where the menu elements are vividly differentiated with sharp colours. When activated, the
menu will surround the user in the front centre, called the “active zone”. As one section of
elements is highlighted, all other sections gradually fade out. Head tracking is introduced to
locate the user’s view point so that the menu will show up right in front of the eye sight.
To active the menu, the user simply reaches out the hand in the up-right direction, makes
a “grab” gesture and pulls down as if dragging a scroll on the windshield of the virtual forklift
truck. The menu will then follow the hand’s motion and slide smoothly into the centre, as
shown in Figure 4.5. To browse through different sections, the user simply reaches out the
“command” hand to collide into the menu buttons and slides to the left/right, the menu will
rotate accordingly.
(a) Before menu implementation (b) After menu implementation
Figure 4.5. Driver’s view of the menu.
Figure 4.6. The “focus area” concept.
Menu operations are designed based on a “focus area” concept to mimic the natural
human behaviours of focusing and grabbing. In real life, people approach and interact with
objects in the following manner: seeking for a target object Æ locate the target object Æ
eyes’ focal on the object Æ hands reach out to block the sight of the object Æ pick up the
object.
When the menu is activated, the user will face three menu buttons. As illustrated in
Figure 4.6, according to the user’s eye location, which can be obtained through head tracking
and the top and bottom lines’ coordinates of the three menu buttons, the space between the
user and the menu can be divided into five areas, namely “Area #1”, “Area #2”, “Area #3”,
above the “Area #1”, and below the “Area #3”. The first three areas together form a “focus
area”; the space below “Area #3” is defined as an “activation zone”, and dropping a menu
button in this area will activate the corresponding function. The algorithm to determine the
focus area is based on the slope of the hand’s location to the eye’s location. The slope ( )
can be calculated by
in which and are the relative coordinates of the hand and the eye,
respectively, in the CAVE space. By comparing the slope of the user’s hand with that of the
“Area” boundaries, the “focus area” where the user’s hand is in can be determined, as shown
in Table 4.1.
Upon entering a specific “Area”, as shown in Figure 4.7, a spot light from behind the
user’s head will focus on the active menu button, and the rest of the buttons are made
transparent and dimmed away to mimic the focusing behaviour in the real world. When the
user finds the target button and makes a "grab" gesture, the selected will pop up and be
surrounded by a yellow bounding box to indicate the selection. Whatever the user's hand
movements are after the selection, only the downward movements will lead the selected
button to move along until into the "activation zone" to trigger the function. If the user
accidentally selects a wrong button or regrets the action, making a "drop" gesture before
reaching the "activation zone” will cancel the current choice.
Table 4.1. The “focus area” algorithm

Figure 4.7. Menu operations.
4.4. Implementation Results
The driver needs to wear a glove and a pair of stereo-glasses with passive IR markers, as
shown in Figure 4.8(a), to simulate driving the imseCAVE. The glove is the only extra
investment on the hardware for the virtual forklift truck project. The rest of the integration is
mainly software implementation in Virtools. The introduction of the enhanced head tracking
is to simulate different views of the forklift truck driver, namely front, left, and right views, as
in real life the driver is required to alter the viewing angle of the fork and target objects from
time to time. As demonstrated in Figure 4.9, by simply tilting his/her head, the driver can see
the object blocked by driving wheel in the front view.
Figure 4.8. Implementation result of the menu system.

Figure 4.9. Simulated views of the driver.
The new menu system enables the forklift truck driver to execute operational functions
during driving simulation. As shown in Figure 4.8(b-d), the menu system illustrates a feasible
approach to developing human-centred 3D user interfaces in large display VR applications,
where the interface elements are activated, and operated with natural human behaviours.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

This chapter presents a feasible approach to intuitive interface based on hand gesture
control for relatively complex VR applications with large displays. Its major strengths
include:
• Flexibility – easy to customize and implement, device independent;

• Compatibility – a general interface framework capable of major types of various VR
interactions, including 3D manipulation, and menu operations;
• User-friendliness – direct, natural and intuitive control.
The interface infrastructure was developed with a main emphasis on the user-oriented
interface. Instead of requiring the user to learn complicated commanding language for
complex devices, the infrastructure incorporates natural human behaviours as the universal
input infrastructure, based on which human-centred, highly customizable and intuitive
interface can be developed.
The “focus area” concept demonstrates its potential for applying the “simulated eye
tracking” technique in large display VR applications. Currently, an enhanced version of the
idea called the “discovery system” designed for virtual navigation is under development and
has already generated some interesting results. The ultimate goal is to design an intelligent
VE which can effectively interpret and respond to the user’s intention through hand and head
tracking.
For further development, the tracking system would be improved to enhance its detection
speed and accuracy. The goal is to develop calibration functions for the IR motion tracking
system to sample, learn, and recognize different users’ gestures automatically. The next step
is to implement an integrated product development environment (IPDE) in the imseCAVE for
advanced product development based on the hand-input interface, including CAD modelling,
virtual prototyping, product testing and evaluation. As such, designers can directly manipulate
product prototypes, try out modifications, and make design changes easily. The IPDE indeed
provides a highly efficient and cooperative environment in which people with different
expertises can effectively share their ideas, and thus benefit from seamless collaborations. As
a result, the traditional product design and development circles can be shortened hugely.
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[38] Horberry, T., Johnston, I., Larsson, T. J., Corben, B., and Lambert, J. An integrated
approach to forklift safety, Proceedings 3rd International Conference on Traffic and
Transportation Psychology, 5-9 September, 2004, Nottingham, UK.
[39] Occupational Safety & Health Administration. http://www.osha.gov.
Chapter 3
REVERSE ENGINEERING TOOLS IN AUGMENTED

REALITY TO SUPPORT ACQUISITION, PROCESSING
AND INTERACTIVE STUDY OF CULTURAL AND
ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE
Pier Paolo Valentini*

Department of Industrial Engineering
University of Rome “Tor Vergata”
Via del Politecnico, 1
00133 – Rome, Italy
ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the description of recent developments concerning with both
hardware and software implementation for supporting reverse engineering procedures by
using an augmented reality environment. The discussed investigation is mainly focused
on applications in the study of cultural and archaeological heritage. The use of augmented
reality for engineering purposes allows the development of specific analysis tools in
which the computer graphics supports the user with virtual contents that are included and
harmonized in a real context. For the specific reverse engineering implementation, thanks
to this integration, it is possible to perform interactive shape acquisition, geometrical
analyses and assisted reconstruction of shards being supported by efficient computer
aided tools and three dimensional computer graphics. The chapter begins with a brief
introduction on the use of virtual environments for supporting the visualization and the
sharing of cultural and archaeological heritage. In a second part, a detailed description of
both hardware and software implementations is presented. In a third part, the integration
of the reverse engineering algorithms and methodologies is addressed together with some
examples of application.
*
valentini@ing.uniroma2.it
80 Pier Paolo Valentini
1. INTRODUCTION
During the last decades, the implementations of computer-aided methodologies have
revolutionized many fields of the human knowledge. Thanks to the increasing of
computational and graphical performances, many activities have been simplified and new
methodologies to approach and solve problems have been developed. In particular, the
scientific literature reports many contributions about the successful use of computer graphics
(CG) and computer-aided design (CAD) supporting the investigation of archaeological finds,
their classification and, in particular way, their visualization. Starting from the results of these
promising methodologies, a new discipline has born: the virtual archaeology [1]. Although
there are many applications and specific implementations, this new discipline bases its
innovative idea on the use of computer graphics in particular and computer-aided tools in
general to support the work of archeologists and experts in the study, reconstruction and
dissemination of historical and artistic objects [2-9].
One of the main applications of the virtual archaeology is about the building of virtual
museums in which the presence of physical objects is replaced with virtual replicas
projection. After an initial effort to prepare the virtual contents by digitization of the shapes,
the exhibitions can be set up with lower costs than the real ones and the limited presence of
real objects reduces the risk of wear and damage. Another important advantage of virtual
museums is the possibility to disseminate the contents overtaking the limits imposed by
geographic distance and to organize simultaneous exhibitions in different locations.
Moreover, the visualization of virtual objects allows to investigate and appreciate several
aspects which cannot be observed on the real ones. A virtual replica of a physical object
allows the visualization from different points of view, animations, entire scenarios
reconstruction, augmented visual information about related historical, cultural and
technological aspects. The main challenge of these methodologies is about the increase of
realism in order to reduce the gap between the appearance of digital and physical objects.
The most of CG applications in archeological heritage concerns with the use of Virtual
Reality (VR) which allows visual experiences, displaying a fully virtual environment(both
background and additional objects) either on an external computer screen (non immersive) or
through stereoscopic head mounted displays (immersive). In some applications the visual
experience is enhanced with the use of additional sensory information, such as sound through
speakers or headphones.
Figure 1 shows an example of a fully virtual museum’s environments built with computer
graphics methodologies and used for VR implementation.
During the last years, another important methodology, based on the realistic visualization
of virtual contents, has been developed: the Augmented Reality (AR) [10].AR is a field of
Computer Vision (CV) concerning with the techniques for projecting virtual contents in a
scene with real objects, creating the illusion of a unique real environment [11-13]. This
approach is different from VR where all the objects and background in the scene are virtual.
In order to achieve an adequate level of realism in AR applications, it is important a real-time
computation of the relative position between the user and the scene and precise collimation
and registration between real and virtual objects. The augmented scene (i.e. the scene with
both virtual and physical objects) is then projected back to the user by means of head
Reverse Engineering Tools in Augmented Reality to Support Acquisition … 81
mounted displays. Virtual objects in the scene can be complex tridimensional static or
animated shapes, simple text, graphs or visual information.
Figure 1. Building a fully digital environment for a virtual museum using computer graphics
methodologies.
There are many advantages in the use of Augmented Reality with respect to Virtual
Reality. First of all, it is not necessary to virtually reproduce all the objects to include in the
scene. Moreover, the user is more at ease because he recognizes a background and a scene
that is more familiar involving real objects. And again, an AR implementation can be often
achieved using devices with more affordable costs with respect to those used in VR.
The increasing interest for the Augmented Reality and its applications in many fields is
testified by several scientific papers. The AR has been used in medicine and surgery [14],
robotics [15], maintenance and assembling activities [16-19], architecture [20], e-learning
[21-22],manufacturing [23-24], services and logistics [25-26], navigation [27], etc. Recently
the Augmented Reality has been also used for developing many engineering design tools as
modelling and simulation environments [28-29].
Other recent papers have underlined the increasing interest for the implementation of
augmented museums, where the real and the virtual artifacts can be arranged in harmony [30-
31]. These applications have often the disadvantage that the user may only visualize pre-
computed contents with a limited interaction.
The recent developments of both hardware and software performance suggest to increase
the level of interaction between the user and the scene changing the user's role from spectator
to actor. The main idea to overcome this limitation is to use the AR methodologies for going
beyond a mere visual or acoustical experience, including an high level of user interaction.
Moreover, this combination between visualization and interaction can be a solid base for
developing specific computer aided tools for supporting the study and the review of
archeological objects.
One of the most important computer aided tool in archaeology is the Reverse Engineering
(RE). RE is a combination of measurements and procedures for reconstructing and analyzing
mathematical and topological models of real shapes. By this way, it is possible to study the
interesting object using mathematical models, being more precise, objective and speeding up
all the investigation phases.
Generally speaking, a RE process involves a first phase of acquisition and measurement
on the physical object. This phase is performed by means of specific devices. Some of them
require the contact with the object (i.e. coordinate measuring machines, instrumented arms,
etc.). Some others work without touching the real objects by means of optical triangulation
methods (laser scanners), magnetic field perturbation, acoustic reflection, etc. The results of
acquisition is, in general, a collection of points coordinates. Subsequently, this information
has to be processed and analyzed in order to produce a mathematical representation useful for
both modeling and interrogation issues. One of the possible computer-aided investigation is
the automatic (or assisted) extraction of the geometrical, morphological and functional
information from 3D acquired surfaces which is useful for obtaining both global and local
information. Global information is related to the modelling of the entire shape and it is useful
for building virtual replicas suitable for Augmented or Virtual Reality implementations (i.e.
for the building of virtual exhibitions). Local information concerns with the geometrical
attributes of the single point or curve with are essential for any subsequent analysis and
classification. Figure 2 shows an example of a real vase and a virtual replica built from a laser
scanner acquisition and a computer-aided surface fitting.
Starting from this background and these motivations, the chapter deals with the
description of recent developments of both hardware and software tools in order to implement
innovative methodologies based on the use of augmented reality to support the tasks of
acquisition, processing and study of archeological finds. By the combined use of image
processing, computer graphics, reverse engineering and augmented reality, it is possible to
implement useful tools for enhancing and support the study of archaeological heritage,
integrating analysis and classification procedures, with visualization in a mixed environment.
Figure 2. An example of a real vase (on the left) and its virtual replica built from a laser scanner
acquisition (on the right).
The first part of the chapter focuses on the integration of reverse engineering
methodologies in the augmented reality environment. This combination is very important to
reproduce accurate three dimensional virtual replicas and perform interactive visualization.
The second part concerns with the development of interactive analysis tools for performing
geometrical investigations and interrogation on virtual shapes and with their visualization on
the augmented scene. The third part deals with the development of methodologies for the
interaction among virtual and real objects and the assisted reconstruction of full part from
fragments.
2. HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE SETUP

A general augmented reality implementation needs devices for acquiring a video stream
from a real scene, a processing unit for decoding and analyzing the acquisition and rendering
the augmented scene, and devices for projecting it back to the user. In order to ensure an high
level of interaction other devices for tracking user's position and interpret his intent have to be
included and integrated in the whole system. For the specific purpose of this investigation, the
implemented AR system (depicted in Figure 4) is based on that proposed in [29] and it is
comprised of:
• one input video device Microsoft LifeCam VX6000 USB 2.0 camera, able to catch
frames up to 30 Hz with a resolution of 1024x768 pixels;
• one Head Mounted Display equipped with OLed displays (Z800 3D visor by Emagin
- http://www.3dvisor.com/);
• one personal computer with an Intel Core 2 Quad-core processor, 3 Gb RAM and a
NVidia Quadro FX3700 graphic card.
In order to achieve an interactive application, a tracking device has to be included in the

system. This device must also to be suitable to perform user-assisted shape acquisition for
reverse engineering purposes.
Previous investigations have dealt with possible solutions involving electromagnetic
devices [28] or optical markers [19, 29]. Both these instrumentations have some limitations
and seem inappropriate for the purpose of this investigation. On the one hand,
electromagnetic trackers are precise but they are very sensible to the perturbation of the
magnetic field which may produces inaccurate acquisitions. Archaeological finds often
include metallic parts or ferromagnetic powder which cause inacceptable perturbation of the
magnetic field. On the other hand, optical markers are less precise but are insensitive to
material composition. Moreover, a continuous acquisition requires that the markers have to be
always visible to the camera and this may limit the traceable movement and the working
space. The accurate reverse engineering acquisition and post processing of the real shapes
need a very precise position tracking that cannot be ensured by these simple optical means.
For all these reasons, for tracking the user in the scene, the augmented reality system has been
integrated with:
• one RevwareMicroscribe GX2 (http://www.revware.net/microscribe_g.asp).
The Microscribe GX2 is an instrumented arm digitizer able to a real-time acquisition of

position and attitude of a stylus end-effector with a precision of ±0.2 mm in a working space
of about 1.2 m of diameter. Moreover it has been successfully used in many user-assisted
reverse engineering procedures.
The complete implemented hardware system is depicted in Figure 3.
In order to integrate the use of the digitizer in the augmented reality application, the
information coming from its acquisition has to be real time computed and synchronized to the
augmented reality computational sequence.
Figure 3. Hardware implementation for the investigation.
For this purpose each frame acquisition, the position and attitude of the digitizer end-
effector has to be acquired in order to achieve a time synchronization. Then, two parallel
processes starts. On the one hand, the acquired frame is processed for detecting the presence
of patterned makers to compute the projection matrix that represent the user’s perspective
point of view in the scene. On the other hand, the information coming from the digitizer is
processed in order to track the user’s position in the scene, interpret his intent and compute
modelling or analysis results. The acquisition of the digitizer has to be related with the user's
point of view in order to achieve a spatial collimation of data. This feature is very important
for the correct rendering of virtual contents (both virtual shapes and analysis results) that are
projected back to the user and superimposed to the acquired image of the real scene. Figure 4
shows a scheme of the overall process. Details of collimation between digitizer acquisition
and augmented scene, together with modeling and analysis issues will be discussed in details
in the next sections.

All the supporting software has been implemented using C++ programming language and
Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 developing suite. Routines for image processing have been
developed using the open source library named ARToolkitwhich has been successfully
used in other investigations. It can be freely downloaded from
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=116280. It comprises a set of
numerical procedures which are able to detect and recognize planar patterned marker in a
video stream in real time. Using correlation techniques, the routines are also able to compute
relative position and attitude between markers and camera with good precision for visual
purposes. This computation is necessary for an accurate perspective collimation between
virtual entities and real scene. The details about specific implementation and about the
contents of the library go beyond the scope of this paper and the interested reader can find
useful material and specific documentation on the internet site
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/.
The Microscribe GX2 has been integrated using the Microscribe SDK library that allows
the real time access to position and attitude of each link of the instrumented arm.
For managing complex geometries the Open Vrml library has been included (freely
downloadable from http://openvrml.org/). All rendering tasks about virtual objects in the
augmented scene have been performed using OpenGL library. All these pieces of software
have been integrated into a single simulation environment as shown in Figure 5.
All the procedures for shape modelling, interrogation, analysis and manipulation have
been written by the author for the specific purpose of this investigation. Details about these
subroutines will be provided in the next sections of the chapter.
Figure 4. Functional scheme of the proposed interactive augmented reality application.

Figure 5. Interaction among libraries for the developing of a software application and for managing all
the devices.
2.1. Collimation between Measurement and Visualization
The first step in the integration of the digitizer in the augmented scene is the collimation
between the information acquired by the instrumented device and that coming from the digital
camera. The video stream acquired by the digital camera is elaborated by an image processing
routine. This procedure is able to recognize a patterned marker in the scene and to compute
the corresponding transformation matrix ⎡⎣Tword ⎤⎦ between the camera and the real word.
camera
This matrix is used to project all the virtual contents in the augmented scene in the correct
position and perspective.
The information acquired by the digitizer concerns with the position and attitude of the
end effector with respect to the reference frame fixed to the device itself.
In order to ensure the collimation between the data steam coming from the camera and
that from the digitizer, it is important to compute the relative transformation matrix ⎡⎣Tword ⎤⎦
digitizer
between the digitizer and the world (the marker). This calibration has to be performed only at
the beginning of the application and it has to be repeated only if the relative position between
the marker and the digitizer changes.
The calibration procedure can be performed by picking with the digitizer a set not-
aligned points (four no-coplanar points at least) at known positions with respect to the relative
frame associated to the marker.
Figure 6. Relative transformations among camera marker (world) and digitizer.
For expressing coordinate transformation between points it is useful to deal with

homogeneous transformation matrices which include information on both rotation and
translation parameters. A generic homogeneous transformation matrix can be expressed in the
form:
⎡[Orientation] [Position] ⎤
[T ] = ⎢ 3x 3 3x1
⎥ (1)
⎣ 0 0 0 1 ⎦
In the same way the generic point P can be expressed with the following coordinate vector:
{P } = {x y z 1}
T
(2)
The coordinate transformation of a generic point P from the local coordinate system of the
digitizer to the world coordinate system related to the marker can be written as:
{P}world = ⎡⎣Tworld
digitizer
⎤⎦ {P }digitizer (3)
where:
{P}world is the vector containing the coordinate of the point P expressed in the world
reference frame;
{P }digitizer is the vector containing the coordinate of the point P expressed in the local
reference frame (digitizer).
Considering a collection of points P1 P2 ... Pn , we can built two matrices as:
[P ] world
= ⎣⎡{P1 }world {P2 }world ... {Pn }world ⎦⎤ (4)
[P ] digitizer
= ⎡⎣{P1 }digitizer {P2 }digitizer ... {Pn }digitizer ⎤⎦ (5)
In order to compute the matrix ⎡⎣Tword ⎤⎦ we have to solve the system of equations
digitizer
[P ] world
= ⎡⎣Tworld
digitizer
⎤⎦ [P ]digitizer (6)
for the unknown elements of the matrix ⎡⎣Tword ⎤⎦ . An homogeneous transformation matrix is
digitizer
defined by 6 independent parameters (three for the description of the rotation and three for the
translation). For this reason, the system (6) has more equations than unknowns and the
solution can be computed as:
⎤⎦ = [P ]world [P ]digitizer
+
−1
⎡⎣Tworld
digitizer
(7)
where the [P ]world denotes the pseudo-inverse matrix of the [P ]world matrix.
+
−1
Due to numerical approximation or errors in measurement, the orientation block of the

computed matrix ⎡⎣Tword ⎤⎦ can result not exactly orthogonal. Since it represents a rigid
digitizer
spatial rotation, it is important to correct this imprecision. For this purpose, we can operate a
QR decomposition of this orientation block:
⎡⎣Orientationword
digitizer
⎤⎦ 3x 3 = [R1 ]3x 3 [U1 ]3x 3 (8)
where (due to the QR algorithm):

[R ] is
1 an orthogonal matrix representing the corrected rotation and [U1 ] is a matrix
whose upper band contains the errors of approximation and the lower band has only zero
elements. In case of a pure rotation (orientation block without errors) [U1 ] = [ I ] .
In order to compute the transformation matrix between the digitizer and the camera
⎡⎣T digitizer
camera
⎤⎦ , useful to collimate the acquired points to the visualized ones, a matrix
multiplication has to be performed:
⎡⎣Tcamera
digitizer
⎤⎦ = ⎡⎣Tword
digitizer
⎤⎦ ⎡⎣Tcamera
word
⎤⎦ . (9)
3. INTERACTIVE STUDY OF REAL OBJECTS

