EDUCATION: D3-PROJECTS

A Collaborative Editor, 2003

A collaborative (document) editor provides a way for many users to share and work on the same document in real-time. Unlike sequential editors the purpose of a collaborative editor is to support the users in working together on a common task by modifying a common document concurrently. The implementation of a collaborative editor requires to consider both technical and social issues with respect to how users communicate in such an environment.

Existing approaches use a central server approach in order to maintain a document in the collaborative editor. The problem with this approach is that the number of users which can be supported is fairly low. All communication uses the server which itself becomes a bottleneck of the system.

An alternative approach is intended to be used in this project which let users of the document communicate on a peer-to-peer basis without using a central database. Instead all users maintain local copies of parts of the document and communicate on changes of the document.

The objective of this project is to develop an editor (for textual or graphical documents) providing a user interface that suits a decentralized maintenance of the shared document. An important point is to develop good ways for users to interact with the state of the document. Therefore one must elaborate on objects which form the shared document and rules how users can modify the document. Since the document should be handled in a dynamic way one must also consider how users can join or leave a document.

Wearable Platforms for Augmented and Virtual Reality, periods 1-4, 2002/2003

Wearable computers are becoming increasingly common, and modern wearable units today have CPU power that is comparable to normal desktop and laptop computers. Although still lacking built-in 3D hardware, the superior mobile properties of such computers make them attractive as platforms for Virtual Reality and, especially, Augmented Reality. Here, computer-generated 3D images and sound are used to immerse the user either in a fully artificial environment, or are overlaid on top of the user's normal vision to add more information to his or her real environment. The aim of both these techniques is to visualize information and immerse the user in the visualization.

The 3Dwm system is a general application system and framework for Virtual Reality applications with three-dimensional user interfaces. Here, applications are no longer flat windows on a flat screen, but full 3D objects in 3D space.

3Dwm would be a perfect software platform to use on wearable computers, and to this end, we have received a donation of two Xybernaut wearables and performed an initial port of the system to this new hardware. However, much work remains to be done in order to adapt 3Dwm to become a viable Virtual/Augmented Reality platform on wearables.

Building a Multi-User Learning Environment for Distributed System Concepts, 2001/2002

Collaborative and interactive learning environments are becoming increasingly important in science as well as in industry. People located at different places and working on a common concept can communicate and interact with each other through a virtual environment giving the illusion to be physically present at the same place. Further, virtual environments allow simulation in areas where mistakes can be costly, otherwise.

For a student it is often not sufficient to just watch an animation or a video in order to understand a concept. There is a need to have interaction with the concept and sometimes the complexity of the concept may require multiple students to cooperate together.

The purpose of this project is to implement an interactive learning environment for the Chalmers VR Cube in which many students can learn together simple, but important concepts in distributed systems. The idea is to describe concepts as a multi-player game in which students (located at different places) can cooperate and gain a better understanding of the concept. Participants in this project will look for good representations of these concepts and implement them as a multi-user virtual environment.

Softradio, 2001/2002

Building a Learning Environment in Virtual Reality for Learning Distributed Algorithms, 2000/2001

Interactive learning environments are becoming increasingly important in science as well as in industries. In many cases watching an animation or a video will not enhance the learning of the student as long she cannot have a way to interact with the concept that she tries to understand. However, making mistakes in the real world can become very expensive which implies greater interest in modern technologies like Virtual Reality.

The purpose of this project is to implement an interactive learning environment for the Charmers VR Cube in which students can learn about distributed algorithms. A user that will use this environment should be able to simulate the execution of a distributed algorithm and be able to interact with it.

Besides the implementation one will have to consider what is important to understand an algorithm and how this will effect the learning process.

Personalised Electronic News System, 2000/2001