Understanding basic physical concepts is not an easy task. The Technology Enabled Active Learning Approach (TEAL) is an innovative learning approach and successfully improves the conceptual understanding in teaching freshmen physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This approach requires specially designed classrooms, hands-on experiments, different teaching methods and also virtua...

This paper investigates the use of 3D immersive virtual environments and 3D prints for interaction with past material culture over traditional observation without manipulation. Our work is motivated by studies in heritage, museum, and cognitive sciences indicating the importance of object manipulation for understanding present and ancient artifacts. While virtual immersive environments and 3D p...

During product development processes, simulations involving user’s grasping operations are of increasing interest to incorporate more quantitative information in DFA (Design For Assembly) or immersive simulations. We present several prototypes of an immersive peripheral device for controlling a virtual hand with fine dexterity. These prototypes are derived from the analysis of a grasping action...

We want to go beyond “passive rag-doll like” simulation characters towards more “active” intelligent self-driven solutions. The “puppet on strings” approach lacks dynamic interactive properties for engaging realistic and immersive virtual environments. This paper focuses on “Self-Driven character” (e.g., procedural physics-based techniques) that balance and react in a life-like manner using phy...

This document reports in brief the findings of a study conducted to observe the relationship between a sense of presence and team training in decision making in dynamic high risk environments. A simple desktop virtual game environment is used to explore the possibility that, in this context, such semi immersive dynamic virtual environment (VE) could be used to achieve a sense of presence suffic...

Manipulation in immersive virtual environments is difficult partly because we humans must do without the haptic contact with real objects we rely on in the real world to orient ourselves and our manipulanda. To compensate for this lack, we propose exploiting the real objects one does have in a virtual environment, one's own body parts. We present a unified framework for virtual-environment inte...

Immersive virtual reality (iVR) head-mounted display (HMD) systems paired with serious exercise games can positively augment physical rehabilitation process from both engagement and analytics perspectives. This article presents a game for iVR HMD-based long-term upper-extremity exercise. We demonstrate the capabilities of our through case study five users recovering injuries. examine how progra...

Recently, Virtual Environments (VE) are increasingly used as settings for design and research. Using VE to visualize ideas from the initial steps of design, the architect is challenged to deal with perception of space, solid and void, without translations to and from a two dimensional media. The goal of our studies was to identify how designers use and communicate early design ideas by using im...

Since the emergence of virtual reality (VR) technologies, many researchers have argued on the benefits of their use for people with intellectual and multiple disabilities. However, up to this date there is not a single study that presents a detailed overview of the state of the art in virtual reality as a support tool for the treatment of people with intellectual and multiple disabilities, as w...