An accurate study of the real archaeological objects requires geometrical and
morphological analysis of the corresponding shapes. In order to process these components,
the real geometrical features have to be traduced into a mathematical representation suitable
for computational purposes. The activities related to the building of mathematical
representation of real shapes are often addressed as reverse engineering (RE) methodologies.
The most of RE methodologies begins from the acquisition of a collection of points on the
surface of the interesting object. In a second phase, these points can be connected in the right
order in order to form a network of curves sketched on the acquired surface. In a third phase,
the network of curves can be used to build a mathematical representation of an interpolated
surface (Figure 7).
By the combination of reverse engineering techniques and augmented reality, it is
possible to implement the basic reverse engineering procedures in an interactive environment
where the user can built the mathematical representation and graphical rendering of curves
and surfaces directly on the real shape.
The high level of interaction that can be reached by this integration is very important
especially in those fields where the contribution of an expert user is crucial. The use of
augmented reality gives the opportunity to sketch and visualize the geometrical entities
directly on the real objects using three dimensional graphics. By this way, the building of
geometrical entities can be guided by the user and assisted by computer aided tools and can
be performed with a continuous reference to the real shapes. Thanks to the use of a precise
mechanical digitizer, the drawing of these entities can be made with a tool similar to a pen
that can easily manipulated in space.
Figure 7. Reverse engineering of the shape of a real object: starting from the real surface (top, on the
left), a set of points can be acquired (top, on the right); from these points a network of curve can be
built (bottom, on the left) and then a surface patch can be generated (bottom, on the right).
The mathematical representation of real shape can be very useful for archaeological
investigations. Many classification criteria are based on the interrogation and the comparison
of the profiles, typologies, patterns and textures [33-35]. Moreover, a geometrical model
helps to apply computational algorithms for a more precise correlation among shapes and
allows objective and repeatable evaluations.
Before describing the details of the possibilities and the implementations of the
interactive study of archeological objects some recalls of computer aided geometrical design
[36] are required.
3.1.Brief Recalls on Curves and Surfaces Representation
In computer-aided design, one of the most suitable tool for built a curve interpolating a
given set of points is the B-spline structure. It is a very common tool implemented in many
computer aided design applications. Generally speaking, a spline is a mathematical
representation of a curve that approximates or interpolates a given set of points. One of the
most used spline representation is the Bézier-like form. Following this approach, an entire
curve is split into several shorter Bézier curves that are sequentially connected with an
appropriate smoothness and geometrical continuity. A generic Bézier curve p ( u ) fitting a
given set of m control points {Ρ0 ...Ρm‐1 } can be expressed in a parametric form as:
m −1
p ( u ) = ∑ bi ( u ) Ρi (10)
i =0
where bi ( u ) are the blending functions (piecewise polynomial functions of the variable u). In
general, the blending functions depend on the degree of the interpolating polynomials. It is
important to notice that, chosen the degree of the blending functions, one can use a small set
of points to describe a complex curve shape. Moreover, following the reverse approach, one
can use a small set of points to built a complex curve obtaining an exact mathematical
representation for further computations.
In order to simplify the evaluation of local geometrical properties of a curve (e.g. tangent
vector, curvature, etc.) it is useful to introduce the Frenet frame, which is a local frame
moving along the curve. Assuming that the curve is given in the algebraic form as in Eq. (10),
the versors associated with the Frenet coordinate system can be expressed as follows:
p '(u )
t (u ) = is the tangent unit vector (11)
p '(u )
m ( u ) = b ( u ) × t ( u ) is the normal unit vector (12)
p ' ( u ) × p '' ( u )
b (u ) = is the binormal unit vector (13)
p ' ( u ) × p '' ( u )
where:
∂p ( u ) ∂2 p ( u )
p'(u ) = and p '' ( u ) =
∂u ∂u2
Considering the changing of the Frenet frame along the curve, it is possible to define two
scalar parameters: the Frenet curvature κ ( u ) and the Frenet torsion τ ( u ) :
p ' ( u ) × p '' ( u )
κ (u ) = (14)
p '(u )
3
τ (u ) =
( p ' ( u ) × p '' ( u ) ) ⋅ p ''' ( u ) (15)
p ' ( u ) × p '' ( u )
2
For the representation of the surfaces, the approach is similar. A surface can be reviewed as a
piecewise interpolating function of two variables. In this case the interpolation is among a
collection of m x n control points Ρ ij { } (control points net). The surface can be expressed in
the parametric form as:
m −1 n − 1
s ( u, v ) = ∑∑ bi ( u ) bj ( v ) Ρij (16)
i =0 j =0
where bi ( u ) and b j ( v ) are the blending functions (piecewise polynomial functions of the
variables u and v, respectively) fitting the control points.
As for the curve, for each point of a surface it can be defined a reference frame with the
following versors:
su
t1 = is the first tangent unit vector (17)
su
sv
t2 = is the second tangent unit vector (18)
sv
su × sv
n= is the normal unit vector (19)
su × sv
∂s ( u , v ) ∂s ( u , v )
where su = and sv = .
∂u ∂v
The details about the definition of blending functions, their practical computation and the
particular way to interpolate points and curve network go beyond the scope of this chapter.
An interested reader can find useful material in [36-37].
3.2. Acquisition of Curves and Surfaces of Archeological Fragment
The first step in the interactive study of the archaeological finds is the acquisition of the
shapes and their mathematical representation. This activity can be performed using the
mechatronic digitizer and picking a set of m {Lj } points directly on the surface of the
interesting object. These points can be used of the real time building of spline curves using
the representation in Eq. (10). The only difference is that that points {Ρ0 ...Ρm‐1 } in Eq. (10)
are the control points, i.e. points that only approximate the shape of the curve. The picked
{L } entities are points interpolating the curve, i.e. points that belong exactly to the curve. In
j
order to build an exact representation of the curve, the control points set has to be computed
from the interpolating points set. This evaluation can be performed solving a system of 3·m
equations in 3·munknowns (points {Ρi } coordinates) imposing the passing of the curve
through the m interpolating points {Lj } :
m −1
{L } = ∑ b (u ){Ρ } j = 0..( m − 1)

j i j i (20)
i =0
The values of the parameters u j can be freely chosen. In order to built a smooth curve, a
uniform distribution is suggested.
Figure 8 shows an example of geometry acquisition of a fragment. The user plays an
important role in the activity because he chooses the location of interpolating points {Lj } and
their sequence. His action can be supported by the augmented reality system which
superimposes graphical information to the scene in real time while they are sketched. Each
acquired frame, the representation of the spline can be update and points and curves can be
properly rendered.
Let consider a small fragment. First of all, in the acquisition of its shape is important to
reconstruct the profile of its boundaries. Then, a series of curves can be sketched on the shell.
If the surface presents some stripes or other peculiarities due to manufacturing, it is important
to follow these geometrical features during the acquisition. In other cases, it cannot be
important the acquisition of the entire surface of the object or of its boundaries, but only the
sketching of some important feature (holes, profiles, etc.).
Each sketched curve can be used to built a mathematical spline representation. By this
way, the augmented reality system guides the user during the whole acquisition operation.
Thanks to the prospective collimation, if the user moves in the scene, the picked points and
the corresponding curves are always rendered in the right position and collimated to the real
objects.
Figure 8. Interactive curve sketching in augmented reality on archaeological objects: an acquisition of

edges on a small fragment (on the left) and of a profile on a portion of a vase (on the right).
After the acquisition and reconstruction of a set of curves on the interesting object, one of
more surface patches can be generated. Two methods can be used. The first one involves the
sketching of all the boundary curves of the object. If the real geometry is quite complicated or
presents local features to be preserved [38], other internal curves can be sketched. Starting
from this collection of curves, a control points net can be generated by interpolation among
each curve control points [39] and a mathematical representation of a surface can be built as
described in the previous section.
In Figure 9, an example of this strategy is depicted. In this case, the user has sketched
four boundary curves and three internal curves. Starting from these choices, a surface patch is
built.
Figure 9. Building a surface patch starting from a collection of curves.
The surface can be also built following a second method. In this case the user has to
sketch a series of profiles almost parallel. The final shape will be obtained as a loft between
the profiles respecting the picking order. This second method is useful for large rectangular
objects in which one dimension is greater than the others.
Figure 10 shows an example of a shard reconstructed using lofting technique.
Figure 10. Building a surface loft starting from a series of profiles.
In Figure 11, the results of the mathematical reconstruction following the first strategy
has been rendered in the augmented scene near the real fragment. It can be observed the very
close similarity between the two shapes.
The similarity can be increased if the virtual object is colored with the same hue of the
original shape. It is interesting to notice that, thanks to OpenGL capabilities, the texture of the
real surface can be also optically acquired and rendered on the virtual replicas.
3.3. Geometrical Analysis of Fragments
The acquisition of curves and surfaces is important not only for a realistic virtual
rendering of the shapes, but also for their interrogation [40], classification [41-42] and
analysis [43-44]. The mathematical representation of geometrical entities is useful to apply
the numerical algorithms typical of mathematics. Let us discuss some interesting cases.
Figure 11. A virtual replica of a fragment placed near the real one in the augmented reality scene.
3.3.1. Study of Revolved Surfaces

Imagine that we want to investigate if a fragment belongs to a shapes that presents an axis
of revolution. A typical example can be a portion of a vase or a cup. In this case, a manual
estimation of this property is quite complex and it is more difficult if the fragment is very
small. On the other side, in term of mathematical properties, this occurrence can be easily
check. In general, a revolved surface has the Gaussian curvature constant along with parallels.
A variation of this parameter can be observed only along meridians.
The Gaussian curvature K of a surface is defined [36] as:
K = κmin ⋅ κmax (21)
where κ min and κ max are the principal curvatures (the highest and the lowest values of
surface curvature).
Since the reconstructed surface is only an approximation of the physical one, the
distribution of the Gaussian curvature has to be evaluated considering a tolerance, especially
near the boundaries where local perturbations may occur. Practically, this means that if the
Gaussian curvature plot presents a series of stripes almost parallel, the surface is likely a part
of a revolved shape. Figure 12 shows and example of this kind of investigation where the
curvature plots are rendered on the virtual shape in order to easy visualize the topological
property of the fragment surface.
Once the fragment has been considered a part of a revolved surface [45], it is possible to
compute the approximated axis of revolution {d} . The unknown axis can be expressed in the
parametric form as:
{d} = {O} + u ⋅ {n0 } (22)
where {O} is a point belonging to the axis and {n0 } is the direction unit vector.
Since in a revolved surface all the normal vectors pass through the axis of revolution, the
unknown parameters {O} and {n0 } can be computed minimizing the following expression:
(P − O ) ⋅ ( ni − n0 )
2
F =∑ i (23)
i ( ni − n0 )
where {n0 } are the normal unit vectors computed for a collection of i sampling points Pi
belonging to the surface.
The Eq. (23) expresses the residual of all the distances between all the normal vectors and
the candidate axis of revolution. For this reason, Eq. (23) can be used for an alternative
numerical method for understanding if the fragment is a part of a revolved surface. The
surface can be considered of revolution only if the residual is below a specified tolerance.
Figure 12. An example of curvature contours superimposed to the virtual replica of the fragment. From
the interpretation of curvature plot it is possible to understand if the fragment is a part of a revolved
surface.
3.3.2. Matching of Profiles

In many practical cases, it can be useful to perform a reconstruction of an entire shape
starting from broken fragments. This activity can be performed using the mathematical
representation of the shape in order to allow the use of numerical algorithms and reduce the
risk of the manipulation of the delicate and precious parts. Moreover, if performed manually,
this task is very time-consuming and requires a lot of patience for puzzling all the shapes.
In practical terms, two profiles match if they can be closely connected reproducing a
continuous shape. Mathematically, this condition is fulfilled if it is possible to find a relative
position between the two parts in which the distance between the two profiles is within a
specified tolerance along the entire length.
Scientific literature presents several methods to check a possible matching between two
profiles, based on deterministic, stochastic and heuristic methods. The check of compatibility
between profiles is an important issue in many different research field as computer vision,
geometric design and pattern recognition.
For the implementation in the augmented reality environment, we have to chose a method
which is able to achieve results in real time and suitable for the introduced mathematical
representation. In 1995 Lewis [46] proposed a method based on the use of cross correlation
that has revealed to be fast and accurate. In 2005 the method has been enhanced by Cui et al.
[47]. Following this approach, the matching between two curves can be checked computing
the cross correlation between their geometrical invariants, i.e. topological properties that are
not affected by geometrical transformation as rotation and translation. One of the most
important geometrical invariant of a curve is the curvature [36]. The spline representation
allows the robust computation of this parameter and the use of 3rd degree blending functions
ensures an adequate curvature continuity.
Given two curves a(u) and b(t) the first step is to re-parameterize them considering the
arc length s:
s
a ( u ) → a ( s ) s = ∫ a ' ( u ) du
0
s
(24)
b(t ) → b ( s ) s = ∫ b ' ( t ) dt
0
The spatial curvature κ ( s ) for the two curves can be computed as:
∂ 2a ( s )
a ( s) → κa ( s ) =
∂s2
(25)
∂2b ( s )
b( s) → κb ( s) =
∂s2
It is interesting to notice that Eq. (25) gives the same result of Eq. (14), but the relationship is
deduced in term of arc-length.
The normalized cross correlation CC between the two curvature expressions along their
entire length can be computed as:
∫ (κ ( s ) ⋅ κ ( s ) ) ds
a b
CC (κ a ,κ b ) = (26)
∫ κ ( s ) ds ⋅ ∫ κ ( s ) ds
a a
The CC is a function in the range [-1..+1]. The more the curve are similar, the more the CC is
near to 1.
In many cases involving fragments, the matching between two curves has to be checked
only for a limited physical portion. It means that a curve b(s) has to be compatible to a part of
the other curve a(s)only. In this case the correlation has to be computed with the corrected
formula:
∫ (κ ( s ) ⋅ κ ( s − s *) ) ds
a b
CCwhole −to− part (κ a ,κ b ) = (27)
∫ κ ( s ) ds ⋅ ∫ κ ( s − s *) ds
a a
in which the parameter s* represents the offset of one curve with respect to the other one.
In this more frequent occurrence, we have to deal with different cross correlation values,
in which the curve a can be considered as a template window sliding along the second curve
b. In this case the best correlation is given for a specific value of the offset parameter s*.
Recent contributions have introduced other methods for checking the congruency of
profile based on stochastic, heuristic and Bayesian methods. A complete overview of these
methodologies goes beyond the scope of this chapter and the interested reader can find further
details in [48-51].
3.3.3. Profile Recognition and DatabaseComparison

The normalized cross correlation computed considering geometrical invariants can be
used also for the comparison between an acquired profile and a database of reference shapes.
In this case the problem is that the database shapes are collected using reference dimensions
that are usually scaled with respect to the real one. The curvature is not an invariant under the
scaling operation, but it is affected by the same scale factor [47]. It means that a basic curve
with a curvature κ when it is subjected to a scaling operation using a uniform scale factor sf,
κ
changes its curvature that becomes .
sf
In this case, the Eqs. (26) and (27) can be used for the comparison between two curves a
and b after a normalization according to the scale factor. This normalization can be performed
finding the highest value of both curvatures κ a ,max (maximum curvature value of profile a)
and κ b ,max (maximum curvature value of profile b) and their ratio:
κ a ,max
sf = (28)
κ b ,max
as an esteem of the scale factor. Then, the comparison can be made computing the cross
correlation between the corrected curvature values κ a ,max and sf ⋅ κ b ,max .
Figure 13 shows an example of profile analysis and database comparison.
Figure 13. Comparison between reconstructed profile and database based on curvature correlation.
4. INTERACTIVE MANIPULATION
OF VIRTUALOBJECTS
The geometrical representation of the acquired shapes can be also useful in order to have
a virtual replica of the objects under investigation. The manipulation of virtual components it
important for avoiding the risk of damage of the real ones and to perform some kind of
analysis that are not possible on the real ones. Moreover, in many cases, the operations that
can be performed with the virtual replicas cannot be executed on the real one at all. For
example, a section of the geometry in order to analyze what is behind or inside an object it is
not possible on the real object without breaking it. On the contrary, it is possible by using the
mathematical representation and applying the proper transformations.
4.1. Adding Virtual Entities
The visualization during the manipulation of the reproduced shapes can be enhanced
adding useful virtual entities to the scene. Symmetry axes, points, tripods, planes and curves
are some example of these additional contents. They are useful for a spatial visualization of
entities that do not exist in the real environment (and cannot be viewed in a real context) but
are very important for the study of the geometrical properties of the objects under
investigation. The rendering of overlay text can be also useful for including textual
information in the scene, producing notes or interactive explanations.
4.2. Scaling and Magnifying Virtual Objects
One of the basic operations that can be performed on the virtual replicas of the real
objects is the geometrical scaling. This action is useful to observe the shapes as under a
magnifying lens. Since we have the mathematical representation of the surfaces, the scaling
procedure is quite simple and can be performed by applying a transformation matrix to the
equation of the surface:
sscaled ( u, v ) = [T ]scaling sscaled ( u, v ) (29)
where:
s ( u, v ) is the parametric representation of the surface to be scaled;

sscaled ( u, v ) is the parametric representation of the scaled surface;
[T ] scaling
is the homogeneous transformation matrix of the scaling operation that in case
of uniform scaling with respect to the origin of the global reference frame can be set as:
⎡ sf 0 0 0⎤
⎢0 sf 0 0⎥
[T ] = ⎢ ⎥ (30)
⎢0 0 sf 0⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣ 0 0 0 1⎦
in which the parameter sf is the scale factor.
4.3. Interactive Live Sectioning of Virtual Objects
Another interesting operation that can be performed on the virtual replicas of the real
objects is the interactive sectioning of the geometry. With this action, the user can perform a
geometrical cut of the acquired geometry using a virtual plane that can be moved by the user
in real time. The operation can be implemented by limiting the rendering of the surface only
to the portion that lay on one side of the cutting plane cp ( r , t ) . Mathematically this condition
can be expressed by the following relationships:
{ } ( )
distance s ( u p , v p ) , cp ( r , t ) ≥ 0 → render point s up , v p
(31)
distance {s ( u p , v p ) , cp ( r , t )} < 0 → skip point s ( u , v ) p p
The position and attitude of the cutting plane in the scene can be set and modified by the user
interactively. This operation can be performed using the mechanical tracker. In this case the
tip of the tracker can define the location in space of a point on the plane and its attitude the
direction of its normal vector. By this way, if the user moves the tracker, the position and
attitude of the cutting plane change accordingly.
Figure 14 shows an example of an interactive section of a virtual replica of a vase. The
position and the attitude of the cutting plane are defined by the user using the tracker.
Figure 14. An example of interactive sectioning: the user moves the tracker and the cutting plane
changes position and orientation and the geometry of the virtual component is sectioned accordingly
(occlusions between cutting plane and real objects aren't take into account).
4.4. Free Moving and Rotating of Virtual Objects
In many cases it can be useful to manipulate the objects for observing from different
points of view, comparing shapes and discovering details. The manipulation of virtual
replicas can be safer than that on the real objects and the operation can be also combined with
scaling or sectioning in order for improving the effectiveness.
The manipulation of the virtual objects can be assisted by the digitizer that allows a real
time interaction. By this way, the digitizer can be used as an handle in order to grab, move
and rotate the virtual objects. In order to deduce the algorithm for moving virtual components
we can adapt the idea for mechanical assembling implemented and discussed in [19] as:
• The user can freely move the digitizer in the space. When it is close to a virtual
object, he can pick the object. This occurrence can be checked computing the
distance between the tip of the digitizer and the virtual surfaces in the scene. If the
evaluated distance is smaller than a chosen tolerance, the digitizer can be considered
in contact with the object.
• If the user confirms the picking, the virtual object becomes fixed to the digitizer. It
means that its position and attitude depend on those of the digitizer.
• By moving the digitizer, the user moves the virtual object changing both position and
attitude in space.
• The manipulation ends when the user decides to release the object which remains
still till the next manipulation procedure begins.
Figure 15 shows an example of the manipulation of a virtual fragment attached to the

digitizer tip in a scene with a real vase in order to optically check the congruency between the
geometries.
Figure 15. An example of the interactive manipulation of a virtual fragment in an augmented scene with
a real vase.
4.5. Functional Constraints and Moving Partially Constrained Objects
The free moving of a virtual replica in the augmented scene can be helpful for many
purposes. On the other hand, there are some cases in which it can be useful that the virtual
object has some constrains in the scene and its motion is somehow limited. Consider, as an
example, a fragment of a revolved surface (as those described in the previous section) that is
going to be tested on a bigger part in order to understand if a reconstruction is possible. In this
case the basic condition for a positive matching is that the revolving axis of both parts has to
be the same. For this reason, in order to find the correct location, the relative position between
the two parts has to be constrained with a functional relationship. For the specific case, it
means that the fragment can be only rotated about the revolving axis and/or translated along it
(and eventually flipped) [52].
The presence of the functional constraints has several implications for the augmented
reality implementation. First of all, the functional entities (such as the revolving axes) have to
be rendered in the scene in order to make them evident. Secondly, it has to be possible to snap
those entities using proximity functions. Thirdly, a procedure for dealing with the interactive
placement of partially constrained object has to be implemented.
A possible solution to this last problem can be derived from that used for managing
assembling procedure in augmented reality and discussed by Valentini in [19]. A generic
constraint imposed on a virtual object can be represented by one of more equations as:
{Ψ constraint } = {0} (32)
In the same way, the condition that the virtual object has to move fixed to the digitizer tip
position and attitude can be imposed with 6 scalar equations:
{Ψ digitizer } = {0} (33)
Considering that the constraint equations in (32) are mandatory and those in (33) are used
only for the achieving a good level of interaction, the motion of a partially constrained virtual
part subjected to the user's grabbing can be computed solving the relationship:
⎧⎪ {Ψ constraint } = {0}
⎨ (34)
min
⎪⎩position and attitude {Ψ digitizer }
Figure 16 shows a possible sequence for the implementation of the functional constraint
manipulation algorithm. At the beginning of the manipulation, the shard is free to be moved
in the space and its position and attitude are constrained by the digitizer. When the axis of the
fragment is near (within a tolerance) to that of the vase a functional constraint can be enforced
(the two axes have to be coincident). From this moment, the shard can be moved respecting
Eqs. (34) around the common axis and/or along it. During the manipulation, if two parts came
in contact (the distance between two boundary curves is lower than a specific tolerance), the
compatibility between the two boundary profiles can be real time evaluated using Eq. (27)
and a graphical results can be rendered in the scene in order to underline a possible positive
matching.
Figure 16. Moving and positioning virtual shard using functional constraints.
CONCLUSION
The use of augmented reality in combination with modeling and reverse engineering
methodologies has revealed to be very useful for supporting the user in many phases of the
study of cultural and archaeological artifacts.
The integration of the reverse engineering tools into an augmented reality environment
has been achieved using a digitizer arm which has been synchronized and collimated to the
projection of the virtual scene. This embodiment allows the implementation of interactive
procedures in which the user can operate in real time, producing 3D sketches, measuring
geometries, manipulating objects, matching shapes, etc. By this way all the reverse
engineering activities from the acquisition of the shapes to their interrogation and
reconstruction can be performed with the help of realistic computer graphic contents directly
superimposed to the real scene in a mixed real-virtual environment. The use of the digitizer
can be assimilated to the use of a special pen whose tip position can be tracked and recorded
is a three dimensional space.
The entire implementation has been programmed using open source libraries and this
feature allows simpler development for further investigations.
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Chapter 4
PRESENCE IN VIRTUAL REALITY:

IMPORTANCE AND METHODS TO INCREASE IT
H. S. Wallach, M. P. Safir, R. Horef,

E. Huber and T. Heiman
University of Haifa, Israel
ABSTRACT
Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT) is considered the “treatment of choice” for a
broad range of psychological disorders. Although effective, there are many difficulties in
implementation. Virtual Reality (VR) is a relatively new technology that has been
effectively integrated into psychotherapy for a multitude of disorders, and its
technologies and presentations enable therapeutic endeavor to overcome these
difficulties. However, as with any treatment, VR efficacy varies among clients. One
parameter that has been suggested as increasing VR treatment efficacy is presence.
"Presence" is the subjective experience in which the client/subject feels as if s/he is "in"
the situation even though it is not real. Presence is influenced by personality and
technological factors, as well as by the interaction between the two. Our lab has
conducted numerous research projects to elucidate the main psychological and interaction
ingredients responsible for increasing presence. This chapter presents an up to date
summary of our findings that aim to elucidate the optimal VR user profile.
PRESENCE
In order to experience VR as real, the participant must forget that s/he is in a protected
environment, that VR is produced by a computerized system, and develop a sense that s/he is
actually in the imagined environment. This experience has been labelled "Presence" "(Banos,
Botella, Guerriero, Liano, Alcaniz & Rey, 2005; Lee, 2004). Presence is defined by Witmer
and Singer (1998) as "the subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even
when one is physically situated in another" (pg. 225). Others (Sacau, Laarni, & Hartmann,
2008) divide presence into two factors: "spatial presence" which is the sense of physically
108 H. S. Wallach, M. P. Safir, R. Horef, et al.
being in a mediated space and a "social dimension" of presence which is the "the perceived
existence of others and the perceived possibility of interaction" (pg. 2256). This chapter will
focus on spatial presence. This aspect of presence can be further divided into the feeling of
"being there" (termed place illusion, PI) and the illusion that what is apparently happening is
really occurring (termed Psi) (Slater, 2009). Slater states that "If you are there (PI) and what
appears to be happening is really happening (Psi), then this is happening to you! Hence you
are likely to respond as if it were real." (p. 3554). Thus, the plausibility of events, rather than
the exact photo-duplication of reality is important. Casati and Pasquinelli (2005) agree with
this assumption. It should be noted that presence is not exclusive to VR experiences, but
occurs in other mediated experiences such as imagination, reading a book, watching a movie
and so on.
IMPORTANCE OF PRESENCE
When trying to enhance the treatment effectiveness of VR, research has turned to
increasing presence, with the notion that presence is the source of effectiveness of virtual
reality (Safir & Wallach, 2011; Wallach, Safir, Samana, Almog & Horef, 2011; Schuemie,
2003). However, a number of researchers have failed to find influences of presence on
learning within a VE (Persky, Kaphingst, McCall, Lachance, Beall & Blascovich, 2009) or on
treatment outcome (Krijn, Emmelkamp, Olafsson, & Biemond, 2004; Price & Anderson,
2007). In contrast, other researchers have found suggestive evidence for the influence of
presence: Price and Anderson (2007) found that presence both contributed to the experience
of anxiety and was related to the phobic elements in a VE; Krijn et al (2004) reported a
significant difference on presence and anxiety in the VE between treatment completers and
dropouts. Perhaps presence levels must be high enough to elicit anxiety and maintain
treatment adherence, and beyond these levels, further enhancement is not necessary.
Therefore, it remains important to elucidate the factors which contribute to the sense of
presence in VR.
FACTORS INFLUENCING PRESENCE

