Virtual reality for driving simulation

Abstract

The authors describe «he data structure necessary to provide real-time simulation and visualization of complex environments and situations.HE limitations imposed by rrrarket costs and technology have so far obstrvrcted the development of small commercial driving simirlators with good performance levels, while a small set of expensive simirlators exist in car manufacturing companies and tratfic research institutes. In order to obtain the proper immersion sensation for the driver within the synthetic scene, simulator developers have resorted to large panoramic screens and high-resolution video projectors. For many applications it is also reqirired to simulate the accelerations (centriftrgal forces, hraking, etc.) by nsing a mobile platform (see [10] for a sumrrrary of conventional sirntrlation technology). The.se platforms must be able to lift the huge weight of the vehicle cockpit, viewing screen, and projection system-^which is costly and requires an elaborate hydraulic .system.The development of smaller and portable simirlators for application in tr-aining has made it necessary for this equipment to be substituted by single tlat projection screens or multiple video monitors [9], and very simple motion or vibration systems. Virtiral Reality (VR) de'vices wotild offer the natural solution for' inexpensive and compact driving simulatiorr, maintaining a high degree of the immersion feeling. The headmouuted displays (HMDs) provide a means to reproduce the role of panoranric screerrs with rro lirrritalion of viewing area (since drivers carr turrr thtir' heads in all directions), the limitation of sight to the synthetic images and qnality 3D sotmd with mirch lower cost, size, and weight. Some companies (Volvo in Sweden, for example) are fX|3l<)r'ing the a|)pli( ation ot \'R in limited driving simulation for design arrd di'uiorrstration purposes.For the past three years the LISITT (¡jibiiratorio Jnlegrado de Sistettias Inteligentes y Tecnologías de hi iiijortnacion en Trafico) has been working on the SIRCA {Simulador Reactivo de Conducdon de Automóviles) research pr()ject to study the development of small and medirrrn-size sut)ject-oriented simulators, using \'R aird I'valuating il in comparison with conventiorral ti-chrrologies. SIRC.A is currently running on Silicon Graphics platforms with different per-forrnance levels. The gr'a])hical output (see Figure 1) can be pr-e.serited irr a higli-dctiuitioii computer or video nronitor or in head-rrrorrrrti'd displays. The driver's interaction is pr-oduced du'ough a sensorized cockpit. Users are able to steer, speed irp, and brake while thev wear the HMD or look at a moni-72 Mav 1<)96/Vul. .W. N... '

Modelling virtual cities dedicated to behavioural animation

“…The geometrical level is sufficient for a driv- ing simulation in which vehicles are all driven by users in the loop. Since vehicles driven by autonomous entities are added in the simulation, other kinds of information become necessary 23,2 . Information required to simulate the behaviour of a car driver is of different kinds: the road network, with its geometry (road shape), its rules (horizontal and vertical road-signs) and its symbolic information associated to geometrical objects (lane characteristics, inter-lane marking, names of streets, buildings, parks, squares or neighborhood).…”

Spatial Mapping in virtuellen Umgebungen

“…Ausbildungsszenarien, z.B. in der (Tele-)Medizin (Cohen, A. R. et al, 2013), Katastrophenschutz (Farra, Miller, Timm & Schafer, 2013) oder Fahrzeugtraining (Bayarri, Fernandez & Perez, 1996). Weiterhin wird VR bei der Visualisierung von Planung und Konstruktionen (Dorozhkin, Vance, Rehn & Lemessi, 2010) und Therapien (Goncalves, Pedrozo, Coutinho, Figueira & Ventura, 2012) Die eingesetzte VR-Anlage ist für die Tischtennissimulation optimiert (Rusdorf, Brunnett, Lorenz & Winkler, 2007) (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975 (Pietschmann & Rusdorf, 2014).…”

Virtualized Traffic: Reconstructing Traffic Flows from Discrete Spatio-Temporal Data

“…There is also considerable work on using virtual environments for driving simulation [14,3] and methods for modeling the vehicle behaviors and navigable paths [27,7,29].…”