Schubert, Friedmann, & Regenbrecht (2001) claim that the sensory information (both
sound and sight) in the VRE are only "raw material". From this raw material, we build a
mental image of our environment through our cognitive processes. What we respond to is not
the VRE itself, but rather our mental image of it. This process is dependent on several factors:
the quality and quantity of sensorimotor information that is provided by the VRE, personality
variables, motivation and interest as well as specific cognitive elements such as attention,
ability to ignore irrelevant sensorimotor information in the "real" environment, and a mental
representation of our ability to operate in and move in the "virtual" environment. The process
whereby the sense of presence develops from the mental image of our experience and from
ignoring "real" environment cues is termed: Potential Action Coding Theory. The sense of
presence will increase, the more one is able to focus attention on the virtual experience rather
than on other sensations (whether internal or external).
Presence in Virtual Reality: Importance and Methods to Increase It 109
Biocca developed these ideas further in his "three pole model" (Biocca, 1997, 2003). This
model relates to two poles - the sense of presence, and movement of the real physical pole
(physical presence) and the virtual pole (spatial presence). The transition between these two
poles is affected by motor-sensory information - the characteristics of virtual reality
technology such as interactive visual quality of the image. The third pole relates to the
psychological process involved in imagination, taking into account the role of spatial
attention and imaginary mental space, in order to build a sense of spatial presence. Therefore,
three spaces/poles exist: real space, virtual space and imaginary space. Within any given
moment one of these spaces becomes the dominant space in which one feels present. This
selected area is also entitled "egocentric space" - the mental representation of space in which
a person is found at any given moment. According to Biocca (1997) one can be in only one
pole at a given time. The main question is how is this choice made and how it can be
influenced? This choice is affected by motor sensory clues like attention, memory etc. This
choice is also determined both by user variables (motivation, goals, and so on) as well as by
external/sensory variables (quality and intensity of stimulation, information from the
movement of the body in space, and so on).
Therefore we may divide the factors influencing presence into three categories:
technological variables (e.g. obtrusiveness of medium), user variables (e.g. level of anxiety),
and interaction variables (e.g. movement). In a previous publication (Wallach, Safir et al.,
2011) we provided an up to date review of technological variables, and therefore in this
chapter will concentrate on user and interaction variables.
User Variables
In our previous review (Wallach, Safir et al., 2011) we concluded that only locus of
control and empathy seem to have an impact on presence in an enriched VE, while
imagination is important in an impoverished VE. Immersive tendencies, dissociative
tendencies and cognitive style influenced presence only when independently employed, as
their inputs' were cancelled when combined with other variables. Ethnicity affected behaviour
but not presence levels in the VRE (Almog et al., 2009). Thus, we suggested examining level
of anxiety and sensory processing, which will be detailed below.
Level of Anxiety
One of the factors influencing presence is the individual's emotional state when immersed
in the VRE. This is, of course, dependent on the person's emotional state prior to immersion,
as well as VRE cues that trigger specific emotional states (Banos et al., 2004). Aymerich-
Franch, (2010) reported that arousal and valence (measured by the pictorial tool Self-
Assessment Manikin, SAM), positively correlated with presence (measured by the SUS
presence questionnaire). For valence, the SAM depicts five human faces with expressions
ranging from a severe frown to a broad smile, and for arousal: it depicts five graphic
characters ranging from low visceral agitation with eyes closed to high visceral agitation with
eyes opened.
VR has been primarily employed in treatment of phobias to reduce anxiety. Therefore,

we focused on anxiety's impact on presence. This is in accordance with Foa and Kozak's
theory (1986), that the phobic fear structure must be activated during exposure for treatment
to be effective. Thus, VR therapy must induce a sufficient emotional level to enable
habituation and extinction to occur. Their theory states that fear arousing memories are
cognitive structures containing information about the stimuli, the reaction and their meaning.
Therefore, treatment must activate this cognitive structure and alter it. This can only occur if
the individual feels that the VRE is real, that s/he is actually immersed in the fearful situation,
that s/he feels "presence". In addition to feeling presence, the virtual environment must arouse
anxiety, otherwise neither habituation nor extinction will occur (Schubert, Regenbrecht &
Friedman, 2000). In addition, cognitive changes in the aroused memory structures must
generalize to the real world (Foa and Kozak, 1986). Only when these conditions occur, will
the client become emotionally involved in the VRE, and the VR therapy will be effective
(Oksam, 2005).
We assume that there is a reciprocal interaction between anxiety and presence such that
the level of phobic (constant) anxiety influences the degree of presence experienced in a VRE
containing stimuli relevant to the phobia. Presence in turn influences the degree of State
Anxiety experienced in the VRE. State Anxiety increases presence, and so on, until a
reduction in anxiety occurs as a result of exposure (habituation), which generalizes to and is
sustained (extinction) in the "real" world. Although this is a significant issue, few studies
have been conducted to address this issue. We will review the current state of research and
then describe our research and our findings.
Hoffman et al, (2003) examined the connection between presence and post therapy
anxiety levels in people with arachnophobia (spider phobia). Subjects who suffered from
arachnophobia were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: exposure to a virtual
spider, exposure to a virtual spider with tactile augmentation (these subjects received special
VR equipment simulating the touch of a spider) and a control group (subjects participated in a
VR game). The experimental groups experienced higher levels of presence. As a result there
was a larger reduction in anxiety levels as measured by subjective fear questionnaires and a
behavioral task. Furthermore, the high presence (tactile augmentation} group experienced a
greater reduction in anxiety than the low presence group. These results support Oksam's
(2005) findings that presence is a key factor in therapy efficiency.
Bouchard, St-Jacques, and Renaud (2005) found that pre-exposure State Anxiety
(measured by the STAI questionnaire and a verbal question:"To what extent do you feel
anxious right now?") produced an increase in presence in the VRE. All subjects experienced a
control VRE as a baseline, a threatening and anxiety-inducing VRE, and a nonthreatening
VRE. Presence was measured by Witmer and Singer's (1998) PQ and a verbal report. Verbal
presence reports were higher in the scary VRE, than in other VRE's. However, contrary to
predictions, PQ presence ratings were higher in the safe VRE than in the scary VRE.
Robillard, Bouchard, Fournier, and Renaud (2003) exposed phobic participants to phobic
relevant stimuli in the VRE. They found that participants with high levels of phobic anxiety
reported a higher sense of presence on the PQ, indicating a relationship between phobic
anxiety and presence.
Krijn, Emmelkamp, Biemond, et al. (2004) randomly allocated thirty-seven patients
suffering from arachnophobia into one of three groups: VRE therapy with a head-
mounted display (HMD) (low presence), a computer automatic VRE therapy - CAVE (high
presence) and a wait list control. Both treatment groups received three 1.5 hours VRE
treatment sessions. Following therapy, treatment groups differed in presence levels (measured
by the Igroup Presence Questionnaire, IPQ). Treatment groups did not differ in state anxiety
levels, (measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, STAI). Following therapy, the high
presence group was less avoidant than the low presence group. Although presence was not
found to influence state anxiety, it did have an impact on avoidance following therapy.
Price & Anderson (2007) reported that presence served as a mediator so that pre-
exposure anxiety enhanced sense of presence in VRE, and sense of presence in VRE
increased sense of anxiety during exposure. Furthermore, they found that participants with
higher levels of pre-therapy phobic anxiety reported higher degrees of presence, thus resulting
in higher levels of situational anxiety. This study was the first to examine the connection
between different types of anxiety and presence. They also found a modest correlation
between the number of phobic stimuli in the VRE and presence. However, no relationship
between presence and treatment outcomes was found, indicating that while presence is an
important factor for VRE efficiency, it is an insufficient one.
These studies have revealed different relationships between anxiety and presence.
Schubert, et al (1999) found a correlation between anxiety during exposure (state anxiety) and
presence for non-phobic subjects. In addition, Price and Anderson (2007) found a correlation
between phobic anxiety, state anxiety and presence for phobic participants. Robillard, et al
(2003) also reported that phobic participants experienced higher levels of presence. In
contrast, Krijn, et al. (2004) failed to find a correlation between phobic anxiety and presence;
and Bouchard, et al (2005) found contradicting results between presence and state anxiety.
Our study measured presence, state anxiety and pre exposure anxiety as a continuous
variable, thus analyzing all levels of presence and anxiety within a larger sample than
previous studies. Therefore we assumed that:
•
A positive correlation would be found between flight anxiety and presence (as
measured using the IPQ and the PQ);
• A positive correlation would be found between anxiety during the exposure (as
measured using the Subjective Units of Discomfort (SUD) and the State-Trait
Anxiety Inventory (STAI) developed by Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene ,
1970) and presence;
• The correlation between anxiety during the exposure and pre-existing levels of
flight anxiety would be partly mediated by presence. Thus, we assume that there
is a reciprocal interaction between anxiety (state and trait) and presence.
We conducted a study with a flight VRE with 85 non phobic participants to test this
assumption. We measured presence using two questionnaires: Presence Questionnaire (PQ)
developed by Witmer and Singer (1998), and the Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ)
developed by Schubert, et al (1999). We measured flight anxiety using the Flight Anxiety
Modality Questionnaire (FAM) and the Flight Anxiety Situations Questionnaire (FAS) both
developed by Van Gerwen, Spinhoven, Van Dyck, & Diekstra (1996). State anxiety during
exposure was measured using SUD and STAI.
As predicted, a positive correlation was found between pre-existing flight anxiety as

measured by the generalized anxiety scale of the FAS, and presence as measured by both the
Involvement and the experienced realism scales of the IPQ and the natural scale of the PQ.
We also found, as predicted, a positive correlation between pre-existing flight anxiety as
measured by anticipatory anxiety scale of the FAS and presence as measured by the
involvement scale of the IPQ. We also found, as predicted, a positive correlation between pre-
existing flight anxiety as measured by the somatic scale of the FAM and presence as
measured by the involvement scale of the IPQ, and the natural scale of the PQ. Surprisingly, a
negative correlation was found between pre-existing flight anxiety as measured by the
generalized anxiety scale of the FAS and presence as measured by the interface quality scale
of the PQ. When we separated those with prior flight experience from those without, we
found that this negative correlation resulted from those with prior flight experience. We
conducted an additional analysis and separated those who looked at the virtual window during
immersion in the VRE from those that did not. We found that the negative correlation resulted
from those who looked at the virtual window. Perhaps this resulted from previous experience
in flights, or from the added visual input, and the comparisons they may have made between
the VRE and previous flights. Perhaps they felt that the quality of the interface was poor. We
also found a negative correlation between pre-existing flight anxiety as measured with the
FAS-in flight scale and the spatial presence scale of the IPQ. Again, it appears that looking at
the virtual window enhanced the lack of "reality" of the VRE. Thus, although we found a
positive correlation between pre-existing flight anxiety and presence for most measures, the
interface quality aspect of presence and the spatial aspect of presence correlated negatively
with pre-existing flight anxiety for participants with prior flight experience and for those who
looked at the virtual window.
Interestingly, strong positive correlations were found between presence factors measured
by the IPQ natural scale and all pre-existing flight anxiety scales (FAS generalized anxiety,
FAS in flight anxiety, FAS anticipatory anxiety, FAM cognitive and FAM somatic) for those
who did not look at the virtual window. We also found strong positive correlations between
IPQ involvement scale and pre-existing flight anxiety measured by the FAS anticipatory
scale, FAS in flight scale and FAM somatic scale. We also found a strong positive correlation
between spatial presence measured by the IPQ and pre-existing flight anxiety in flight anxiety
and anticipatory anxiety measured by the FAS questionnaire. One explanation might be that
participants, who experienced higher levels of pre-existing flight anxiety before entering the
VRE, made efforts to de-evaluate the exposure, so that their experience "feels" less natural or
real and therefore, less intimidating. We plan to explore this issue in further research.
Our second hypothesis was that levels of anxiety during exposure would correlate
positively with presence. Surprisingly, and contrary to our predictions, we found a negative
correlation between anxiety during exposure as measured by the STAI and presence as
measured by interface quality and the involvement/control scales of the PQ. We again
examined the intervening variable of turning one’s head to view the virtual window. As
predicted, subjects who did not look at the virtual window, demonstrated a strong positive
correlation between anxiety during exposure (as measured by the STAI) and presence (as
measured by the natural factor of the PQ). However, and in contrast to predictions, a negative
correlation between anxiety during exposure (as measured by the SUD) and presence (as
measured by the interface quality and involvement/control scales of the PQ) was found for
subjects who looked at the virtual window. This may have resulted from added sensations
reducing (rather than raising) presence, or from difficulties experienced with interface quality
and lack of control, which were amplified by looking at the scenery through the window.
We also compared individuals with previous flight experience with those who had never
flown. As we had predicted, those without previous flight experience, showed a strong
positive correlation between anxiety level during exposure (as measured with the STAI) and
presence (as measured with the IPQ involvement scale). In contrast, subjects with previous
flight experience demonstrated a negative correlation between anxiety during exposure (as
measured by the STAI) and presence (as measured by the interface quality and
involvement/control scales of the PQ). We also found a negative correlation between anxiety
(as measured by the SUD) and presence (as measured by the involvement scales on the IPQ).
Therefore, both previous flight experience and looking at the virtual window (increasing
sensation), reduce presence as measured by interface quality and involvement/control.
Our third hypothesis was that the correlation between pre-existing flight anxiety levels
and levels of anxiety during exposure should be partly mediated by presence. We tested this
hypothesis separately for each exposure anxiety factor – STAI and SUD. The regression
analysis demonstrated that presence correlated significantly with exposure anxiety for both
anxiety factors. However, even after controlling for this correlation, the correlation between
pre-existing anxiety and exposure anxiety remained high. These findings suggest that
presence is a mediator in the relationship between anxiety during exposure and pre-existing
anxiety.
In summary, we found that presence mediates the effect of pre-existing anxiety and
anxiety experienced during immersion in the VRE, so that both trait and situational anxiety
correlate positively with presence, and that trait anxiety serves to increase presence and
situational anxiety, and presence and situational anxiety serve to increase each other. In
addition, we discovered that prior flight experience serves to reduce the effect of anxiety on
presence, and that increasing stimulation may produce a "boomerang" by reducing, rather
than increasing presence.
Sensory Processing
Research on the impact of sensory processing in daily life has increased in recent years
(Oliver, 1990; Dunn, 2001 Dunn, 1997). Individuals differ in how they experience and
process sensory events (Dunn, 2000). The term ‘sensory processing’ relates to the distinction,
modulation and responses to sensory input (Dunn, 2001). Just as people differ in their sensory
processing of reality, so they differ in their processing of Virtual Reality. Therefore, sensory
processing is an important variable that impacts on presence in VR. Research has focused on
the sensory aspects of the software - the quality and richness of sensory stimuli presented
(Schuemie et al., 2001), rather than on the individual's sensory processing when experiencing
the VRE (Steuer, 1995).
Dunn (1997) developed one of the original models of sensory processing. In this model,
neurological thresholds can be high or low, and behavioral responses to stimuli can be active
or passive. Thus, Dunn's model includes four modes of processing sensation: high threshold
and active processing, low threshold and active processing, high threshold and passive
processing, low threshold and passive processing (Brown et al., 2001; Dunn, 1997).
Neurological threshold refers to the amount of stimuli needed for a neuronal system to
perceive or respond to sensory input. Individuals with a low neurological threshold require
low intensity stimuli for neurons to fire, and to react. On the other hand, high threshold
individuals, require high intensity stimuli, or take longer to react to the same stimuli.
Behavioral responses correlate with the person's sensory threshold. Active behavioral
response refers to actions designed to cope with the neurological threshold. Thus, individuals
with low neurological thresholds and active responsivity will avoid sensory stimuli in order to
reduce sensations (sensory avoidance), whereas individuals with high neurological thresholds
and active responsivity will seek stimuli, and attempt to increase intensity in order to increase
sensations (sensory seeking). Passive behavioral response is characterized by the absence of
efforts to increase or reduce stimulation, even when the level of stimulation does not match
the neurological threshold, thus resulting in two modes of action: low neurological threshold
and passive behavioral response (sensory sensitivity) experiencing discomfort from sensation,
and high neurological threshold and passive behavioral responsivity (poor registration)
responding slowly or not at all to sensory stimuli.
Although the sensory processing model is not new, it has never been examined in relation
to presence in VR. We conducted the first such experiment examining this interface. We
assumed that both level of presence experienced in the VRE and behavior in the VRE (degree
of environmental investigation), should be influenced by the sensory processing mode of the
individual. We measured sensory processing using the Adult Sensory Profile questionnaire
developed by Dunn and Brown (2002), and presence using two questionnaires: Presence
Questionnaire (PQ) developed by Witmer and Singer (1998), and the Igroup Presence
Questionnaire (IPQ) (Schubert, et al, 1999). Specifically, we hypothesized that individuals
with sensory processing "sensory sensitivity" (low threshold, passive response), who focus
attention on and are stimulated by sensory stimuli, should experience higher presence in the
VRE. Thus we predicted a significant positive correlation between "sensory sensitivity" and
sense of presence in the VRE.
Only one correlation between presence and sensory sensitivity was significant (interface
quality, IQ, in the PQ), and, contrary to predictions, it was negative! Thus our subjects who
scored high in the sensory sensitivity mode were more distracted by the technical interface
than those low in this mode.
We examined our data to determine whether/what confounding variables may have
resulted in this negative correlation between sensory sensitivity and sense of presence and
discovered that it only occurred on the scores of participants from our majority ethnic group
(Jews), and not among subjects from the minority ethnic group (Arabs). Thus as originally
predicted, we found a positive correlation between sensory sensitivity and presence, on one
scale from the IPQ - involvement (INV) among the minority ethnic group. However, our
majority group subjects had significantly more flying experience than our minority group
members. Perhaps since subjects with sensory sensitivity are more sensitive to and stimulated
by sensations (Benham, 2006), they noticed distracting features in the technical interface in
the VRE, and because of their greater flight experience, compared VRE with their "real-life"
experiences, "increasing" these gaps. This then produces a diminished presence experience.
On the other hand, minority group members, had less flight experience, thus they were less
likely to interpret the distracting factors in the technical interface as proof of the unreality of
their experience.
An additional confounding variable was the behavior of the subjects in the VRE. When
we examined scores of the subjects who turned their heads to view the virtual window, we
found a significant negative correlation between sensory sensitivity and the three presence
scales of the PQ questionnaire. That is, contrary to predictions, higher sensory sensitivity led
to experiencing a lower level of presence. In contrast, when subjects did not move their heads
to look at the window, a significant positive correlation was found between the involvement
scale (INV) of the IPQ questionnaire and sensory sensitivity, higher sensory sensitivity led to
higher levels of presence.
In summary, when we examined ethnicity, behavior and flight experience, we discovered
that our majority group members (Jews), had more flight experience and tended to look at the
virtual window, while our minority group members (Arabs) had less flight experience, and
tended not to look at the virtual window. Thus, the combination of increased flight experience
(being able to compare "real" flights with "virtual" ones) and looking at the virtual window
(increased stimulation) led to a decrease in presence among our majority group members with
high sensory sensitivity, while less flight experience, and a tendency to reduce stimulation by
not looking at the window resulted in the predicted correlation between sensory sensitivity
and presence among minority group participants.
Norms exist for all four sensory processing styles. These norms define a normative
tendency, a reduced tendency and a heightened tendency. Heightened tendency is clinically
meaningful. We compared individuals with heightened tendency to those with normative or
reduced tendency, and found, contrary to our hypothesis, that individuals with heightened
tendency report a lower sense of presence on the involved / control (IC) scale of the PQ
questionnaire. Witmer and Singer (1998) found that the main factor in the PQ questionnaire is
control. The more a person feels in control of the virtual environment or of the interaction
with it, the more s/he feels a sense of presence. Since the same technology was employed
with all subjects in this study, the objective control options were the same. Therefore, the
subjective sense of control is very important (Slater, 1999). Evers, Rasche & Schabracq
(2008) found that people with high sensory sensitivity experience the environment as
intensely stimulating, interfering with any task, resulting in feeling reduced control in work or
other tasks. This may explain why, in our study, individuals with a heightened tendency to
sensory sensitivity felt less control over the virtual experience and experienced less presence
on the IC scale.
People with a sensory processing mode of poor registration (high threshold, passive
response), often neglect to attend to sensory stimuli, or fail to respond to them, or respond
slowly (Brown et al., 2001). Therefore, our second hypothesis was that a significant negative
relationship would be found between poor registration sensory processing and sense of
presence in VR. We failed to find a significant correlation between these variables. This may
have occurred because the majority of our subjects had normative or reduced tendencies to
poor registration. Therefore, we did not have enough subjects with a heightened tendency to
poor registration to produce such an outcome.
People with a sensory processing mode of "sensory seeking" (high threshold, active
response), actively seek sensory stimulation and are eager for intensive sensory experiences
to cross their threshold (Miller et al., 2007). However, because the virtual environment we
used was not very interactive and did not enable subjects to increase sensory input intensity,
our third hypothesis was that a significant negative relationship will be found between the
sensory seeking mode and the subjects' sense of presence in the VRE. No significant
relationships were found between sensory seeking and presence. This may have occurred
because this scale suffered from low internal reliability in our study and was not sufficiently
improved with the removal of one item (Cronbach's α = .60), compared with the original scale
(Cronbach'sα=0.79, Brown et al., 2000).
As previously reported, when we examined subject scores for looking at the virtual
window, we found that this had a confounding effect. Contrary to our hypothesis, a
significant positive correlation was found for subjects who looked at the window, so that
individuals with higher sensory seeking scores experienced more presence as measured by the
interface quality (IQ) scale from the PQ. No significant relationships between sensory seeking
and presence were found among those that failed to look at the virtual window. It appears that
turning one’s head to look at the window is an active response thus enabling subjects high on
Sensory Seeking to increase the intensity of their experience. Therefore they invested in the
sensory experiences of landscapes they "flew" past while looking through the window, were
less preoccupied with distracting factors and felt a greater sense of presence in the context of
the interface quality scale.
Individuals with a "Sensory Avoiding" sensory processing mode (low threshold, active
response), actively try to avoid stimuli exposure. However, since the existing virtual
environment in this study was not interactive enough to enable avoidance, the fourth
hypothesis was that a significant positive correlation will be found between Sensory Avoiding
tendency and sense of presence in the VRE.
No significant relationships were found between the "sensory avoiding" pattern and the
presence scales. However, when we compared subjects with a heightened tendency to a
normative and reduced tendency, we found that those with a heightened sensory avoiding
tendency, experience a higher sense of presence (in the natural environment NA scale on the
PQ). Thus, we found that sensory avoiding leads to higher presence as predicted.
Upon reexamining confounding variables, no significant correlations were found between
sensory avoiding and presence among our majority group members (Jews). However, for our
minority group members (Arabs), contrary to the hypothesis, a significant negative
relationship was found between the "involved/control" (IC) scale on the PQ, and sensory
avoidance. Schubert et al. (1999) emphasize the importance in building a mental model of the
situation so as to increase the sense of presence, along with the ability to suppress stimuli
from the external environment. As we previously reported, our minority subjects had less real
experiences flying, they may have been less able to create a strong mental model of the
experience of flight.
Subjects in the current study were not able to distance themselves from stimulation
because they were wearing an hmd which was connected by a cable to the computer. Because
minority group members had less flight experience, they may have employed active
avoidance strategies by cognitively escaping thus distancing the stimulus, and as a result, also
lowering level of involvement and sense of presence in the VRE. It is also possible that
because of low thresholds, they had a difficult time suppressing reality clues which may have
also contributed to the low sense of presence.
In summary, the relationship we found between sensory processing and presence brings
us one step further in our quest for the "ideal" VR user profile. It provides us with an
additional a priori variable we may use to determine whether VR will be effective or not with
a particular individual. It also enables us to better understand how we might adapt the VRE
for each individual in accordance with his/her sensory profile. We found that for individuals
with a low neurological threshold (sensory sensitivity and sensory avoiding), the quality of
the interface (interface quality, IQ, in the PQ) is very important. These individuals are very
sensitive to sensation, therefore it is not sufficient to have a rich sensory VRE, it is necessary
to ensure that the VRE is as "real" as possible, and that technological aspects are sophisticated
enough so there is a minimal amount of distracting technological elements. In addition, as
predicted we found, that individuals with a high level of sensory avoidance experience higher
levels of presence. However, we also found that it is important to adapt the VRE so that it
does not enable sensory avoidance, and participants are able to experience a degree of control
in the environment. They may benefit from a slow, controlled and graduated immersion into
the VRE. This sense of control should enable them to feel comfortable enough so that they
will not attempt to cognitively or mentally escape from the VRE. It appears that the sense of
control of the VRE is also important for individuals with high levels of sensory sensitivity.
These individuals tend to feel flooded by sensory experiences; therefore it is important to
enable them to adjust to the VRE in a gradual fashion. This should enable them to feel more
comfortable and more presence. Sense of control in the VRE is especially important for
individuals with a low neurological threshold whether they have active behavioral responses
(sensory sensitivity) or passives ones (sensory avoiding). In addition, it is important to allow
active interaction within the VRE for individuals with heightened sensory seeking modes.
When these subjects were able to look at the virtual window they felt more presence than
when not. Therefore, it is important to modify VRE's to be more sensory rich and to enable
more interactivity. These individuals seek stimulation, and seem to grab the opportunity to
immerse in the VRE.
Interaction Variables
As we concluded in our previous chapter, (Wallach, Safir, et al., 2011), interactions,

including control over the VE and interactivity, increases presence. The ability to move while
immersed in the VR, was also found to increase presence. We suggested examining degree of
relevance/meaning as well. We will elaborate on this.
Degree of Relevance/Meaning
VR environments are generic, therefore, the meaning and relevance for a specific
individual is necessarily limited. Both meaning and relevance impact on the "believability" of
the environment, increasing presence (Hoffman, Prothero, Wells, &Groen, 1998; Kizony,
Katz, & Weiss, 2003; Riva, 2006; Wiederhold & Wiederhold, 2000). Relevance and meaning
may be manipulated by adding personal links in the VE, by manipulating the VE, or by using
guided imagery which should embed a personal experience in the VE. As stated previously,
Biocca's (2003) three pole theory of presence, in which, among other things he proposes is
that information coming from the imaginable pole can reinforce the sense of presence in VR.
Thus, guided imagery containing personal references should make the experience more
personal, and increase presence. It should also increase attention to VR, and according to
Schubert, Friedmann, & Regenbrecht, (2001) if one's attention is directed to the virtual
experience and not to other events (in the internal or external world), the sense of presence
will increase.
Both Schuemie, van der Straaten, Krijn & van der Mast (2001) and Witmer and Singer
(1998) claim that focusing attention and concentration on the VE helps increase involvement
and thus presence. Witmer and Singer refer to the sense of presence as a quality of "selective
attention".
Thus, attention is one of the components that affect the experience of presence. Sanchez-
Vives and Slater (2005) suggest manipulating attention by preparing the person in advance
and explaining to him/her what s/he was going to see and experience in the VR. Similarly,
Casati and Pasquinelli (2005) suggest that providing appropriate guidelines for what will
occur in virtual reality may enhance the sense of presence.
Therefore, we hypothesized that guided imagery should increase focused attention on the
virtual experience, would provide personal meaning to the VE, as well as create an imaginary
space which supports the VE, and as a result -increases the sense of presence in the VE.
During guided imagery, the therapist guides the patient in imagining each step in detail.
The patient is asked to close his/her eyes, to concentrate on suggested scenes, and imagine
what the therapist induces. In this way, imaginary mental imagery of a particular situation is
created. Banos et al. (2005) compared sense of presence during VRE with experience in
guided imagery. Half of the subjects were exposed to a VR walk in a park and half of them
were exposed to a similar walk employing imagery. They reported that guided imagery
increased sense of presence faster than VR, however, the sense of presence decreased over
time and subjects had more difficulties in maintaining it during guided imagery. In contrast,
sense of presence increased more slowly in VR when compared to the imagery group but
continued to increase as the experience continued. These results suggest that guided imagery
evokes a quick and immediate sense of presence, but has difficulties in maintaining it over
time. Sense of presence in VR increases at a slower rate, but, visual and technical elements in
the VRE support and sustain that feeling over time. We hypothesized that adding guided
imagery before the VRE will result in a strong sense of presence beginning early and
remaining high throughout. Thus, guided imagery would serve as the initial platform enabling
the participant to establish a mental model of her/his experience, to focus attention and create
expectations about what will appear.

We conducted an experiment in which one group was given guided imagery in which
they were asked to imagine that they were preparing to fly on holiday to London and to
imagine the preparation and organization of the flight from the day before until take-off. A
second group was given placebo guided imagery (a description of turtles). Following guided
imagery, both groups were immersed in a VE flight, following which they recorded presence
ratings on two questionnaires: the PQ (Witmer & Singer, 1998) and the IPQ (Schubert et al,
1999). We failed to find the predicted significant effect of guided imagery on presence. In
addition, one of the IPQ scales (Involvement, INV) which measures the degree of attention to
and awareness of the VE, revealed that subjects level of presence in the guided imagery was
significantly lower than in the placebo group, they felt less involved in the VE following
guided imagery. Upon closely examining these results, we discovered that this interesting
finding appears to have resulted from scores of participants who had never flown in the past.
Guided imagery served to lower their presence ratings on involvement! For the rest of the
subjects (with varied flight experience), guided imagery did not increase or decrease presence
relative to the placebo group. In addition, when we examined the placebo group (those who
received a neutral guided imagery – one of turtles), we discovered that among those that had
never flown the involvement rating of presence was significantly higher than among all other
participants. It is possible that a person who had never flown and is asked to imagine such a
flight, will be passionate and absorbed in the fantasy of desirable experience or alternatively
would be unable to imagine and his/her thoughts would wander, his/her attention and focus is
distracted from the imaginary reality. Thus guided imagery is not suitable in increasing
presence in VE for participants who have never flown.
In addition, subjects in the placebo group who never flew rated their level of involvement
higher than the rest of the subjects, and higher than those in the experimental group who
never flew, demonstrating that VE is more powerful when there are no previous competing
memories, or competing imagery.
It appears that guided imagery influenced the subjects in such a way that attention was
not entirely devoted to the flight experience but rather to the environment they were asked to
imagine. Therefore, subjects were engaged simultaneously in two cognitive tasks - first - the
VRE and second- building a mental representation of their experiences of a holiday in
London. Thus, we suggest that their attention wandered between these two areas (poles) so
that guided imagery did not reinforce or sharpen the sense of presence, but rather diminished
it. Perhaps this resulted in participants rating their sense of involvement lower than in the
placebo group, as sense of involvement is affected by attention and concentration on the
experience they are going through (the VRE). Furthermore, suppressing environmental cues
became muted since participants were required to actively imagine preceding the virtual
reality experience. That is, while they experienced virtual reality they were also actively
engaged in imagining which is in opposition to necessary repression of outside and imaginal
cues necessary to increase presence in VR.
The guided imagery in our study depicted participants preparing for a holiday flight to
London. The goal was to fly to London and the flight experience was "only" a means to reach
the goal. The preparations the subject was asked to imagine were associated with the flight
but not directly connected to the flight experience itself and the experience on the plane.
Therefore, it appears as if this may have resulted in incongruence between the imagery and
the VE, interfering with rather than increasing the feeling of presence. We are currently
examining the effect of guided imagery of the flight itself on presence in the VRE.
Incidentally, although imagery ability seems to be an important mediator, research suggests
that it is inconsequential to the feeling of presence in VR (Wallach, Safir, &Samana,
2010;Weibel, Wissmath & Mast, 2011).
SUMMARY
VRE Treatment (as well as other VRE uses) is dependent on sense of presence.
Therefore, it is important to try to elucidate the "optimal" VR user profile. We believe that we
have now come closer to this goal.
The environment should be "believable". We propose that this must be achieved by
eliminating discordant elements, as well as by using multiple (congruent) sensory dimensions,
detail, continuous movements, high program update rate and stereoscopy. In addition, a
comfortable HMD is superior to a flat TV screen. It should be noted that when these
conditions are met the environment does not require an accurate depiction of reality.
Regarding user variables, although several variables were found to be important when
examined individually (for example empathy), combined in a multi variable design, we
discovered that when the VE is rich, only locus of control and empathy remain influential.
Imagination is important in an impoverished environment. The degree of interactivity and
movement the VE enables is closely linked to locus of control. Higher levels of control and
movement increase presence. Attachment influences presence as well. Pre-existing or Trait
anxiety serves to increase presence, which in turn increases situational anxiety. However,
prior experience and increased stimulation, reduces anxiety's effect on presence, at least on
interface quality and involvement/control aspects of presence. This is an unexpected finding,
which must be replicated and examined further.
An additional interesting user variable is sensory processing. We found that sensory
avoidance increases the sense of presence. In addition, we found that it is important to adapt
the VRE to the individual's sensory processing mode. Individuals with low neurological
thresholds require the VRE be as "real" as possible, that technological aspects are
sophisticated, and that there are minimal amounts of distracting technological aspects.
Sensory avoiders, as well as those with a high level of sensory sensitivity need to experience
a degree of control of the environment. They will benefit from slow, controlled and graduated
immersion into the VRE. Sensory "seekers" need greater stimulation (i.e. rich VRE's) and
need to be able to be active in the VRE.
Finally, relevance enhances experience in the VRE. Relevance may be influenced, for
example, by employing anxiety relevant VEs for phobic participants, or a VE that is
personally meaningful to the participant. We attempted to design our study to employ guided
imagery to influence the relevance of the VRE for participants. Unfortunately we
inadvertently employed guided imagery that seemed to have focused on stimuli irrelevant to
the VRE experience. Thus rather than increasing presence, imagery served to reduce it. This
demonstrates the importance of "mindset" when entering the VRE, as well as the potential
distracting effect of incongruent mental imagery. We are currently examining the effect on
presence of guided imagination directly related to the flight VRE.
In addition, it is unclear how gender and culture may influence responsivity to the VRE.
These important issues are only now beginning to be studied. We hypothesized that since
individuals from traditional societies have less technological exposure and experience, they
may be less comfortable and experience less presence in a VE. While we have found that
participants who are members of traditional society behave differently in the VRE, we have
not found this effect on presence ratings. We are continuing our investigations of this
hypothesis.
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Chapter 5
VIRTUAL REALITY IN TEXTILE FIELD
M. Kosek
Technical University of Liberec, Faculty of Mechatronics, Czech Republic
ABSTRACT
Virtual reality is a very useful mean for inspection of structure of textile materials
and their industrial applications. Basics of virtual reality application are explained by the
use of simple theory. Many results from both the amateur and commercial virtual reality
systems are shown.
INTRODUCTION
In general, virtual reality is a very efficient tool for the inspection of material structure.
Textile materials, fabrics and, especially, knitted fabrics are complicated structures formed
from yarns. Besides traditional, thousand year known, structures, a lot of technologies exist
that produce very different and complicated products. Either three dimensional (3D) fabrics
exist. In simple cases their approximate mathematical description is possible; in other cases
only 2D drafts are used. Both the mathematics and sketch can be processed by virtual reality.
Main advantage of this approach is the fact that the user (observer) can inspect the structure
from all the distances and angles by the use of standard browser. Furthermore, he (she) can
walk in the structure.
Relatively new materials are textile composites containing textile layers in a matrix.
Their inner 3D structure is complicated and can be found by either computer tomography or
by standard optical microscopy, if very thin layers are removed from the sample. The second
approach is a destructive one, but very efficient in some cases. From individual images a 3D
model of the sample can be made by virtual reality application.
We limit to the use of virtual reality in textile materials. Fascinating application of virtual
reality is also in a suit modeling, but the theme is too complicated to be presented here. We
start with mention of virtual reality means, and then necessary introduction into the theory of
textiles is given. The results are applied immediately in virtual reality. Both amateur and
126 M. Kosek
commercial systems are presented. The same is valid for textile composites, after short
introduction their structure visualization follows. Especially in this last part, results from
author’s department are presented.
VIRTUAL REALITY
Thanks to expansion of computers and information technology a lot of commercial
graphical systems were realized. In the field of virtual reality the important role plays the
system Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML). This system consists of commands that
define virtual world. The commands are written by the exactly defined syntax in the text file.
The user can define almost everything: geometry of objects, appearance of their surface,
illumination, initial observation points etc.
All the virtual reality examples in this chapter were made by the use of VRML. Detailed
information about VRML can be got from extended literature, [1] for instance. On the other
hand deep knowledge of VRML is not necessary for the study of this chapter. However, the
reader should be familiar with VRML browsers.
Once the text file for VRML is completed (and debugged) it can be inspected by some of
VRML browsers. The most known browsers are Cosmo Player and, especially, Cortona 3D
that is in continuous development. It can be downloaded from web pages
http://www.cortona3d.com/Products/Cortona-3D-Viewer.aspx. Although good help exists,
browser use is quite intuitive. By several buttons and mouse motion the user can put near and
take away the inspected object, move with it in all directions, rotate along arbitrary selected
axis, which makes possible to inspect the object from all directions, etc. The most important
feature is probably the fact that user can go through the object and inspect it inside. All the
VRML text files presented in this chapter can be downloaded from the web page
http://centrum.tul.cz/virt_real/ and inspected by VRML browsers.
BASIC OF TEXTILES
Three hierarchies of textile objects exist: fibres, yarns and fabrics. Basic elements are
textile fibres. Their diameter is of an order of 1 µm. They are either natural, or artificial.
Natural fibres were used predominantly in last centuries. Artificial fibres are produced by
chemical way. Most of them are polymers, but other very different types are used in special
applications, metal, glass, basalt, carbon fibers, for instance. Fiber length is several mm or
cm, but polymer fibers can be much longer (by several orders).
Yarns are created from fibers by a lot of very different and, in some cases sophisticated,
special technologies. Yarn contains thousands of fibers and its diameter is about 1 mm or
little less. Both the fibers and yarns are one dimensional (1D) objects, they differ only in
diameter.
Fabrics are composed from yarns by a lot of weaving or knitting technologies. They are
2D objects containing thousands or more 1D yarns in two mutually perpendicular directions.
All the generally mentioned weaving and knitting technologies were developed more than 10
thousands of years, therefore it is not surprising that today they are almost perfect
Virtual Reality in Textile Field 127
technologies. In present years, thanks to development of microelectronics, microprocessors,

computers, sensors, actuators, fine mechanics etc., new technologies or modifications of old
ones appear. Non woven textiles are a very nice example.
Absolute majority of fabrics are used for cloth production. Of course, other very
important technical applications exist and they are developed. One of reasons is a low price of
textiles in general.
From the virtual reality point of view the inspection of fabrics is very important. In the
case of knitting different classical or new yarn weaves are used. The shape of yarn in knitted
fabrics is very complicated and difficult to understand by standard drawing means. It is the
reason that we focus to application of virtual reality for the inspection of 2D textiles.
Simple Theory
Knitting fabrics are produced by scarf looms. Their principle is known thousands of
years. The loom contains two mutually perpendicular systems of yarns, warp and weft. Yarns
in warp are under tension and form two parts of approximately the same number. One part is
in higher position, the second one is under. Then the yarn of weft goes in between two warp
system and very close to other weft yarns. As it finishes its way, the position of warp system
is reversed and the weft yarn is fixed. This process is repeated.
Different fabrics can be obtained by the choosing of yarns sets that are up and under. The
simplest case is one to one selection (one yarn up and the second yarn under) that is termed
plain weave. If we consider yarns of circular cross section with radius r, the centre of both the
sets yarns are given by simple formulae.
Weft yarns centre displacement in the direction of X axis is given by the formula
(1)
where n is the weft yarn number with respect to the central one and x is the coordinate. For
the description of warp yarn centre deviation along the Y axis this formula can be used
(2)
where, analogically, m is the warp yarn position with respect to the central one and y is the
coordinate.
The periods λx and λy in above equations are given by formula
(3)
The limited case in formula (3), λx = λy = 4r, corresponds to the well-known Pierce model
established in 30th years of previous century. In this case the yarns centres are not sinusoids,
but circle arcs with angle of 180o.
128 M. Kosek
For better understanding of the formulae above, we present the cross sections of plain
weave fabrics. In Fig. 1 the theoretical values λx = λy = 4(1+21/2)r are used. The warp is given
by circles and the weft is sinusoid. No deformation is present.
The case near the Pierce model is in Fig. 2. In this case some deformation of yarns in the
contacts takes a place.
Figure 1. Theoretical plain weave fabrics cross section.

Figure 2. Plain weave fabrics cross section for yarn arrangement near to Pierce model.
Fabrics Classification
In the previous part we mentioned that several possibilities for warp yarn arrangement
exist. In textile praxis three basic knitting textile weaves exist and they are shown
schematically in Fig. 3. The yarn cross section is not circular but close to the elliptic one. In
the upper part the top view is presented, which explains the interlacing of yarns. Under it the
cross schematic section confirm the interlacing. For the plain weave better presentation (for
circular yarns) is in Fig. 1. The last part presents the symbols used by textile experts.
Figure 3. Typical knitting textile weaves, a) plain weave, b) twill weave, c) sateen weave.
The twill and sateen weave has several modifications. Only the simplest ones are in Fig.
3. As for practical use, the linen is used for typical applications. Twill is typical for jeans
product. Sateen is used in social gatherings due to its high glance.
Better imagination on basic weaves can be got from their spatial presentations in Fig. 4.
Again, the simplest possible realisations are for twill and sateen. These and more complicated
images are used for the training of textile students.
Figure 4. Spatial presentation of basic textile weaves.
Modern fabrics have more complicated yarn interlacing. We will not present the details
here, but we will show some examples in next parts. The same is valid for the visualization of
fabrics from weaving technology.
130 M. Kosek
From the geometrical point of view, model of each fabric exhibits repetition of basic
motif in two dimensions. The motif can be found very easily for the plain weave in Fig. 3a, it
consists of 2 by 2 interlacing squares geometrically. This repetitive part is termed unit cell.
Unit cell exist in every weave; only the sketch must be extended. Repetition of unit cell is
used in virtual reality applications. Physically, we said that the fabrics form 2D crystal, since
the periodicity of structure, due to the repetition of basic unit cell, is the basic property of
crystals in physics.
Plain weave in Fig. 3a exhibits also symmetry. If we rotate the sketch by 180o, the new
position cannot be distinguished from the original one. We say that the crystal has 2 fold axis
of symmetry, since 180o = 360o/2. There are also two mirror planes in the direction of warp
and weft. Also other two mirror planes are along the main and adjacent diagonals. Symmetry
operations form a group typical for given weave. It is the mathematical description of a
crystal. In this case its symbol is 2mm. More details are in specialized textbooks. In virtual
reality they are used for the check, if the output is correct. Elements of symmetry are also
visible on models in Fig. 4.
Real Textiles
All that was said above are models of textiles of different complexity. They approximate
the reality and according to their complexity they correspond better or worse to the real
textiles. In order to get a correct idea, the comparison with reality is in Fig. 5. In the Figure
the cross section cut of twill weave is presented. The image in digital form is from the
scanning optical microscope of relative high resolution. Boundaries of weft and warps are
marked by colour for automated determination of their coordinates and further mathematical
processing. We see that reality differs from simple models presented here, but basic features
of real textiles are included either in the simplest model.
Figure 5. Cut through real twill weave textile.
APPLICATION OF VIRTUAL REALITY IN TEXTILES

Main task of virtual reality is to get realistic image of textile structure. The task is
relatively simple – getting the realistic warp and weft yarns using suitable models. Their
surface should be modelled. The requirements on the yarn model are contrary ones. Model of
the yarn should be as simple as possible to allow the comfortable inspection of the textile. On
the other hand the model of yarn surface should include many requirements to be realistic.
Therefore a hierarchy of yarn surface model exist:
1) The simplest way is to approximate the yarn surface by a lot of small cylinders.
Direction of their axis is the derivation of yarn axis. Method explanation is in Fig. 6.
2) More realistic is to deform the circular cross section of cylinders to the elliptic one.
This procedure can be made very simple in virtual reality.
3) The cross section can be arbitrary, of any type. A lens shape is a good selection,
since it corresponds to the reality quite well; as it is confirmed by the photograph of
real textile structure, see Fig. 5. Then the given cross section moves along the yarn
axis and creates the yarn surface.
4) During its motion along the yarn axis the arbitrary selected yarn cross section can
rotate. Again, it can be made relatively simple in virtual reality systems.
5) The most general approach is to describe yarn surface, which can be quite arbitrary.
There are several parameters for the description in virtual reality. The surface is
approximated by small triangles. An external normal for each triangle must be
defined. The sharp edges can be replaced by more realistic circular ones of small
diameter.
The simplest approximation of yarn surface by small cylinders is illustrated in Fig. 6. By

increasing the number of cylinders their height decreases (part a and b). Further increase of
the number of small cylinders (and decrease of their height) makes the surface more and more
smoothed (part c, d and e).
Illustration of other methods is not so straightforward and needs a deeper knowledge of
commands of virtual reality language. The definition of an arbitrary surface is very difficult
task, since often the output is different from expectation.
Figure 6. Yarn surface approximation by cylinders.
132 M. Kosek
Realized Systems
In principle two basic ways are used for the preparation of visual model of textiles:
1) Use the formulae for yarn axes in the mathematical model. For the simplest case of
plain weave the formulae are (1) to (3). For other waves the formulae are similar,
usually constant values are included. The formulae became complicated, but the
programming is rather simple.
2) Use then unit cell approach. The unit cell is realized first and then it is repeated in
two dimensions.
The first approach generates the structure simultaneously, but it is limited to relative
simple cases, when mathematical structure description is efficient. The second approach uses
two steps, but there is no limitation on structure complexity theoretically, if efficient method
for unite cell generation exists. Its complete mathematical description is not necessary. The
second step, the unit cell repetition, is a question of several virtual reality commands. The
simplicity or complexity of approaches determines the system realization. Mathematical
version is used in student work usually, while the unit cell approach is realized in large
commercial systems. Both of them will be mentioned. In every case the menu driving is
obvious.
Simple Application
The mathematical approach was applied in student diploma work. This menu driven
system was programmed in Delphi programming language. Its graphical output is in Fig. 7,
some terms are in Czech language, unfortunately. In the smaller left part of the window the
parameters of structure are selected: yarn surface parameters (colour and its attributes), type
of weave (plain, twill, sateen) and its parameter, yarn cross section (circle, ellipse) and its
dimensions, number of unit cells, illumination. Main part of the window is occupied by the
structure image realized by virtual reality. On its left and down sides there are buttons that
control the image inspection by the same means as in virtual reality browsers.
Typical outputs are in Fig. 8. Three basic weaves are shown, plain, twill and sateen from
left to right hand side. Plain weave uses circular yarns; other two weaves have yarns of
elliptic cross section.
If we compare virtual reality outputs in Fig. 8 with images used in education in Fig. 4, we
can say the virtual reality is more realistic. It is due to the elliptic cross section of yarns. On
the other hand the weft and warp in Fig. 8 are distinguished by colour, which is not typical in
practice and models in Fig. 4 respects this fact. ¨
There is a simple check, if the model or it programming is correct. By the image
inspection by virtual reality we can check is yarns are in contact. This possibility is illustrated
in Fig. 9. The image comes from early stage of image realization. Plain weave is examined
from 3 view points. Sight from up in the left side of Fig. 9 does not reveal any doubt. The
sight in the centre part of Fig. 9 shows that something is not correct. Finely the oblique sight
on the right part of Fig. 9 confirms that there is no contact between yarns. On the contrary the
gap is big. It was due by incorrect shifting of yarns.
Figure 7. Main window of simple system for textile structure visualization.
Figure 8. Basic weaves (plain, twill and sateen) realized by simple virtual reality system.
Figure 9. Check of yarn contact in the simulated structure.
Commercial Systems
Well-known commercial system for complete study of very different textile products is
probably WiseTex commercial package. In general it deals with all aspects of textile material,
including fibres, yarns and products and makes possible the composition of more complex
134 M. Kosek
products from simpler ones, yarns from fibres, fabrics from yarns. Furthermore it is suitable
for prediction of textile material as soon as its structure is known. From the wide variety of
possibilities we concentrate to its very small part – complete simulation of almost all possible
realizations of fabrics from yarns.
The WiseTex is menu driven system and typical main window is in Fig. 10. A relatively
complicated 3D structure is shown in two important views. The yarn positions in the cell are
sketched in the left hand side, while the whole image of unit cell is in the right hand side of
Fig. 10. The user can either create your new own structure or he (she) can load any existing
unit cell and correct according to his (her) ideas. Many interactive elements in the up and
down side of the windows make the design or its correction very easy.
Unit cells of basic weaves are in Fig. 11. Cell boundaries and axes of coordinate system
are also drawn. Unit cell of twill and sateen is about 2 times higher than the one for plain
weave.
Unit cells generated by WiseTex are inputs for accompanying system VrTex (Virtual
Reality Tex). Demo version is in the web page http://centrum.vslib.cz/vrtex) that creates the
model of fabrics by repetition of unit cell in two mutually perpendicular directions. Typical
menu of VRTex is in Fig. 12. The VRTex offers several putdown menus for setting of all
parameters of virtual reality and the output image.
Figure 10. WiseTex main menu.
Figure 11. Unit cells of main weaves (plain, twill, sateen form left to right) in WiseTex.
Figure 12. Key menu of VRTex – shape and repetition of unit cell.
The key menu is in Fig. 12. The user defines the number of unit cells along all three axes
of coordinate system. The user can also determine what parts of unit cell will be shown. This
decision can increase the speed of image inspection at the cost that some parts of unit cell will
be invisible. Perfect visibility reduces the speed on the other hand.
Examples of basic weaves (plain and twill weave) produced by VRTex are in Fig. 13.
Cells from Fig. 11 were used as the input unit. If we compare this twill model with that
shown in Fig. 4, we see big difference. It is not due only by the view point and by different
number of unit cells, but also by the fact that twill has a large number of modifications.
Figure 13. Plain and twill weave model from VRTex.
Main reason of VRTex is the visualization of complex 3D structures. Some examples are
shown in Fig. 14. The structures are very special, therefore no comments are added.
136 M. Kosek
Figure 14. Models of special 3D textile products.
TEXTILE COMPOSITES
Relatively modern technical application of textiles is textile composites. Their basic
components are non-textile matrix and textile reinforcement. Composite structures appear
relatively often both in nature and technical praxis. Their important characteristic is the
synergic effect: values of composite parameters are not a simple sum of values of its
components. Unexpected values can be found. Therefore composites in some applications can
replace standard materials.
In principle the composite preparation is relatively simple. Layer of textile is glazed by
semi-liquid matrix (matrix precursor) that penetrates into all its volume. Then the second
textile layer is laid up the first one and again is glazed by matrix liquid. Number of textile
layers is about ten. Then the material is pressed and finally heated in special atmosphere and
regime.
Later we focus to carbon-carbon composite (C-C composite) that found technical and
medical applications above all. The reinforcement is from carbon fibres and the carbon matrix
precursor is phenol-formaldehyde resin. Interesting results of the study of its volume structure
is the subject of next parts. We concentrate to the use of computer graphics in connection
with virtual reality.
Composite Volume Structure
Although there are at least two possibilities for spatial material structure examination,
nondestructive computer tomography and destructive optical microscopy, from physical
reasons the optical microscopy was the only possibility. In order to get inner structure, the
surface of specimen was ground equidistantly by the step of 0.1 ± 0.05 mm, polished and
scanned by the image analysis system LUCIA. The theoretical resolution was 4 μm/pixel in
the plane of the cut. The resolution in the axis perpendicular to the surface was about 100 μm,
almost two orders lower. The total cut image is shown in Fig. 15.
Figure 15. Total image of composite surface.
Due to the high magnification it is composed from several images that were not exactly
aligned one another. These unwanted deviations were reduced partially by SW means, by
using standard computer graphic operations. This is the mason that the boundaries of Fig. 15
are stepwise.
The resolution is high; therefore the details of the structure can be shown in Fig. 16.
Cross sections of individual perpendicular fibers are well visible as small circles. Some
individual longitudinal yarns are also visible. Rest of the image is the matrix.
Figure 16. Details of composite structure.
At the cut microphotographs, as in Fig. 15, the longitudinal yarn borders are not well
defined in order to be processed automatically. To automate further steps of image processing
138 M. Kosek
the yarn border was colored by an operator. The presence of the operator was also necessary
in order to find related yarns on a set of structure microphotographs. The colored yarns are in
Fig. 17.
Figure 17. Marked longitudinal yarns.
The longitudinal yarn boundaries were the processed automatically to get their basic
features. Details will not be mentioned here only the yarns borders are in Fig. 18. On the left
hand side there is the shortened original image and at the right hand side only the yarn
boundaries are shown. In comparison with free textiles yarns are deformed and some of them
have missing parts.
Figure 18. Deformed yarns in composite, images are in mirror positions.
By the use of virtual reality the surface of selected yarn can be made from its boundaries
in individual cuts of the sample. The result is in Fig. 19. Yarn surface was not smoothed; the
scanned image errors are visible on its surface. Vertical cuts are limits of the sample, or its
part that was processed.
Figure 19. Reconstructed yarn.
Voids in Composite
The entire important structure objects in composite structure are in Fig. 20. In addition to
two types of yarns and matrix the voids are very important objects. They are the result of
composite production and play an important role. In some cases they are unwanted
(mechanical properties); in other cases voids are important (medical applications).
Figure 20. Complete basic composite objects.
Because of their black color, the void boundaries were found automatically. The
procedure is not trivial one, many steps must be applied. The result is in Fig. 21.
Automatically found void boundaries are on the left hand side, while the correct
reconstruction is on the right hand side. Individual layers are well visible.
Figure 22. Reconstruction of one void.
140 M. Kosek
If the reconstructed surface is smoothed the voids can be visualized by virtual reality.
Three typical void shapes are in Fig. 23. The void surface is rather complicated.
Figure 23. Typical void shape.
All the voids in composite sample are shown in Fig. 24. They are in negative form. In
reality, voids are empty, while their surrounding contains material. Also several videos exist
that use virtual reality. One of them is the walk through composite; the other seeks a hidden
void. They are on the web page http://centrum.tul.cz/virt_real/
Figure 24. Video – walk though composite.
CONCLUSION
Textile structures are fascinated filed for virtual reality applications. Only several
examples from the big area of applications were shown in this chapter. None of them is
perfect. Both the theory of textile structure and virtual reality have means how to improve
themselves in order to be in better agreement with reality. This challenging task requires only
the invention and hard work.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Several results from BC work of J. Krivka and PhD thesis of S. Vopicka and P. Sejak
were used. All the works were made at Technical University in Liberec, Czech Republic.
REFERENCES
[1] J. Vince. Essential Virtual reality, Springer Verlag London, 1998
Chapter 6
VIRTUAL REALITY AS A TOOL FOR MACHINING-

PROCESSES SIMULATION AND EVALUATION
Markos A. Petousis1*, Nickolas Bilalis2*

and Nickolas S. Sapidis3*
1
Technological Education Institute of Crete
Estavromenos, 71004 Heraklion, Crete, Greece
2
Department of Production Engineering & Management
Technical University of Crete
Kounoupidiana, 73100, Chania, Crete, Greece
3
Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering
University of the Aegean
Ermoupolis, 84100, Syros, Greece
ABSTRACT
Recently, virtual reality systems have been presented for simulation of machining
processes, aiming at the determination of specific machining parameters, such as the
required fixtures and the machining environment, the cutting tool dynamics, the chip
shape and volume, and the shape of the cutting tool.
A methodology is presented in this chapter for the development of a virtual
environment for 3 axis milling process simulation. The technological and research
challenges involved in this methodology are described.
The operation of a new system developed by the authors for machining-process
simulation in a virtual environment is presented. This system integrates a virtual reality
environment with computational and graphical models for the simulation of three axis
milling processes. A computational model has been developed for the visualization of the
milling process in the virtual environment and graphical model has been developed for
the calculation of quantitative data related to surface roughness of machined surfaces.
*
Email: markospetousis@yahoo.gr
*
Email: nbilalis@isc.tuc.gr Fax: +302821037253
*
Email: sapidis@aegean.gr
144 Markos A. Petousis, Nickolas Bilalis and Nickolas S. Sapidis
Keywords: Virtual Manufacturing, virtual machining, virtual milling, machining simulation,

surface roughness.
1. INTRODUCTION
The production process simulation is a critical part in the design of the production
process, since it allows the study of process parameters in close to real conditions. The
development of computer graphics considerably extended simulation applications
capabilities. Virtual Reality initially was only exploited for visualization and interaction
between the product and the designers. The development of the computational systems along
with the increase of the Virtual Reality functionalities and the integration of production
simulation models, significantly extended Virtual Reality capabilities for production
processes study.
Virtual Reality based systems focus on the study of specific production processes, such as
machining processes and are mainly used as supplementary tools of the simulation system.
With the development of techniques for the study of production processes parameters, the
available tools for the study of the product have been considerably improved, allowing the
development of more accurate, complete and detailed virtual models.
In current study the required technologies for the development of a machining processes
simulation virtual environment are presented and the most significant research systems are
reviewed. This study also proposes a methodology for the development of a virtual
environment for machining-process simulation. The technological and research challenges
involved in this methodology are described. These challenges involve cutter path
determination, three-dimensional visualization, material removal simulation, and quantitative-
data estimation using graphical models related to the actually performed process. A graphical
model for surface roughness has been developed and is presented in the current study. This
model has been exploited in the development of a virtual environment for machining
processes simulation. Finally, the operation of the whole system developed by the authors for
machining-process simulation in a virtual environment is presented.
2.VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT SYSTEMS

FOR MACHINING PROCESSES SIMULATION
Virtual reality has been used for the simulation of several different industrial processes,
such as the development of virtual prototypes and the real time simulation of manufacturing
processes [1]. In particular for the machining processes, virtual environments have been used
for the study of different parameters. Studies aiming at the verification of the process are
related mainly with the determination of the process feasibility, with the predefined set of
process parameters. In the system of Dae Kyun Baek et al. [2] a prediction model of chip
volume per tooth in milling operations using a numerical control (NC) verification model was
developed. The chip volume is important machining process parameter for the determination
of the cutting forces and the prediction of the chip load on a cutter tooth. For the
Virtual Reality as a tool for Machining-Processes Simulation and Evaluation 145
determination of the chip volume, the cutter swept volumes along the path were calculated
from the information obtained from NC codes as well as the feed-rate.
The system of X. Tian et al. [3] for a predefined NC program, where feedrate, spindle
speed and cutter path are determined, determines the possibility of collisions during the
execution of the machining process. Studies of specific process parameters, such as cutting
force, power, tool-life and surface roughness, aim to optimize their values, by modifying the
NC program [4, 5], in order to improve machining process results, such as the machining
accuracy. Li et al. [5] developed a framework of a NC program optimization system based on
virtual machining. The framework is developed based on an actual machining system,
including a machine tool, a cutting tool, a set of fixture and a workpiece. With this
framework, the machining process driven by a NC program in the actual environment can be
simulated, to acquire adequate information for error compensation and cutting parameter
optimization. The NC program is interpreted according to the programming regulations of NC
instructions and a syntax check report is given; as the virtual machining process is going on.
Collision detection is also carried out according to the relative position of the moving
geometrical models of virtual machining environment. Finally, virtual workpiece is produced
for accuracy prediction and evaluation.
Systems aiming at the design, modelling and implementation of production plans are
focused on errors detection in the executed operations [5-8]. Chryssolouris et al. [6]
developed a virtual machine shop environment in order to support process verification in
terms of geometrical, technical and economic characteristics. The features of this
environment enable the user to set up a process, to operate a machine tool, to edit and execute
an NC part program in an immersive and interactive way. Jitender et al. [8] presented an
overview of a comprehensive finite element method (FEM) based milling process plan
verification model and associated tools. The method is considering the effects of fixturing,
operation sequence, tool path and cutting parameters. The milling process is simulated in a
transient 3D virtual environment and the part thin wall deflections and elastic–plastic
deformations during machining are predicted.
Because of the nature of the virtual reality technology, several studies are aiming at the
visualization of the machining process results [9-11]. In order to achieve that, the intersection
between the cutter and the workpiece must be determined, exploiting process kinematics [9],
the cutter swept volume must be calculated [12] and the chip removal can also be simulated,
with the exploitation of appropriate illumination models [13]. Peng et al. [11] developed a
novel Virtual Reality-based system for interactive modular fixture configuration design. A
multi-view based modular fixture assembly model was exploited to assist information
representation and management. Based on geometric constraints, a precise 3D manipulation
approach was proposed to improve intuitive interaction and accurate 3D positioning of fixture
components in virtual space. Thus, the modular fixture configuration design task can
precisely be performed in virtual space. Jang et al. [12] developed a voxel-based simulator for
multi-axis CNC machining. The simulator displays the machining process in which the initial
workpiece is incrementally converted into the finished part. The voxel representation is used
to model efficiently the state of the in-process workpiece, which is generated by successively
subtracting tool swept volumes from the workpiece. The voxel representation also simplifies
the computation of regularised Boolean set operations and of material removal volumes. By
using the material removal rate measured by the number of removed voxels, the feedrate can
be adjusted adaptively to increase the machining productivity.
Virtual reality has also been exploited for training in machining processes [6, 11, 14, 15].
Mousavi et al. [14] studied the application of haptic feedback in Virtual Reality to enhance
user performance in manufacturing. The aim of the study was to improve the results from the
usage of Virtual Reality as a tool for training applications in manufacturing, since haptic
interfaces have the potential to enhance communication and interaction via the computer
enabling affective expressive interpersonal communication and enriching interaction by
haptic feedback. Duffy et al. [15] developed an intelligent virtual reality-based training
system to take advantage of the way people appear to respond to auditory and visual cues.
Training scenarios were developed based on the idea that many times human errors in
industry are shown to coincide with conditions that are infrequently encountered. Knowledge
and auditory cues for different machining conditions for a computer-numerical-control (CNC)
milling machine were built into the existing knowledge base. A simulated tool breakage that
consisted of an animation, text and sound of glass breaking was integrated into a virtual
training sequence and was triggered by the failure to stop operation in the poor cutting
condition represented by sub-optimum spindle speed and cutting sound. An analysis was
conducted to determine the impact of the simulated accident on decision-making performance
in a real machining task.
For the implementation of a virtual reality system for machining processes simulation,
technologies, such as cutter path determination, material removal simulation and quantitative
data related to the executed process calculation must be exploited and integrated in the virtual
environment.
For the determination of the cutter path from the CAD/CAM system data several methods
have been presented [16 - 18]. Methods are diversified according to the cutter geometry and
the number of axis of the CNC machine. Methods aim at the determination of the parallel to
the geometry trajectory, in which the cutter has to move in order to produce the required
shape. In most of the methods the geometry of the part is approximated with parametric
surface boundaries in the 3d space from which the offset trajectory is being determined,
according to the type and the geometry of the selected cutter.
Workpiece material removal simulation in solid models is determined by defining the

sweep volume of the cutter as a three dimensional geometrical model. This geometrical model
is being subtracted from the workpiece with the use of Boolean operations to produce the new
shape of the workpiece. For sweep volumes calculation the three dimensional model
geometry and the cutter trajectory are being mathematically defined [19].
In solid modelling systems [20], surfaces and edges are expressed with mathematical
equations and the intersections between the surfaces and the edges of each model are
determined. In systems where the three dimensional geometry is defined with polygons,
algorithms have been presented for the determination of the section between polygons
(polygon clipping algorithms) [21]. These algorithms are used in solid modelling systems for
the visualization of the subtracted geometry.
Another approach for the implementation of Boolean operations between three
dimensional geometries is based in the differentiation and approximation of the model
geometry. For the determination of the intersection between geometrical models, the
intersection between each elementary geometrical model is determined. The intersecting
elementary geometrical models are removed from the geometry. Octree [22] is a geometry
differentiation method being used in Boolean operations [23]. Octree is based in the
approximation of the three dimensional geometry with elementary cubic volumes and the
further subdivision of each volume until the geometry is approximated with adequate
accuracy. Marching cubes is a similar to octree method, which was used along with finite
elements for material removal simulation in machining [24].
Finally, the most important exploitation of the virtual reality technology in machining
simulation systems is the determination of quantitative data, such as the machined surface
roughness [25] and the cutting forces [26 - 28]. Machined surface quality, cutting forces,
required power and cutter wear, are all production quantitative parameters that contribute in
the improvement of the machining result appraisal during the product design phase. Prior to
the introduction of quantitative data determination tools in the production design processes,
empirical or experimental methods were used.
CAM systems are the most common machining simulation tools, but they are unable to
provide quantitative data for the machining process. Quantitative data are determined in
different systems that employ mainly analytic or numerical methods. Antoniadis et al. [29]
presented a numerical method for quantitative data determination (cutting forces and surface
roughness) in milling processes with ball end cutting tools. The method is based in workpiece
modelling by linear segments that decrease their height at the interaction point with the cutter
cutting edge. From the cut out part of the needle, in every step of the differentiated cutting
tool movement, the size of the cutting chip is determined and from that the cutting forces are
calculated. From the remaining needles shape the machined surface is determined which is
used for surface roughness determination. Engin et al. [30] proposed a generalized
mathematical model for predicting cutting forces, vibrations, dimensional surface finish and
stability lobes in milling. The model is based in the mathematical modelling of the cutter with
helical flutes defined in a parametric volume. Liu et al. [31] developed a model for the
determination of peripheral milling dynamic parameters. The model is based in the
determination of the vibrations between the workpiece and the cutter that influence cutting
forces. The geometry and kinematics of the cutter are considered for the determination of the
machined surface, from which surface roughness is being calculated.
Several analytical methods have been presented for surface roughness parameters
determination in milling processes. These methods are considering the cutting speed, the feed,
the depth of cut and vibrations as parameters and employ mathematical equations, such as the
multiple regression equation [32] for the determination of the surface roughness parameters.
Tseng et al. [33] state that in conventional metal removal processes an exact prediction of
surface roughness is difficult to achieve, due to the stochastic nature of the machining
processes and they propose the use of a data mining technique to solve the quality assurance
problem in predicting the acceptance of computer numerical control (CNC) machined parts,
rather than focusing on the prediction of precise surface roughness values. Rough set theory
data mining technique was applied to derive rules for the process variables that contribute to
the surface roughness. The proposed rule-composing algorithm and rule-validation procedure
was tested with the historical data the company has collected over the years. The results
indicate a higher accuracy over the statistical approaches in terms of predicting acceptance
level of surface roughness.
For the calculation of the cutting forces in milling, research is focused on different
processes parameters, such as the determination of the cutting forces equation coefficients
[34] and the chip thickness [35]. Generic mathematical approaches have also been presented
[36 - 39]. These models focus on processes in different machining surfaces types, such as
inclined surfaces [37] or freeform surfaces [38]. Additionally, models employing
visualization technologies, such as solid modelling tools [40], for the determination of the
intersection between the cutter and the workpiece have been presented. Moreover, models
have been presented for the study of specific cutting conditions, such as the vibrations
between the cutter and the workpiece [39].
In the systems described in the current section, virtual reality graphics environments have
been integrated with mathematical models, in order to extend their functionalities, by adding
the capability to determine critical quantitative parameters of the simulated machining
process. The current study proposes an integrated methodology for the development of a
virtual reality based milling processes visualization and simulation system, capable of
determining the roughness of the machined surfaces in the virtual environment.
3.METHODOLOGY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A VIRTUAL

ENVIRONMENT FOR 3 AXIS MILLING PROCESS SIMULATION
In this section a methodology is proposed for the development of a virtual reality based
milling processes visualization and simulation system, capable of determining the roughness
of the machined surfaces in the virtual environment.
In the proposed methodology (Figure 1) different technologies required in order to
achieve such a simulation and visualization system are developed and integrated. Each of
these technologies contains different algorithms, which are diverted to equivalent software
libraries during the development process of such systems.
In Figure 1 these algorithms and software libraries are listed. The system contains main
and auxiliary subsystems, each of which is developed with an equivalent technology and
serves a specific functionality in the virtual environment. For each of the subsystems’
technologies a simulation model was developed.
With respect to machining process quantitative data estimation the proposed model
integrates a graphical model for surface roughness estimation and a virtual tool for
measurement and display of the results. Surface roughness in machining is a parameter
related with the geometrical characteristics of the abnormalities produced by the cutter in the
machined surface. Surface roughness is an important parameter in machining, since it affects
surface quality and product functional characteristics. Good surface roughness reduces
friction on the machined surface, increases product wear resistance, improves product
appearance and mechanisms functionality.
In the next sections the technology for the development of each of the virtual
environment subsystems simulation models is described.
3.1. Cutter Path Determination
In the proposed methodology the CNC milling machine part production program file
produced in the CAM software (G-code commands program file) is being read from its file.
A parsing algorithm has been developed. This algorithm parses and recognizes the G-
code commands and the corresponding numerical values in each command. The information
is converted into linear, curvilinear and rotational mathematical equations of the cutter
trajectory in space [41]. The developed algorithm supports compensation. Compensation is

the cutter trajectory offset to the defined geometry at a distance equal to the cutter radii, in
which the cutter has to move, in order to produce the defined geometry. So, if a compensation
G-code command has been defined, the algorithm determines the equivalent offset cutter
trajectory. In this case the coordinates of the geometry vertices and the cutter radii are given
in the G-code command and the CNC machine controller has to determine the offset
trajectory from these data.
Figure 1. Methodology for the development of a virtual reality based milling processes visualization
and simulation system.
The linear, curvilinear and rotational mathematical equations of the cutter trajectory in
space are exploited for the visualization of the cutter movement relative to the workpiece in
the virtual environment, in order to preserve the cutting conditions defined in the G-code
program file. This integration of the virtual environment with the CAM software, through the
G-code program file was necessary, in order to ensure that the process studied in the proposed
system is the same with the one produced in the CAM system and to be able to verify the
quantitative data calculated with this methodology with experiments executed in real
production environments. The verification process is mainly based on the execution of a G-
code program file in the real and the virtual environment, calculation of the surface roughness
quantitative data (surface topomorphy and surface roughness parameters values) with the
developed model in the virtual environment, measurement of the corresponding surface
roughness data in the real experiment and comparison of the two results [42].
3.2. Three Dimensional Geometrical Models
For the development of the system, the geometrical models of the environment were
produced with the use of CAD and polygons tools.
Solid and surface models are used in contemporary systems for three dimensional
geometry definitions. Several methods have been presented for geometrical models
visualization. In most graphics systems three dimensional geometry is visualized with the use
of shaded polygons (usually triangles), which approximate the shape of the geometry
In the proposed system, the machine shop building, the machines, the cutters and the
environment parts where drafted with the use of Pro Engineer. Workpiece geometrical model
is defined with the use of virtual environment dynamic geometry tools that provide the ability
to modify the geometrical model shape in real time. The use of dynamic geometry is
necessary, in order to visualize the material removal from the workpiece during machining
processes simulation.
3.3. Workpiece Material Removal Simulation
In the proposed methodology the material removal is visualized by modifying workpiece

polygon vertices coordinates, according to cutter position in real time. For the modification of
the workpiece polygon vertices, the coordinates of the vertices are compared with the
coordinates of the lowest cutter section, in each position of the cutter trajectory. The cutter
trajectory is expressed as sequence of linear and curvilinear mathematical equations in the 3d
space. To visualize the machine axis kinematics and the material removal, the cutter is placed
in discrete positions on the trajectory. In each position the cutter lowest section coordinates
are compared with the workpiece vertices coordinates. This comparison checks if a workpiece
vertex is inside the cutter volume at the current cutter position. For every vertex inside the
cutter volume, its Z coordinate is decreased to the lowest cutter section Z coordinate at this
position. This process is repeated for all the workpiece vertices in the cutter position area. In
this way the workpiece shape is changing in real time, during the machining process
simulation, according to the cutter movements in space.
The algorithm for the determination of the intersection between the workpiece and the
cutter and the visualization of the workpiece material removal when simulating a milling
process in the virtual environment is shown in Figure 2.
3.4. Quantitative Data Parameters Determination in Machining Processes
In the proposed methodology a model has been developed [41] for the determination of
surface roughness parameters in the machined surface. The model is able to determine the
machined surface topomorphy and calculate surface roughness parameters values (Ra, Ry, Rti,
Rz). The machined surface topomorphy and all the data calculated with this model are
visualized in the virtual environment (Figure 3).
In the presented model, cutter motion relative to the workpiece is simulated, monitored
and studied, according to the predefined cutting conditions, for the determination of the
machined surface topomorphy. In the model the parameters that are considered in surface
roughness formation are the cutting speed, feed, cutting depth, cutter diameter, height, cutter
end, number of teeth and cutting edges geometry. Parameters that contribute to the surface
roughness formation, such as the cutter material, quality and type of cutter, quality of jigs and
fixtures, the use of lubricant and vibrations in the machining process are not considered.
Figure 2. Workpiece material removal algorithm.
(a) the quantitative data table (on the right) in the virtual environment.
(b) Up Milling, sz=0.2mm/rev,edge, txy=0.4mm, tz=0.3mm,

ball-end cutter D20, z=1, P02 (TiN), Ck60.
Figure 3. Surface Roughness results calculated with the developed model as they are presented in the
virtual environment.
The model for the determination of the machined surface topomorphy was implemented
in a three dimensional graphics environment developed in OpenGL (Figure 4). In the model
the cutter motion relative to the workpiece is being simulated according to cutting conditions
defined in the G code file. These conditions are the tool path, the spindle speed in rpm and the
feed in mm/min. During simulation the cutter sweep surface is calculated, by determining
cutting edges sweep surface. From the cutting edges sweep surface the machined surface of
the process is determined.
For the determination of cutting edges sweep surface during machining simulation, the
cutter is being modelled, according to the shape and number of its cutting edges. Cutting
edges shape is defined from the outer edge profile of each cutting edge, which defines the
overall cutter profile. Each cutting edge is being differentiated in equal elementary segments
that could be considered as straight lines. The number of segments for the differentiation of
the cutting edge is being chosen in the software interface.
The cutter path relative to the workpiece is also being differentiated. The cutter is being
successively placed in the differentiated path positions, according to the cutting conditions
(spindle speed, feed). When the cutter is placed in the next discrete position of the tool path, it
changes its position in space but it also revolves around the axis of revolution at an angle
calculated from the spindle speed. The sweep surface of each cutting edge is determined and
stored for each two adjacent discrete positions. For the determination of the cutting edge
sweep surface, between two discrete positions, every differentiated cutting edge segment is
stored. For every cutting edge segment, between two adjacent positions (Figure 5a) a linear
surface is defined (Figure 5b), which is subsequently divided into four triangular surfaces, by
adding a node in the “middle” of the surface (Figure 5c). This is necessary in order to avoid
crossed cutting edge segment ends (Figure 6) and to convert the linear surface into four flat
surfaces.
Figure 4. OpenGL machining processes simulation environment for machined surface topomorphy
determination.
The sweep surface of each differentiated cutting edge segment between two adjacent
positions is defined by the four triangle surfaces (Figure 7). The sweep surfaces produced by
all differentiated cutting edge segments form the cutting edge sweep surface between two
adjacent positions of the cutter path. This process is repeated for all the cutting edges of the
selected cutter in this specific machining process.
The process for the determination of the cutting edge sweep surface between two discrete
cutter path positions is repeated for the entire cutter path, to determine the sweep surface of
the cutter during the machining process (Figure 8). The part of the sweep surface inside the
workpiece limits is the machined surface that is the geometry produced by the cutter during
this machining process. A clipping algorithm is used to determine the part of the sweep
surface inside the workpiece limits (Figure 9).
Figure 5. Sweep surface of a differentiated cutting edge segment.
Figure 6. For specific ball end cutter positions, two adjacent positions of the differentiated cutting edge
segments could produce the shape shown.
Figure 7. Sweep surface of a differentiated cutting edge segment for two adjacent cutter path
positions.
Figure 8. Cutting edges sweep surface along the cutter path.

Figure 9. Clipping algorithm for the cutter sweep surface. The constructed geometry is the part of the
cutter sweep surface inside workpiece limits.
Sweep surface has overlapping triangles, since part of each cutting edge sweep is being
overlapped by the next cutting edge sweep or the next cutter pass sweep. The final workpiece
surface must be determined from the clipped cutter sweep surface. The final machined surface
is the one defined by the lower part of the clipped cutter sweep surface. If the cutter sweep
surface is projected from its down side, the final machined surface topomorphy is derived,
since the overlapped triangles are not visible in this projection, because the hidden line
algorithm projects on the user interface only the geometry visible in each point of view. This
final machined surface topomorphy is derived from this projection in the form of cloud of
points. The coordinates for the cloud of points are determined. The pixels used to visualize
the machined surface are converted into X and Y coordinates in the graphics environment
coordinate system. For these pixels the Z coordinate is derived from the visualization system
Z buffer, which provides the distance between the camera and the object visualized in each
pixel. In surface roughness parameters determination, the difference between the lowest and
the highest edge on a surface profile is considered, so this value for the Z coordinate is
suitable. Calculations for surface roughness parameters are being performed in a transformed
coordinate system, which is locally defined in the surface profile. The cloud of points
coordinates describing the machined surface topomorphy are exported in a text file and they
are used to calculate quantitative parameters for the machined surface roughness.
In order to determine the surface roughness parameters, the user has to define the
measurement plane on the machined surface. This process is followed in real surface
roughness measurements. For the determination of the measurement plane, a handler was
developed on the equivalent quantitative data table on the virtual environment. The handler
defines a plane vertical to the machined surface in which topomorphy will be determined and
surface roughness parameters will be calculated from this topomorphy. System user defines
the position of each handler end. Handler ends define surface roughness measurement plane
limits.
For surface roughness parameters determination, cloud points on the vertical
measurement plane defined by the system user or in a small width distance from the plane are
retrieved from the exported in the previous step cloud of points file. This is necessary because
the direction for measurement is randomly selected by the system user, so the number of
topomorphy cloud points exactly on the measurement plane may be small and as a result
surface roughness parameters calculation accuracy could be decreased. From the points on the
selected measurement plane, the topomorphy of the machined surface within the plane limits
is determined and surface roughness parameters such as Ra, Ry, Rti, Rz and surface
topomorphy mean line are calculated. In the quantitative data table, surface topomorphy and
mean line are visualized in a specially developed graph and also surface parameter values are
shown.
The results calculated with the developed model for machined surface roughness
parameters determination, were verified with data determined in cutting experiments and by
another numerical model that was integrated to the system. The results were found to be in
agreement with both the numerical model and the experiments [42].
4. THE PROPOSED VIRTUAL MACHINING

PROCESS SIMULATION SYSTEM
CAD lab from the Technical University of Crete developed a virtual machine shop
environment based on the methodology presented in this study. The virtual environment was
developed with the commercial Virtual Reality platform PTC Developer Toolkit and ANSI C
programming language for the realistic visualization of the machining processes. A complete
machine shop is being visualized and the functional characteristics of a three axes CNC
milling machine are being simulated. The structure of the machining processes simulation
system is shown in Figure 10.
Figure 10. Structure of the machining processes simulation system.
In Figure 11 the virtual environment for machining processes simulation is presented.

The user can fly trough the virtual environment, interact with all the objects and manually
manipulate the CNC machine. For the execution of a machining process, the user has to select
workpiece dimensions and cutter from the corresponding data table. The CNC machine
executes the defined machining process. CNC machine axes move realistically according to
the path and the feed defined in the program and spindle revolves with the predefined speed.
During machining process simulation, workpiece material removal is being visualized when
the cutter intersects the workpiece and data related to the process are being visualized.
Moreover, information like the G-code command simulated in the CNC machine, feed,
spindle speed and cutter trajectory are being visualized in a data table. When the simulation is
completed, user is able to select the surface roughness measurement area in the equivalent
virtual environment data table and hence acquire quantitative data for surface roughness
parameters and the measurement area topomorphy (Figure 12). Finally, the entire machined
surface topomorphy (Figure 13) can be visualized as a three dimensional model, that can be
inspected from different perspectives.
Aim of the developed a virtual machine shop environment is the integration of virtual
environments with production design processes. The system extends CAM system
capabilities, since it provides higher level visualization functionalities and quantitative data
for the production process defined in the CAM system. So, the developed virtual machine
shop environment could be employed as a verification tool, providing qualitative and critical
quantitative data for the machining process defined in the CAM system. It can also be
exploited as a training tool, because of the realistic visualization of the executed processes in
the virtual environment.
Figure 11. Machining processes simulation virtual environment.
Up Milling, sz=0.2mm/rev,edge, Up Milling, sz=0.3mm/rev,edge,

txy=0.5mm, tz=0.3mm, ball-end cutter txy=0.3mm, tz=0.3mm, ball-end cutter
D20, z=1, P02 (TiN), Ck60 D20, z=1, P02 (TiN), Ck60
Figure 12. Quantitative data for surface roughness parameters and the measurement area topomorphy in
the virtual environment for different machining conditions
Up Milling, sz=0.2mm/rev,edge, txy=0.3mm, tz=0.3mm, ball-end cutter D20, z=1, P02

(TiN), Ck60
Figure 13. 3d representations of the machined surface topomorphy.
5. VERIFICATION OF THE DEVELOPED MODEL FOR MACHINING

PROCESSES QUANTITATIVE DATA CALCULATION
The results acquired by the model were verified with the experimentally verified
machining simulation numerical model MSN (Milling Simulation by Needles) [29] and data
from experiments. A verification model has been developed that follows a two steps process
for the verification of the system results [42]. First the machined surface topomorphy
accuracy is validated and then the calculated parameter values are being directly compared.
Moreover, a wide variety of cutting experiments was implemented with different cutting
conditions (up/down milling, change of feed, step over and depth of cut) to directly
quantitatively and qualitatively verify the model results. Figure 14 shows a typical correlation
performed between the computational and the experimental results for two different cutting
conditions. The left image of this figure shows the experimental topomorphy. The middle and
the right image of the same figure shows the computationally produced surface topomorphy,
in two different ways, in iso-surface form and in 3D form. The correlation between the
experimental and the computational results exhibits that the topomorphies are in good
agreement, considering that there are parameters that could not be taken into account in the
developed computational model. Overall the verification of the developed model showed that
the results acquired by the system are in agreement with both the employed numerical model
and the experimental results.
Figure 14. Comparison between the experimental and the determined surface topomorphy.
CONCLUSIONS
Currently there is a tendency for Virtual Reality characteristics and production processes
models integration. This tendency is leading to the creation of the next generation simulation
systems that will provide quantitative data for the process, increased visualization, fly through
and interaction capabilities in a virtual environment. Functionality for achieving an exact
representation of reality is still missing from the virtual environments for machining
processes simulation presented so far, but the comprehension of what is actually being carried
out in the real world is improved. The research in this area is showing adequate maturity but
the final form of these simulation systems for use in real industrial environments has not yet
been delimited, although significant systems have been presented.
This study proposes a methodology for the development of a machining processes
simulation system with Virtual reality functional characteristics. In this methodology the
required technologies for the development of a virtual environment for machining processes
simulation are presented and integrated. Each of these technologies is a different research
area. A virtual environment for milling processes simulation has been developed with this
methodology. The virtual environment provides realistic visualization of the executed milling
process, it is integrated with CAM systems, but the most significant capability of the
environment is that it is able to calculate and visualize in 3d quantitative data related with the
machined surface roughness. All the required algorithms for the development of the virtual
environment have been developed by the authors. The model for the calculation of
quantitative data related to the machined surface roughness is based on the Z buffer of the
graphics subsystem. The model was verified with data from real experiments and a numerical
model. The verification process showed that, although the verification method followed does
not completely confront the stochastic behaviour of machining processes, the results acquired
by the system are in agreement with both the employed numerical model and the
experimental results, making the model suitable for integration in production design
processes. This result can easily lead to the conclusion that 3d graphics and Virtual Reality
environments are nowadays capable of not only visualizing real world processes, but also
provide data related with these processes which is either not feasible or very difficult to be
determined with conventional methods.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The project is co-funded by the European Social Fund and National Resources –
EPEAEK II –IRAKLITOS
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Chapter 7
VIRTUAL REALITY AS A TOOL TO IMPROVE

THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF PEOPLE WITH AUTISM
AND LEARNING DIFFICULTIES
Lucia Vera*, Gerardo Herrera2,† and Marcos Fernandez3,‡

1,3
Artec Group and 2Autism and Learning Difficulties Group, Robotics Institute,
University of Valencia, P.O. Box 2085, 46017 Valencia, Spain
ABSTRACT
In the last 10 years, the research in the area of Technology and Computer Science
applied to specific treatment and training has increased. In the recent literature it is
possible to find research in a wide variety of areas, from applications developed to treat
phobias to systems for learning, training and improving the skills of people with special
needs. Virtual Reality (VR) has been claimed as one of the most powerful environments
to help in the learning and training process of people with special needs. This kind of
application offers the possibilities of teaching in a controlled and structured environment,
with opportunities for repetition and generalization to the real world, and facilitates the
social participation and the representation of abstract concepts. These characteristics are
suitable for helping people with autism and learning difficulties.
In this paper we focus our attention on the use of VR applications for improving the
learning, training and quality of life of people with autism and learning difficulties. After
revising the most recent developments in the area of computer graphics applied to people
with learning difficulties, we will try to highlight the most relevant issues of this kind of
application to better fit the necessities of the final user. As an example, we describe our
two main applications developed for helping people with autism and learning difficulties
in their learning process: a virtual supermarket and a virtual school. On one hand, the
virtual supermarket was developed with the main objective of training people with autism
in concept development and imagination. VR makes it possible to explicitly show
imaginary/magic transformations in how an object can act as if it were a different one,
*
E-mail: Lucia.Vera@uv.es
†
Gerardo.Herrera@uv.es
‡
Marcos.Fernandez@uv.es
164 Lucia Vera, Gerardo Herrera and Marcos Fernandez
which is useful for training both abstract concepts and imagination understanding.
Additionally, this virtual environment allows the interaction with different virtual objects,
making possible to learn more about their correct usage or how to play with them, both
skills where people with autism has problems.
On the other hand, the virtual school is an application under development with the
main purpose of training people with autism in social understanding and interaction,
another problematic skill for this group. The integration of virtual characters who can
interact with the user allows simulation of social situations in which users can participate
and be involved, obtain affective engagement, and try to develop their social skills and
communication. Also, it is possible to train them in emotion recognition and
understanding and associate each emotion with specific situations.
This chapter concludes with a revision of the methodology used to test this type of
application with people with autism, and with more relevant research outcomes obtained
in this field.
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, the area of computer graphics is widely used in a variety of applications for
specific purposes. We can find information about 3D representations of future buildings or
houses most of the time only with the objective of visualization; computer and console games
with high-quality graphics, in which the player can live a different experience inside the
virtual world; film scenes and characters that are generated using computer graphics; or
virtual simulators for training in driving vehicles, such as cars, buses or trains. From
entertainment to training, there is a wide variety of applications in which the use of computer
graphics is very popular.
a b
Figure 1. a) A virtual driving simulator developed at the Robotics Institute of the University of
Valencia. b) A virtual simulator for training in collaborative sea rescue developed at the Robotics
Institute of the University of Valencia.
In this context, it is possible to consider the use of computer graphics applications in

education. In fact, there is an emergent research area that tries to analyze the results and
improvements of the learning methodology by using interactive graphic systems for teaching
specific concepts in an amusing environment. The technology is each day more accessible to
children, not only at home but also at school. There are scholarly subjects only related to
Virtual Reality as a Tool to Improve the Quality of Life of People … 165
technology, and there is a common interest in all schools to introduce new computer-based
programs and applications for teaching specific concepts included in the school curriculum.
In the area of people with special needs, the application of new technologies is starting to
produce good results in the education and intervention process, which could help in the
improvement of the quality of life of these people. In our context, the “intervention process”
can be understood as daily work with people with learning difficulties, developed by
professionals in psychology and special education, focusing on the specific skills in which
these people have difficulties.
The idea of creating useful applications for teaching and training specific concepts (such
as academic, social or communicative skills) seems to be of interest to all associations and
special schools. There are efforts to describe the characteristics and possibilities of the use of
new technologies in the education of students with special needs [WAT01]. These new
technologies are defined in this context as ‘technological instruments for the compensation
and help in the intervention of students with special needs’ [TD00].
This chapter is based on the idea of using new technologies—in our case, computer
graphics—for people with learning difficulties. The projects described in this chapter try to
promote the use of computer graphics to create helping tools for teachers and professionals in
special education in their intervention and educational process for people with special needs.
In the following sections we describe the group of people to whom these graphic
applications are addressed, the state of the art in computer graphics for education, the
advantages of using computer graphics applications as educational tools, and a description of
the two projects developed in this area. Finally, we present a methodology used to test these
applications in people with autism, along with some conclusions and possible future work.
AUTISM AND LEARNING DIFFICULTIES

The area of special education is very wide and involves a large collective of people with
different characteristics. We focus our attention on developing graphics applications for

people with autism and learning difficulties. It is important to review these two concepts and
clarify the main characteristics of the public to whom each of the applications is oriented.
First of all, Lorna Wing [APA94] defines autism spectrum disorders (hereafter referred to
as ‘autism’) as the simultaneous presence of a triad of impairments in social interaction,
communication and restrictive, repetitive and stereotypic patterns of behavior, interests and
activities. This definition has been used by the American Psychiatric Association in its
Manual for Diagnosis and Statistics [BOG03].
Approximately three out of every four people with autism also present learning
difficulties. Within the context of educational interventions, we speak about ‘learning
difficulties’ to make reference to those whose origin stems from a biological impairment
rather than socio-environmental factors. Thus, learning difficulties are impairments that limit
the development and putting into practice of communicative and/or academic and/or social
abilities. The degree of development in this set of abilities is intimately related to the degree
of autonomy and community integration (social, educational, labour) that the individual
reaches, and it is also related to their quality of life.
Imagination is an ill-defined concept that involves conscious dissociation from reality

and the mental manipulation of the environment. Behaviour that is said to entail imagination
involves spontaneity and intention rather than response and creativity.
Another important characteristic of people with autism is the difficulty and delay in
understanding symbolism, especially in relation to symbolic play. It is not clear whether such
difficulties and delays represent a core deficit in imagination or whether they result from
other aspects of autism [JOR03].
Those who suffer from both autism and learning difficulties especially tend to have
problems in understanding imagination, which can be observed in a wide range of activities,
including symbolic play activities.
The enormous attraction that people with autism and learning difficulties feels towards
computers has motivated our group and other research groups to develop applications in this
field.
BACKGROUND
Nowadays, the development of software oriented to help people with special needs in
their learning process is a growing area of research. We can find applications with different
characteristics, from web resources to virtual reality projects.
The most popular software and tools available for special and mainstream education are
based on 2D graphics and web pages, with interactive content organised depending on the
specific area of knowledge to work with. Most of these applications have interactive games to
work in most of the areas included in the school curriculum. In most of them you can find
contents in these four topics:
• Tools to Work on Social Skills: in this area it is possible to find games or interactive
lessons to learn about personal cleanliness, products for personal cleanliness, external
appearance, clothes, kitchen utensils and the rules and usage of kitchen utensils.
• Tools to Work on Cognitive Skills: in this area there are applications to learn about
colours, shapes, basic concepts, objects classification, order, likenesses and
differences.
• Tools to Work on Written Language.
• Tools to Work on Numeric Skills: where you can find concepts like decimal
numeration, addition and subtraction.
Some examples of these kinds of applications (used in Spain by a lot of schools and
associations) are SEDEA Program, a computer application for the intervention process in the
development of the hearing and language of children [OEP03] (see Figure 2); PEAPO, a web
site with an easy to use resource that tries to promote the communication and autonomy
capabilities in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) [PER00]; EDU356, a Web site
with multimedia activities oriented to promoting and reinforcing the educative contents for
children of different ages [DEC02]; Hola Amigo, an educational graphic interface for
learning non-verbal communication using the language of SPC (or Pictographic Symbols
System for non-verbal communication) [ASP99].
Figure 2. Snapshot of the interface used in the SEDEA program (copyright Onda Educa).
But if we pay attention to the state of the art of computer graphics applications and
specifically 3D graphics, there are not many research projects developed in the area of
education for people with learning difficulties. We can find a complete and more or less up to
date review of virtual reality applications oriented to people with special needs in [LGK06].
In this review there is a classification of applications depending on the final user and the
specific purpose of each system. They review the most important existing applications for
blind children, people with physical disabilities, hearing and speech impaired children and
people with some kind of phobias.
But our interest lies in virtual applications for people with autism and learning
difficulties. In this field, they highlight some important projects:
• “Returning Home”, a scenario for autistic children to help the educator to create a
coherent organisation of certain important everyday activities [CKS00].
• The Aurora project, which develops an interactive robotic system for therapeutic
purposes in teaching children with autism [AUR]. See Figure 3.
• Collaborative Virtual Environment to analyse the ability of children with autism to
understand basic emotions represented by an avatar [MCM05].
• Some other projects and groups which use virtual reality for different purposes.
Additionally, we can highlight the developments done by two main groups, the VIRART
Group at Nottingham University and the Autism and Learning Difficulties Group of the
Robotics Institute at the University of Valencia, whose members are authors of this chapter.
The VIRART Group, using the author tool named Superscape (from Dimension
International) has developed some software aimed both at people with learning difficulties
and autism [BSL02]. Their software includes a set of virtual environments (see Figure 4) with
the graphics quality and degree of adaptability to specific needs that this author tool allows
(which are much lower than low-level real time graphics libraries, such as those that we
mention further on). This software can be downloaded for free from the project Web site and
is only available in English. Within those environments, it is possible to work on a wide
variety of abilities. Whether or not individuals with autism adhere to particular social
conventions in virtual environments was assessed. Different degrees of success were found
[PML05], with results suggesting that some individuals with an ASD, low verbal IQ and
weak executive ability require the most support to complete tasks successfully in the virtual
environment (VE).
Figure 3. One of the robots used in the Aurora Project (copyright University of Hertfordshire)[RDB08].
Figure 4. Scene of the software developed by Virart Group (copyright University of Nottingham).
Figure 5. Virtual supermarket developed at the University of Valencia.
At the University of Valencia we have developed a virtual supermarket for teaching

environmental understanding and for training in imagination (see Figure 5). This tool is freely
distributed in Spanish, with the English version being under development [HLF01]. We are
also developing another application, a virtual school oriented toward working on the social,
cognitive and imagination skills for children with autism and Down syndrome [VHV05]. We
will explain the main ideas of both applications in the following sections.
Even though these groups have done the largest amount of research into those aspects of
learning difficulties related to this paper, other groups and studies also exist whose focus is
slightly different from this subject. This is the case of the Virtual Environment Laboratory at
the University of Southern California (USC), with an immersive virtual reality environment
(a classroom) for the assessment (non educational) of attention deficits [RIZ00] or the
University of Texas Medical branch, which developed a virtual reality meal preparation for
the treatment of mental deficits due to traumatic brain injury [CAO98]. And other
collaborative environments for people with Down syndrome and applications for teaching
social skills for people with autism [LGK06].
All of these applications take into account the advantages of the use of VR to develop
systems with specific purposes. In the next section we would like to highlight the main
benefits of using this kind of technology for people with special needs.
ADVANTAGES OF VR TOOLS FOR PEOPLE WITH

AUTISM AND LEARNING DIFFICULTIES
Information technologies (IT) have been claimed as effective, comfortable, facilitative
and emotionally engaging contexts for learning in individual with autism [MUR97]. It is
generally advanced that virtual reality offers new opportunities for the education of people
with autism [SMM96]. As this and other later studies report, there is a great number of
aspects of virtual reality that theoretically could benefit someone with learning difficulties
and/or autism. In brief, we may say that virtual reality shares the advantages of computer-
based learning, and has the additional advantage of making it more likely that the results will
generalise to real-world settings in that it is a simulation of them. The possibility of
customising the virtual environment to the specific profile and learning style of each
individual is also an advantage for people with autism.
A virtual environment can be manipulated at will, which makes it possible to show how
an object can be transformed into a different one (for helping them to understand
imagination), and also to change in real-time the properties (size, shape, colour,…) of virtual
objects (to foster understanding of those abstract concepts involved). This kind of
applications provide a particularly facilitatory environment for people with learning
difficulties in that it also offers structure, opportunities for repetition, affective (emotional)
engagement and, additionally, control of the learning environment [HJV06].
Some clear characteristics provided by computer-based systems, which suit well the
structured educational needs of autism and learning difficulties people are [MUR97]:
• clear boundaries
• controlled and step by step presentation of stimuli
• simple and obvious connection of information processed through one channel

• facilitating joint attention by selecting a compatible focus of interest
• restrictive context
• instilling feelings of safety, flexibility, adaptability and predictability of the learning
environment or material
• enhancing development of autonomy, encouraging communication, boosting self-
confidence and reinforcing optimism and respect
Additional analysis stands out the contribution of VR applications to improve the

treatment, training and quality of life of children with disabilities [MJL98].
From a more accurate pedagogical point of view, VR offers advantages for the following
areas [VCH07]:
Environment Understanding
Spatial concepts understanding: as it is possible to manipulate the height and the width of
virtual objects at will, it is also possible to do it in order to illustrate the concept of size,
including distinction between narrow and wide. The same advantage can be found when
talking about concepts of relative position: in front/at the back, on top/below, first one/last
one, put together/move apart, inside/out.
Quantity concepts understanding: it is possible to change in real time the number of
objects that can be seen in a virtual environment, as well as being possible to change other
variables for illustrating a lot/a few, everything/nothing, more/less, full/empty.
Visual concepts and adaptation to visual profiles: the sensory profile of people with
learning difficulties may be very different to the typical one [BOG03]. As it is possible to
change the colours, shapes, texture and luminance of any component at will, it is possible to
adapt any virtual environment for the convenience of the sensory profile of a given individual
with learning difficulties and/or autism. This possibility also allows teaching on recognising
colours, lights and differences among a variety of things.
Virtual environments are also an ideal setting for working on those abilities that would be
potentially hazardous when trained in reality, such as crossing the road, fire practice or how
to face personal injuries. Another abstract concept is time, and it is also another thing that can
be manipulated through programming. For example, it is possible to play with time in order to
show the changes that occur between two different seasons, or to show the growing of a plant,
or to teach concepts such as before/after or quick/ slow.
From Literality to Symbolism
Children’s play evolves from simple manipulation of immediate reality to include more
and more issues of a symbolic nature. As an example, at the beginning, the child starts
playing functionally with realistic toys and later starts to make imaginary substitutions of
some objects for others. Pretence itself offers a framework for the child to become
familiarised with non literal language.
Within a virtual environment, it is possible to teach the preferred cultural use of each
object (by showing virtual actors doing this use) and then teaching how an object can become
or act as if it were a different thing (as in [HAJ04]).
The possibility of participating in first person in such processes is something that, a
priori, would lead to a better learning (at least in those who have difficulties with imitation, as
occurs with people with autism).
Social Abilities
People with learning difficulties often have problems in understanding people and
themselves, what people think or feel and their expression of emotions.
It is hard to isolate and teach all these cognitive ideas in real-life situations due to
competing and confusing stimulation from the social and environmental context. In reality,
everything occurs very fast, with it being difficult to highlight subtle but relevant details that
lead individuals to behave in a given way.
As another way of manipulating time, in virtual reality it is possible to “freeze” people’s
interactions and then carefully explain all the variables involved to those who find it difficult
to understand or manage it socially.
Taking all these aspects into account, it is possible to create a complete tool which can
help professionals in special education, to teach basic concepts and a variety of skills, most of
them difficult to explain and show in the real world. Moreover, most of the concepts that can
be integrated in the application are part of the school curriculum, thus being of special interest
in the educational process of children, who can learn while they are playing (very important
in making the system more appealing). All these ideas make this kind of application a
potential tool to develop specific skills of people with autism and learning difficulties,
improving in some sense, their quality of life.
DESCRIPTION OF VIRTUAL REALITY APPLICATIONS

With all of the previously described concepts and benefits in mind, we can review in
more detail two of our computer graphics applications developed for people with learning
difficulties.
As we mentioned before, the first case is a Virtual Supermarket and the second one is a
Virtual School, this one still under development. Both environments were selected because of
their familiarity to almost everybody. For that reason, entering in these places can be easier
and more relaxed than in others, and the knowledge acquired in them can be generalized to
the real world.
Virtual Supermarket
This application consists of a 3D supermarket with a variety of products, virtual actors

representing different employees and different functionalities available. The basic task in this
tool is to do the shopping. The user has to move inside the supermarket searching for the
products specified in a shopping list (see Figure 6a and 6b). This shopping list is selected at
the beginning and contains the objects to work with in each session. The teacher needs to
organize each session to determine which lists they are going to use depending on the objects
selected to work with.
Navigation inside the environment is done by using a joystick or the keyboard arrows.
The use of a joystick facilitates the interaction for all users because it is more intuitive and
easy to use than the keyboard. Location inside the supermarket is subjectively represented by
a virtual trolley that moves with the user. This trolley also has the functionality of a real
trolley in a supermarket, that is, it works as a container for the products that are necessary to
buy to complete the list.
a b
Figure 6. a) Shopping list. b) Picking an object from the shopping list.
Figure 7. Button panel.
For selecting objects or interactive elements in the virtual setting, it is possible to use the
mouse or a tactile screen. Both interfaces are possible, depending on their availability in the
school or centre where the software is used, but the tactile screen is easier to use for making
selections inside the virtual world, because the individual only has to use his/her finger to
touch the element to be selected.
Besides the traditional tasks inside a supermarket, we offer different functionalities to
work in specific skills in people with learning difficulties, using the capabilities of the virtual
reality applications to introduce educational contents. These functionalities are represented by
pictograms in a toolbar (see Figure 7) and it is possible to change between them only by
selecting the adequate button representing the mode to activate.
These modes are:
• Functional Use and Play: in this case it is possible to teach about the traditionally
accepted usage of each object and how it is possible to play with miniatures of the
object selected. In both cases the information is shown using pre-recorded videos
integrated in the virtual world.
These modes can be used to teach important concepts for daily life, associated with
the work on cognitive skills and environment understanding. All the videos finish
with a little social interaction to make it possible to also work on Social Skills.
• Imaginary Play: with this functionality it is possible to teach about imaginary play
with miniatures of the objects. Again, the content is shown by videos integrated in
the supermarket and can be associated with the work on cognitive skills. Although
the imaginary play shown is individual, it is possible to arouse certain social skills
with them, if the teacher tries to promote the same imaginary play but outside the
computer and between him/her and the child.
• Imaginary Transformations and Magic: this is a more abstract concept and tries to
take advantages of using Virtual Reality to show information difficult to explain and
see in the real world. In this case, the user is shown an imaginary transformation of
the object selected in the supermarket into another completely different one and with
another functionality. This transformation consists of a 3D graphic animation
integrated into the virtual scene (see Figure 8a).
This attempts to promote the development of certain imagination abilities,
considering them as a part of the cognitive skills. As was explained before, the task
of the teacher is very important in all the functionalities, since it is possible to
promote social skills from the information contained in these transformations.
• Imaginary use: in this case it is possible to learn about the imaginary usage of each
object in a different context. Each product in the supermarket has a video associated
with this information, trying to provide another tool to work on cognitive skills.
a b
Figure 8. a) Imaginary sequence. b) Butcher’s employee offering a product.
Another way used in the application to promote social skills in the user, was by
integrating some virtual characters representing different employees inside the supermarket.
The user can listen to how the avatar says hello or other expressions and offers some
products. The individual has to interact with it and wait for the object that he wants to buy,
making it possible to train in another important social skill which is the waiting ability (see
Figures 8b and 9a).
Finally, the session finished when the user buys all the products indicated on the list.
With all these objects in the trolley, it is necessary to go to the cash desk to pay for them. The
user has to interact again with the virtual actor representing the cashier and give her the credit
card to pay. After that, the user can exit and the session finishes (see Figure 9b).
The ideas behind this development are of double value as it is not only an educational
game but also a tool for teaching symbolic play. The attraction that people with learning
difficulties show towards computers increases the possibilities that this tool have in their
educational process. They find it easy to use the hardware devices (tactile screen or mouse
and joystick) and the graphical interface (with the help of the teacher in the first sessions),
achieving high levels of interaction with the tool and, what it is more important, increasing
their interest in educational contents.
a b
Figure 9. a) Butcher’s employee introducing himself. b) Cashier asking the user to pay for the products.
a b
Figure 10. a) Classroom of the virtual school. b) Hall with different virtual characters.
This tool known with the name ‘I am going to act as if...’ (‘Voy a hacer como si...’ in
Spain), has been distributed without any cost, to a wide variety of schools, special education
centres, associations and parents, all over the Spanish country.
Virtual School
By its own nature, the school shapes in a bigger and more complex environment than the
supermarket does -and also offers a wider range of pedagogical possibilities. It includes a
whole set of sub-environments typically found in the most of real schools, with hall,
classroom, dining room, playground and locker room, each of them including a variety of
objects and virtual actors to work with (see Figures 10a and 10b).
Thanks to the large possibilities that this kind of environment offer, we try to develop an
application with a wide variety of utilities to help in the development of different skills. The
professional will have tools to work on different concepts understanding and imagination
skills development, training specific skills and work in social skill development of people
with learning difficulties. This application is under development and we would like to have a
fist version as soon as possible, to evaluate and improve it to obtain a system to be distributed
in special education centres, schools and associations. Let’s describe the environment and the
tools of this application [VHV05].
At the top level, the user is introduced with the role of a pupil in a school day. Activities
taking part in the different sub-environments are arranged in a daily timetable, which serves
as a task index and guides the user’s evolution along the session. This timetable can be
previously configured by the teacher, together with other session parameters, and selected at
the beginning.
Figure 11. Virtual school button panel.
Navigation, object selection, and user-application interaction model in general, are all
similar to those used in the supermarket. Subjective point-of-view is kept, too, but in this case
the user has no visual representation inside the environment.
Inside each one of the sub-environments shaping the virtual school, the user can learn a
big variety of concepts and train specific skills. At the moment, we are orienting our efforts in
developing all these tools in three main areas of the school, the hall, the classroom and the
playground. Available working modes can be grouped in the following four categories (see
Figure 11):
• Exploration: a certain set of objects is highlighted while becoming selectable to the

user. Selection of an object causes the object’s name to be shown to the user through
both visual and auditive channels. Explorable objects in a certain sub-environment
are arranged in groups, in order to emphasize the closer relations between them, and
in order to make easier the interaction by limiting the amount of information—
explored objects—presented simultaneously to the user.
• Learning: this group is intended to teach the user the typical usage of objects,
introduce him/her to ways of playing with them, and showing existing symbolic
relations between objects. Between those inter-object relations taught here, there can
be found generalization (different instances of a same object), alternative usage
(different, non-trivial ways of using the same object) or substitution (other objects
adopting the role and being used like the object selected). Typical usage and playing
modes are presented through a pair of virtual hands, shown from a subjective
perspective as if they were the user’s own hands, which directly manipulate the
object inside the virtual environment.
On the other hand, inter-object relationships are better explained with real examples,
and so are shown to the user using sets of photographs (see Figure 12).
Figure 12. Example of generalization concepts shown in a notebook.
• Fantasy: here the imagination and fantasy features are emphasized. Virtual, three-
dimensional objects are presented to the user and then transformed into other
nonrelated, different ones. Morphing technology becomes the most suitable option
here, because this allow for integrate imagination sequences in the virtual
environment itself.
The first stage begins by working with imagination/fantasy on single objects,
showing the user individual transformations of the object selected (see Figure 13).
The second, more advanced stage introduces more complex collective fantasy
sequences, by transforming a whole group of school objects into a set of interrelated
imaginary alter egos, all going around the same theme, to finally perform an
imaginary animation including all of them.
Figure 13. Imaginary transformation of scissors into a train sign.
• Activities: the last group presents different activities intended to work around spatial,
timing or social relationships. A first group of generic activities lets the user learn
basic spatial relationships and concepts described before, such as the size, quantity or
relative position, as well as time-related concepts (such as slow/fast or before/after).
Figure 14. An interactive activity for playing with the size of the objects.
A second group of activities is intended to work with social relationships, by putting the
user in the middle of specific situations where interaction with virtual actors is required in
order to solve them.
Figure 15. Scene from the point of view of the user in the classroom. The teacher explains the emotion
angry.
Among this kind of activities, we would like to work on emotion recognition,

understanding and imitation. For that, we would like to use virtual characters which will
describe certain emotions and reflect them in their face. All the basic emotions will be
integrated and represented in the face of the avatar: neutral, happy, sad, angry, surprise and
fear (see Figure 16).
Adaptability is a very important feature of this application, referring to the range of
disorders it can be used to work with. From the very essentials of design, a requirement has
been the ability to adapt sessions to the concrete user features, including in those features the
kind of disorder involved.
In this way, the application is being developed to be used with individuals with Down
syndrome, as well as with people with autism spectrum disorders, by simply changing the set
of activities programmed for each specific session.
At the moment, the application is under development, with the collaboration of different
professionals in the area. Most of the functions described above are completely developed,
the 3D objects integrated in the environment have been test with children to know the level of
understanding of these virtual representations of real objects and we are finishing the first
prototype, for testing the interaction and environment understanding with people with
learning difficulties.
Figure 16. Different emotions expressed by the face of a virtual character.
DEVELOPMENT
The characteristics of the applications presented before made it necessary to make a
decision on the software to use for their development. We decided to use a real time graphic
library (OpenGL Performer for the virtual supermarket and open scene graph (OSG), for the
virtual school) integrated in an object-oriented language (C++), because of the potential of
this kind of libraries for the creation of customized tools and the possibilities of achieving
better quality and results than any other methodology. This library provides us with the basic
scene graph and graphical control needed to structure and interact with the application in real
time. The modularity of all the elements involved in the system allows the reusability for
other new environments and the flexibility to integrate all the desired functions. The design
and models creation as well as the animations integrated in the environments where
developed using well-known graphic tools such as 3D Studio Max and Photoshop. All these
components, integrated in a well defined and structured system, results in computer graphics
applications used for a special group of people, trying to help them in their knowledge
development and quality of life.
EXPERIMENTAL ASSESSMENT
For the experimental assessment, case studies are a good methodology for this kind of
research. They differ from other methodologies as there are “intensive descriptions and
analysis of a single unit or a closed system, which can be an individual, a group, an
intervention or a community” [RM96]. Case studies are a very flexible method that can
include as much qualitative as quantitative data, and be used from very different theoretical
perspectives, basically in our case from IT and psychology. Together with this, technological
development forces us into making an intervention with prototypes in a way where reflection
on its results improves both the prototype and the intervention plan simultaneously.
Assessment is something that shall be done not only within scientific research, but also
within any educational intervention. In every quality teaching process, it is necessary to
objectively assess the impact of the intervention strategies that are applied to each individual.
In our case, only the virtual supermarket has been evaluate with people with autism, since
the virtual school is still under development. In that application, the main important skill to be
evaluate are the development of functional and symbolic play, abstract concept understanding
and imagination. There are at least two standard tests for assessing functional and symbolic
play: the SPT ‘Symbolic Play Test’ [LC76] that, despite its name, assesses functional play
and the ToPP ‘Test of Pretend Play’ [LB97], which really assesses symbolic play. However,
both tests incur a cost that sometimes is beyond the financial possibilities of many
professionals in autism. In order to assess the progress in abstract concept understanding, it is
possible to check the abilities involved with an ad hoc test prepared by teachers and also by
using parts of a standard test (preferably non-verbal) such as the Leiter International
Manipulative Scale [RM96].
For this reason, as occurs with the tool ‘I am going to act as if…’ [HJL04], it is
appropriate that software tools come together with a method for assessing (at least informally)
those abilities worked on with the tool. This assessment and recording must be done at least
twice, before and after the intervention, in order to be able to objectively see if there was any
advance or improvement.
The benefit of using a given tool itself is the backbone of major research in this field
[SMM96] [PML05] [HAJ04], but it is also necessary to compare those new strategies with
conventional ones, if it is aimed to justify new development and its funding in this field. For
this aim, it is useful to follow a ‘counterbalanced’ design where some participants initially use
a conventional version and then a VR version, while the rest are in reverse order.
Ideally, observers who analyse abilities at baseline (1, 2 or 3) should be blind to the order
of giving tests (Figure 17). Results concerning the gain of ‘play abilities’ between the first
and second assessment and between the second and third assessment will serve to compare
both strategies when applied to a number of cases.
Another important aspect to measure is the satisfaction of the individual with autism
while using any of the tools. This measure, together with effectiveness and efficiency, is part
of the Usability of the tool [ALC00].
Figure 17. Assessment and intervention periods.
SOME RESULTS
Relevant results have been published in [HAJ04], and some case studies are described
and analysed. The results obtained with some children after nearly three months of
intervention, with sessions of about 20–30 minutes each, suggest a very high impact on play
scores after using the tools measured with the Symbolic Play Test [LB97], and a very good
level of generalisation of acquired knowledge to real settings in those who spontaneously
initiate communication with others. The information provided by the tool to work on
cognitive skills and environment understanding (such as the functional and imaginary use and
play) helped them to better understand the usage and how to play with most of the objects
included in the supermarket. Additionally, some of them improved their imagination skills
and generalization to the real world.
In this table, it is possible to see the results of two of the participants in the study in the
ToPP test, analysed by four different observers.
Participant 1 Participant 2
Structured Free Structured Free
Pre Post Pre Post Pre Post Pre Post
First observer our team 10 21 8 12 15 18 0 6
Second observer our team 7 16 8 12 18 24 2 8
First independent observer 13 17 14 22 14 19 2 8
Second independent observer 11 13 12 16 15 20 2 6
Figure 18. Scores at ToPP by four observers.
In the following graphic it is possible to see the evolution of both participants along the
three months of intervention.
Figure 19. Evolution of two participant of the study.
CONCLUSION
The area of computer graphics and virtual reality for specific purposes is currently an
increasing field of research owing to the advantages and flexibility provided by these types of
applications. The development of graphic systems specially addressed to people with special
needs constitutes a very important field of work applied to the education process of the
individual.
Specifically, if we paid attention to the people with autism and learning difficulties, with
special problems in social interaction and communication, and deficits in imagination and
functional and symbolic play, it is possible to structure the content of graphic applications to
try to help professionals in the area to provide training in these specific skills.
Thanks to these kinds of systems, it is possible to offer training in a wide variety of
abilities without dangerous or hazardous situations, and with possibilities for structuring the
information, repeating situations and explanations, representating abstract concepts (such as
imagination and magical thoughts) and simulation of social situations using virtual characters,
all within a completely controlled environment. All of this, together with the attraction that
people with learning difficulties show towards computers, make these kinds of applications a
potential tool for developing specific skills in which these individual have problems,
providing positive experiences and the potential for improving their quality of life.
The tools presented in this chapter are good examples of these kind of systems whereby
technology meets education to improve the learning experience and, in the end, the quality of
life of the end users.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work has been done thanks to the funding of the Spanish Ministry of Science and
Technology (PROFIT), the Spanish Ministry of Social Affairs (IDI) and the Regional
Government of Valencia, through the projects INMER, APRIL and AVISTA. We want to
thank all members of the team from the Autism and Learning Difficulties Group and the
Artec Group of the Robotics Institute at the University of Valencia, the collaboration of the
Autism Association of Burgos, the Spanish Autism Confederation, COMUNICA Centre of
Diagnosis and Intervention, the Down Syndrome Association at Huesca (Spain), the Down
Syndrome Association at Burgos, and the knowledge received from Dr. Rita Jordan
(University of Birmingham).
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INDEX
A
B
access, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 32, 33, 38, 42, 77, 84
accounting, 24, 33 bandwidth, 3, 6, 41
acquaintance, 16 banks, 18
acquisitions, 83 barriers, 2, 3, 7, 33, 41, 43
acrophobia, 122 base, 53, 68, 81, 146
actuators, 127 behavior, 165, 182
adaptability, 167, 170 benefits, 75, 169, 171
adaptation, 170 boxer, 28
adhesions, 19 brain, 52, 58, 169, 182
adolescents, 183 browser, 125, 126
adults, 122 building blocks, 65
advancements, viii, 2, 4, 10, 30 buildings, 164
age, 2, 5, 123 bureaucracy, 41
algorithm, 71, 72, 88, 100, 102, 147, 148, 150, 151, buses, 164
153, 154, 160, 161 business function, 19, 37
alternative, 175 business management, 30, 35
animations, 30, 80, 178 business processes, 43

anxiety, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 120, 122 businesses, 38
anxiety disorder, 122 buttons, 52, 53, 59, 61, 70, 71, 126, 132
application, ix, x, 163, 164, 165, 166, 169, 171, 173,
175, 177, 178, 179
arousal, 109 C
assessment, 123, 169, 178, 179
assets, 29, 48 calibration, 63, 64, 74, 86
atmosphere, 136 carbon, 126, 136
attitudes, 7, 16, 19, 24 case studies, 178, 180, 183
autism, vii, ix, x, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, case study, 48, 55, 67
171, 178, 179, 181, 182 cash, 174
autistic spectrum disorders, 182, 183 category a, 57
automate, 137 challenges, ix, 7, 38, 40, 45, 46, 47, 48, 143, 144
autonomy, 10, 35, 165, 166, 170 children, 75, 121, 164, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 178,
availability, 172 180, 182, 183
avoidance, 111, 114, 116, 117, 120 classification, 80, 82, 89, 93, 105, 166, 167
awareness, 68, 118 classroom, 3, 9, 44, 169, 175, 177
clients, ix, 18, 107
climate, 28
clothing, 31, 36
clustering, 22, 29
186 Index
coatings, 62 creativity, 166

coding, 65 credit, 174
cognitive process, 108 credit card, 174
cognitive skills, 173, 180 crimes, 43
cognitive style, 109 crystals, 130
cognitive tasks, 119 cues, 108, 109, 119, 146
collaboration, 3, 5, 23, 27, 31, 45, 178, 181 culture, vii, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 21, 27,
colleges, 6 28, 30, 34, 35, 41, 42, 43, 44, 103, 120
collisions, 60, 61, 145 cure, 121
color, 139 currency, 4, 7
commerce, 5, 8, 11, 18, 33 curriculum, 165, 166, 171
commercial, ix, 3, 12, 16, 19, 20, 52, 125, 126, 132, customer relations, 5, 17
133, 155 customers, 5, 14, 15, 19, 29, 38
communication, x, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 20, 29, 30, 43, 47, cutting force, 144, 145, 147, 161, 162
57, 77, 146, 164, 165, 166, 170, 180, 181
communities, 2, 6, 7, 38
community, 3, 33, 43, 49, 165, 178 D
compatibility, 95, 102
compensation, 145, 149, 165 data mining, 147
competitive advantage, 47 database, 27, 33, 97, 98
complexity, 130, 132 deaths, 67
components, 178 decoding, 83
composites, 125, 126, 136 decomposition, 88
composition, 12, 26, 83, 133 defensiveness, 122
comprehension, 159 deficit, 166
computation, 80, 84, 91, 96, 145 deficits, 169, 181
computer, vii, viii, ix, 1, 40, 41, 43, 47, 51, 52, 53, definition, 165
54, 58, 59, 61, 63, 68, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, deformation, 128
88, 89, 96, 103, 111, 116, 121, 122, 125, 136, demonstrations, 62
137, 144, 146, 147, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, depth, 147, 151, 158
171, 173, 178, 180 designers, 74, 144
computing, 96, 97, 100 detection, 74, 145, 161
diffusion, vii, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 30, 44, 45
conception, 20, 40
conceptual model, 46 direct controls, 57
concrete, 177 discomfort, 114
conference, 29, 33, 75, 76, 77, 104, 120, 122 discontinuity, 12, 43
confidentiality, 43 disorder, 177
configuration, 54, 59, 145, 160 dissociation, 166
confounding variables, 114, 116 distance learning, 3, 38
consciousness, 122 distribution, 5, 17, 19, 20, 36, 92, 94
construction, 48, 104 diversity, viii, 2, 44
consulting, vii, 1, 16, 18, 22, 26, 30, 33 dominance, 44
consumers, 52 downsizing, 18
consumption, 46 drawing, 89, 127
control, 169, 178 dynamism, 12, 44
control group, 110
controversial, 52 E
cooperation, 17, 21, 47
coordination, 10, 14, 26, 61 e-commerce, 33
correlation, 84, 89, 96, 97, 98, 105, 111, 112, 113, economics, 13, 43
114, 115, 116, 158 educators, 3, 5, 6, 43
cost, 3, 15, 20, 27, 28, 32, 54, 135, 174, 179 elaboration, 13, 16, 18, 21
cotton, 62 e-learning, 6, 81
Index 187
election, 12, 42 fragments, 82, 95, 97, 105

electromagnetic, 83 freedom, 40, 42, 55
e-mail, 16, 30 friction, 148
empathy, 109, 120 funding, 179, 181
employees, 20, 42, 171, 173
enforcement, 3
engagement, x, 164, 169 G
engineering, viii, 53, 79, 81, 82, 83, 88, 89, 102, 104
entertainment, 164 games, 164, 166
entrepreneurs, 26 generalization, ix, 163, 175, 176, 180
entrepreneurship, 22 geometry, 68, 92, 98, 99, 100, 126, 146, 147, 149,
equipment, 57, 64, 110 150, 151, 153, 154
ethical issues, 42, 43 gestures, viii, 30, 51, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 64, 65,
ethics, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48 66, 68, 69, 74
ethnicity, 115 glasses, 69, 73
everyday life, 121 global education, 38
evidence, 4, 108 governance, 22, 33
evolution, 4, 7, 19, 175, 180 graph, 155, 178
exchange rate, 5 groups, 166, 167, 169, 175
execution, 145, 149, 156 growth, 4, 41
expertise, 43 guidance, 104
exploitation, 49, 145, 147 guidelines, 118
exposure, 110, 111, 112, 113, 116, 120, 122
external environment, 116 H
extinction, 110
extraction, 82 habituation, 110
hair, 31
hands, 176
F
harassment, 43
facial expression, 7 harmony, 81
families, 121 health, 7, 44
fantasy, 119, 176 health education, 44
fear, 43, 110, 121, 123, 177 hearing, 166, 167

feelings, 170 height, 131, 147, 151, 170
ferromagnetic, 83 higher education, 7, 10
fibers, 126, 137 historical data, 147
fidelity, 20 hue, 93
film, 164 hypothesis, 8, 40, 41, 112, 113, 115, 116, 120
financial, 15, 16, 29, 34, 40, 179
finite element method, 145 I
fire, 170
fishing, 28 ideal, 57, 116, 170
flank, 162 identification, 3
flexibility, 8, 40, 41, 170, 178, 180 identity, 43
flight, 59, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, illumination, 58, 126, 132, 145, 160
120 illusion, vii, 52, 54, 80, 108, 123
flights, 112, 115 imagination, ix, 4, 108, 109, 120, 129, 163, 166, 169,
focusing, 165 173, 175, 176, 179, 180, 181
force, 68, 162 imitation, 171, 177
foreign affairs, 33 immersion, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 64, 68, 69,
formaldehyde, 136 75, 109, 112, 113, 117, 120, 122
formation, 151 impairments, 165
formula, 36, 97, 127
188 Index
improvements, 53, 60, 164 learning, viii, ix, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16,
in transition, vii, 1, 12, 15, 17, 21, 22, 33, 48 18, 19, 21, 22, 29, 33, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44,
individuals, 3, 7, 10, 11, 16, 41, 42, 43, 113, 114, 46, 47, 53, 55, 104, 108, 122, 163, 164, 165, 166,
115, 116, 120, 168, 171, 178 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 178, 181, 183
individuation, 9, 11, 19, 21, 22 legal protection, 3, 6
induction, 161 lens, 98, 131
industrial environments, 159 life cycle, 21, 40
industries, 20, 38, 68 light, 52, 58, 61, 71
industry, 53, 146, 161 linen, 129
information technology, 33, 126, 183 locus, 109, 120
infrastructure, vii, viii, 4, 6, 32, 35, 51, 52, 53, 54, logistics, 17, 68, 81, 104
55, 57, 59, 61, 62, 65, 67, 68, 74, 103 low-level, 167
ingredients, ix, 107
injuries, 67, 170, 182
institutions, 7, 10, 20 M
instruments, 165
integration, viii, x, 51, 57, 59, 67, 68, 73, 79, 82, 86, magazines, 39, 40
88, 102, 144, 149, 156, 159, 164, 165 magnetic field, 82, 83
intellectual property, 4, 41, 43 mainstream, 166
intelligence, 30 majority, 114, 115, 116, 127
interaction, x, 164, 165, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, majority group, 114, 115, 116
178, 181 man, 27
interactions, 171 management, 5, 6, 11, 13, 16, 17, 19, 21, 30, 32, 33,
interface, vii, viii, 4, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 34, 35, 41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 103, 145
61, 62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 73, 74, 75, 76, 103, 104, manipulation, 60, 67, 74, 75, 85, 95, 98, 100, 101,
112, 113, 114, 116, 120, 152, 154, 166, 167, 174 102, 145, 166, 170
interference, 161 manpower, 15
interpersonal communication, 146 manufacturing, 26, 81, 92, 104, 144, 146, 160
intervention, 15, 35, 43, 165, 166, 178, 179, 180 marketing, 3, 5, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 28, 33, 36, 103
intervention strategies, 179 materials, viii, ix, 2, 9, 11, 20, 30, 39, 40, 43, 125,
intonation, 7 136
invariants, 96, 97 mathematics, 93, 125
matrix, 84, 86, 87, 88, 125, 136, 137, 139
investment, 73
issues, vii, ix, 1, 42, 43, 49, 82, 84, 120, 122, 163, measurement, 81, 88, 148, 149, 155, 156, 157
170 mechanical properties, 139
media, 5, 6, 53, 123
medical, 44, 47, 136, 139
J medicine, 81
memory, 109, 110
joystick, 172, 174 mentor, 43
jumping, 3 mentoring, 30, 37
messages, 30, 40
methodology, viii, ix, x, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14,
L 15, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 30, 34, 43, 80, 143, 144,
148, 149, 150, 155, 159, 164, 165, 178
labour, 165 microelectronics, 127
lack of control, 113 microphotographs, 137
landscape, 103 microscope, 130
landscapes, 116 microscopy, 137
language, 166, 170, 178 Microsoft, 53, 74, 83, 84
languages, 55, 57 microstructure, 18
latency, 63 mission, 22, 26, 27, 37
laws, 46 misunderstanding, 7
lead, 28, 45, 71, 123, 159, 171 mobile phone, 52, 53
Index 189
modelling, 56, 65, 74, 75, 81, 82, 85, 145, 146, 147, participants, vii, viii, 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 19,
148 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 37, 38, 40, 42,
models, ix, 17, 20, 21, 36, 37, 57, 58, 61, 81, 103, 43, 110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120,
113, 130, 132, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 122, 179, 180
159, 161, 178 password, 32
modifications, 74, 127, 129, 135 pattern recognition, 96
motif, 130 pedagogical, 170, 175
motion control, 53, 67, 68 pedagogy, 3
motivation, 6, 11, 108, 109 periodicity, 130
mouse, 172, 174 permission, iv
multimedia, 11, 30, 166 personality, ix, 107, 108, 122
multiple regression, 147 personality traits, 122
multiplication, 88 phenol, 136
museums, 4, 80, 81 phobia, 110, 121
music, 15, 28 phobic anxiety, 110, 111
photographs, 176
physics, 68, 76, 130
N placebo, 118, 119
plastic deformation, 145
nationality, 32 platform, viii, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 33, 38, 40, 41, 42,
navigation system, 76, 104 44, 45, 52, 118, 155
negative relation, 115, 116 plausibility, 108, 123
neglect, 115 play, x, 164, 166, 170, 173, 174, 179, 180, 181, 182
negotiation, 10, 26 playing, 7, 31, 53, 121, 170, 171, 175, 177
networking, vii, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 29, policy, 5
30, 37, 38, 40, 41, 48 policy makers, 5
neurons, 114 polymer, 126
neutral, 118, 177 polynomial functions, 90, 91
next generation, 159, 160 population, 5
positive correlation, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116
O praxis, 129, 136
predictability, 170
obstacles, 55 preparation, iv, 16, 33, 34, 118, 132, 136, 169
one dimension, 93, 126 prestige, 53
online learning, 44 principles, viii, 2, 19, 59
operations, viii, 2, 43, 46, 52, 55, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, probability, 7
74, 98, 130, 137, 144, 145, 146, 162 problem solving, 3, 10, 19
opportunities, ix, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 33, 163, 169 product design, 56, 74, 147
optical microscopy, 125, 137 product market, 28
optimism, 170 professionals, 165, 171, 178, 179, 181
optimization, 145, 160 profit, 8, 11, 32, 44, 67
organizational learning, 45 program, 167
organize, 80, 172 programming, 65, 84, 132, 145, 155, 170
organs, vii, 52 project, vii, 2, 9, 13, 17, 23, 24, 25, 30, 32, 33, 34,
overlay, 98 43, 44, 48, 53, 73, 74, 84, 86, 159, 167, 168, 181
protection, 3, 6
prototype, 58, 62, 64, 178, 179
P prototypes, 74, 144, 179
psychology, 165, 179
paradigm shift, 55 psychotherapy, vii, viii, 107, 122, 123
parallel, 30, 36, 84, 93, 94, 146, 161 public interest, 7
parents, 174 pupil, 175
190 Index
rules, 3, 6, 147, 166

Q
quality assurance, 147, 161 S

quality of life, ix, 163, 165, 170, 171, 178, 181
questionnaire, 26, 109, 110, 112, 114, 115, 123 safety, viii, 51, 67, 68, 75, 77, 170
sales activities, 5, 17
satisfaction, 179
R scaling, 97, 98, 99, 100
school, ix, x, 163, 164, 165, 166, 169, 171, 172, 174,
radio, 57
175, 176, 178, 179
radius, 127
science, 4
range, 166, 175, 177
scientific papers, 81
raw materials, 39, 40
scope, 84, 91, 97
reactions, 122
scores, 180
reading, 108
scripts, 30
real time, 3, 4, 83, 84, 91, 92, 96, 99, 100, 102, 144,
searching, 172
150, 167, 170, 178
security, 3, 6, 32
realism, 80, 112
selecting, 170, 172
reception, 33
selective attention, 118
recognition, x, 14, 52, 55, 57, 58, 60, 64, 67, 76, 164,
self-confidence, 170
177
seminars, 6, 36
reconstruction, viii, 64, 79, 80, 82, 92, 93, 95, 101,
sensation, 108, 112, 113, 114, 117, 121
103, 105, 139
sensitivity, 114, 115, 116, 120
reference frame, 86, 87, 91, 99
sensors, 127
reflection, 179
sensory experience, 115, 116, 117
regression, 113
servers, 30, 32
regression analysis, 113
service provider, 46
regulations, 145
services, vii, 1, 5, 6, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 26, 41,
rehabilitation, 121, 182
43, 46, 81
reinforcement, 136
set theory, 147, 161
relationship management, 5, 17
sex, 32
relationships, 176, 177
shape, viii, ix, 31, 62, 64, 69, 79, 82, 83, 85, 88, 89,
relevance, 6, 14, 21, 43, 117, 120

90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 105, 127, 131, 135,
reliability, 40, 115
140, 143, 146, 147, 150, 152, 154, 169
rent, 12
shaping, 175
repression, 119
shares, 169
reproduction, 11, 30, 38, 40
shear, 31
requirements, 3, 6, 41, 42, 56, 130
showing, 159, 171, 175, 176
researchers, 3, 15, 52, 56, 108
sign, 176
resistance, 148
skills, ix, x, 163, 164, 165, 169, 171, 172, 173, 175,
resolution, 54, 63, 76, 83, 130, 137
180, 181
resources, 7, 12, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 29, 33, 34, 166
small firms, 47
response, 114, 115, 116, 123, 166
smoothness, 58, 89
retail, 22, 38
society, 15, 20, 120
reusability, 178
software, viii, 4, 13, 16, 30, 32, 42, 59, 61, 65, 67,
risk, 33, 80, 95, 98
73, 75, 76, 79, 81, 82, 84, 85, 113, 148, 149, 152,
risks, 6
166, 167, 168, 172, 178, 179
robotic, 81, 163, 164, 167, 181
solution, 11, 53, 54, 56, 58, 61, 64, 87, 101
role-playing, 7, 44
spatial, 177
roughness, ix, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150,
special education, 165, 171, 174, 175
151, 155, 156, 157, 159, 161, 162
specific knowledge, 29, 43
routines, 84
specific surface, 55
rowing, 57
spectrum, 165, 166, 178, 182, 183
Index 191
speech, 167 telephone, 42

spindle, 145, 146, 152, 156 tension, 127
spontaneity, 166 territorial, 22
stability, 147 territory, 27
state, 9, 77, 109, 110, 111, 145, 147, 165, 167 test anxiety, 120
states, 108, 109, 110 testing, vii, 1, 33, 37, 47, 74, 178
statistics, 45 textbooks, 130
stimulation, 26, 109, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 120, textiles, 125, 127, 130, 132, 136, 138
171 texture, 93, 170
stimulus, 116 theatre, 28
stock, 29 therapist, 118
strategies, 179 therapy, 110, 111, 122, 183
structure, ix, 2, 4, 6, 8, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 37, 40, thoughts, 119, 181
41, 49, 89, 110, 125, 126, 130, 131, 132, 133, timetable, 175
134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 156, 169, 178, 181 timing, 177
structuring, 181 tooth, 144
students, 165 torsion, 90
style, 20, 22, 169 tourism, 15, 17, 21
subjective, 176 toys, 170
subjective experience, ix, 107 tracks, 61
subskills, 47 trade, vii, 1, 4, 13, 14, 15, 26, 32, 37, 38, 41, 43
substitution, 176 training, viii, ix, x, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 18, 21,
substitutions, 170 22, 27, 29, 42, 47, 51, 56, 57, 68, 75, 129, 146,
subtraction, 166 156, 160, 163, 164, 165, 169, 170, 175, 181
supervision, 11, 14, 25 trait anxiety, 113
suppliers, 14, 15, 18, 29, 38 trajectory, 60, 146, 149, 150, 156
surprise, 177 transactions, 40, 41, 43
survival, 29 transformation, 86, 87, 88, 96, 98, 99, 163, 173, 176
sustainability, 27 translation, 86, 87, 96
sustainable development, 21 transport, 15, 21, 25
symbolic, 166, 170, 174, 175, 179, 181, 182 transportation, 28, 67
symbolism, 166 travel, 181
symmetry, 2, 8, 39, 40, 130 treatment, viii, ix, 107, 108, 110, 111, 120, 163, 169,
synchronization, 84 170
syndrome, 169, 178 triangulation, 82
triggers, viii, 51, 60, 66
truck drivers, 68
T turbulence, 12
twist, 31
target, 7, 10, 11, 12, 33, 71, 73
taxes, 27
teachers, 3, 14, 18, 24, 25, 27, 37, 43, 165, 179 U
teaching, ix, 163, 164, 165, 167, 169, 170, 171, 174,
179 ultimate user, 52
teams, 2, 5 uniform, 92, 97, 99
technical assistance, 14, 17, 21 universities, 6, 15
techniques, 75, 80, 84, 88, 144
technological progress, 7
technologies, ix, 4, 10, 16, 30, 38, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, V
107, 125, 126, 144, 148, 159, 165, 169
technology, viii, 6, 7, 18, 33, 44, 46, 47, 48, 52, 53, valence, 109
55, 75, 76, 104, 107, 109, 115, 129, 145, 147, validation, 147
148, 164, 169, 176, 181, 183 valorization, 15, 21
teeth, 151 vandalism, 43
192 Index
variables, 40, 64, 90, 91, 108, 109, 115, 120, 123, walking, 3, 30, 57, 77
147, 170, 171 weakness, 54
vector, 87, 90, 91, 94, 99 wear, 26, 57, 69, 73, 80, 147, 148
vehicles, 164 web, 4, 15, 16, 18, 32, 33, 126, 134, 140, 166
velocity, 43 web pages, 126, 166
versatility, vii, 1, 41 websites, 7, 33
video games, 44, 53 windows, 134
videos, 140, 173 wood, 26
virtualization, 6, 37, 52 worldwide, 8
vision, 9, 12, 22, 38, 54, 55, 58, 96, 104
visualization, vii, viii, ix, 2, 11, 79, 80, 81, 82, 98,
104, 126, 129, 133, 135, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148, Y
149, 150, 155, 156, 159, 164
yarn, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137,
138
W young people, 21, 28
wages, 16

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Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York

Chapter 5 Virtual Reality in Textile Field 125

The advancements of the technological platforms as VWs in the enterprise simulation

Chapter 3 - This chapter deals with the description of recent developmentsconcerning

and presentations enable therapeutic endeavor to overcome these difficulties. However, as

SECOND LIFE AS EDUCATIONAL SPACE FOR THE

SMEs’ start up.

• Immersivity: participants feel a sense of presence in SL that seems to be in the real

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ON SECOND

LIFE AS EDUCATIONAL SPACE

environments is very interesting providing a high number of opportunities mainly in the

3. THE METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

and existing only in the virtual environment.

Figure 2. The education paths of training/learning from real to virtual environment.

Some important elements of the enterprise simulation programme are:

1) Sense of responsibility. This sense is concretized in the documents produced by each

The managerial culture development mainly derives from a management by objectives, as

Enterprise simulation in Enterprise simulation in SL

managerial culture culture

Figure 3. The educational profile of enterprise simulation in laboratory and SL.

SL educational efforts are oriented to represent in a virtual dimension the simulated

In laboratory the registration, as the formalization of the enterprise, requires the

4. THE ENTERPRISE SIMULATION METHODOLOGY

Source: [68: p. 36].

Figure 5. Open space offices in Forlì Faculty of Economics laboratory.

Figure 6. The educational and business profile.

The simulation is indicated by European Commission as a best practice to promote

EUROPEN network and for the merchandising of ICT products.

Figure 8. Perting home page. http://www.perting.poloforli.unibo.it

- Organizational consulting office: creation of macro and microstructure, development and

Figure 9. Perting Organizational chart.

Figure 10. The Website of the National Center of Simulation.

Human resources The enterprise counts on 14 employees assigned to the mentioned

5. THE ENTERPRISE SIMULATION IN REAL ENVIRONMENT:

Country Simulated Sector Year of Duration of State of

Figure 12. The simulated enterprises’ start up supported by Perting.

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6

Figure 13. The process of networking in international projects.

Source: [66: p.13]

Figure 14. The structure of enterprise simulation in international project.

The Scientific Responsible of the project, with the staff of Technical-Scientific

Student Language knowledge Specialities Office

9. Najada Shehi Italian, English Designer Strategies and Statute

Activities Participants Forecasted Effective timing Minutes

Definition of the structure Italian tutor 12.00 am – 1.00 11.45 am – 12.45 60

Figure 16. The scheduling of simulation activities.

As indicated in Figure 17 the positions of: Managing Director, Board of Directors,

Figure 17. The macrostructure.

Office Targets Results

Figure 18. The targets and results for each office.

Source: [68: p.56].

Figure 19. The class of KK Personal Robe.

Local Teacher Discipline

Figure 20. Local teachers and the related disciplines.

To understand the practical perspective of managerial culture development, the operative

• Strategies and Statute Office