PROPOSALS

Project 1 Proposal link

Presentation for Project 1 Proposal link

End Presentation for Project 1 link

Project 2 Proposal link

Presentation for Project 2 Proposal link

In-class Activity link

Final Presentation link

ALL OTHER WIKI CONTRIBUTIONS

CONTRIBUTION 1 Added link to an installation guide for Unreal Engine on Linux link

CONTRIBUTION 2 Started Setting up a basic VR scene in Unity3D tutorial [on pause] link

CONTRIBUTION 3 Comparative analysis of Unity networking plugins link

CONTRIBUTION 4 Immersed Class Activity/Tutorial link

CONTRIBUTION 5 Photon Pun page link

CONTRIBUTION 6 Normcore page link

CONTRIBUTION 7 Added to Immersed page (activity feedback + some info on plans and features) link

CONTRIBUTION 8 Old vs. New VR setup in Unity link

CONTRIBUTION 9 GeoGebra3D Class Activity link

CONTRIBUTION 10 GeoGebra3D Page link

CONTRIBUTION 11 VR @ Brown 2021 link

CONTRIBUTION 12 VRZone Page link

CONTRIBUTION 13 Arthur Page link

1/28/21 - 1 Hour

• Posted my issue on Slack and got it fixed (thanks Ross!)

• Finished Oculus2 set-up

• Went on Google Earth VR and traveled around

1/31/21 - 3 Hours

• Watched Unity VR tutorials on YouTube to get a better idea of what the software is and how it works. This will help me understand how complex development is and gauge what level of complexity to aim for with my project.

Some of the most helpful ones were:

• • Introduction to VR in Unity - Part 1: VR Setup

    • How to set up a new VR project in Unity 

    • Basic object design, manipulation, and interaction

  • Introduction to VR in Unity - Part 2: Input and Hand Presence

    • Good examples of how code factors into creating experiences in Unity

    • Gave me abetter understanding of Unity's layout and the different aspects of building something there

  • How to Make a VR Multiplayer Game - Part 1

    • Uses a package called Photon Pun to create multi-user experiences

      • TODO: Add info about Photon Pun to Wiki

    • Goes over common display issues with multiple users

  • How to Make a VR Multiplayer Game - Part 2

    • Covers how to make an object move the same way for all players

    • Photon Pun apparently also allows you to share audio

2/1/21 - 4 Hours

• Spent some time watching this tutorial about the Unity UNet networking plugin only to find out it was deprecated (oh no!)

• Researched other Unity networking plug-ins to potentially compare to Photon Pun

• So, it seems like there's another plug-in called Normcore. This one's more new and isn't used as widely so it will likely be frustrating to use but any teaching materials I make in it might among the first, which is exciting!

  • Video comparing Photon and Normcore at a surface level 

• Project Ideas:

  • Comparative analysis of Photon Pun and Normcore

    • 3 Things I will do during the project:

      • Download and play around with both Photon and Normcore

      • Compare both plug-ins on a range of factors

      • Create and populate pages for both

    •  Class Activity: 

      • Download one of the plug-ins and build something basic, like a lobby with voice share and objects to play with. Pair up and experience those rooms together.

    • Potential Deliverables:

      • Wiki page for each of the plug-ins

      • Comparative wiki page

      • Tutorials for both plug-ins

    • Adding multi-user viewing functionality to OpenSpace3D

      • 3 Things I will do during this project:

        • Download and familiarize myself with OpenSpace3D's codebase

        • Research how to integrate multiple users into the viewing experience

        • Develop new functionality that allows multiple users to explore a model together

      • Class Activity: 

        • Downloading OpenSpace3D, playing around with some of its basic functionality, brainstorming what we might like to see or be able to do in a multi-user version

      • Potential Deliverables:

        • Design doc

        • Development roadmap

        • Codebase

    • Allowing multiple users to view a Dataverse.xyz creation simultaneously and discuss it over voice-chat 

      • 3 Things I will do during this project:

        • Download and familiarize myself with Dataverse's codebase

        • Research how to integrate multiple users into the viewing experience

        • Develop new functionality that allows multiple users to explore a data visualization together and discuss it

      • Class Activity:

        • Make your own Dataverse viz

      • Potential Deliverables:

        • Design doc

        • Development roadmap

        • Multiple user functionality

        • Voice functionality

2/10/21 - 4 Hours

• Downloaded Paraview 

• Continued working through this tutorial to get the basic scene set up

  • Got stuck getting the controllers to show up, so I switched over to this tutorial for that

    • So weird, sometimes when I look at a specific angle the object i picked to represent controllers (a spehere) is there, but more often than not it's nowhere to be found, when it's really supposed to be following the controller on the screen. I'm just confused where I'm going wrong because I've followed all these tutorials step by step but I can't get the controllers to show up :/

    • When I print out the controller's coordinates, they seem to be moving in sync with my hand movements, which means it's being tracked correctly, but it's not being rendered

    • I'm pretty far behind where I'm supposed to be (setting up basic scene still when the goal was to have all 3 scenes set up by tonight), might have to re-think project a bit. The paths I'm considering: 

      • Compare Normcore and Photon Pun across just the basic scene

      • Spend more times on scenes and do an analysis of just one of the plug-ins

        • A Photon Pun page might be more useful than a Normcore one since Photon is more widely used, BUT there also exist many more online resources for Photon than for Normcore, so Normcore information/tutorials would probably be more useful if someone were to use it in the future

      • Download pre-made scenes from the asset store (didn't know these existed till today woah) and just focus on making those multiplayer instead

        • One challenge with this is that making the imported scenes multiplayer might be more challenging without having built them

Logging off now, pretty much where I was when I started :/ I think I'm going to keep working through this to set up the basic scene and use that scene to test Photon and Normcore. If time allows I might use more complex scenes from the asset store. 

Peer Review for Laila's Journal by Melis Gokalp

Journal activities are explicitly and clearly related to course deliverables: 5

deliverables are described and attributed in wiki: 4

report states total amount of time: 5

total time is appropriate: 5

Self evaluation

Journal activities are explicitly and clearly related to course deliverables: 5

deliverables are described and attributed in wiki: 5

report states total amount of time: 5

total time is appropriate: 4

Note: I evaluated Michael's journal

3/3/21 - 5 hours

• Set up tutorial for tomorrow's activity.

• Installed Unity3D locally.

• Followed instructions I've written so far in my Unity tutorial to get to the point where I can build off of what I've written

• Followed Hiloni's set-up guide

3/8/21 - 3 Hours

• Made presentation for project 1

• Brainstormed remaining pages to complete by this week for project 1

• Finished Photon Pun page

• Got started on Normcore page

3/9/21 - 3 Hours

• Added to Immersed page

• Continued working on Normcore page

3/10/21 - 3 Hours

• Finished Normcore page

• Started new vs. old Unity XR page

  • Running into issues with running Oculus locally for some reason (something about not being able to find the path?)

3/15/21 - 5 Hours

• Finished 'Old vs. New Input System' page

• Troubleshot the error I get when I try to run Unity locally

  • Tried deleting and reinstalling (did not work)

  • Not finding much :/ A lot of the solutions are for Windows

• Brainstorming for next project:

  • Want to do something that incorporates data visualization somehow

    • Having trouble brainstorming what kind of data

      • Maybe a 3D grapher? Could make it collaborative by having multiple people be able to view the same graph

        • It seems like VR 3D graphers already exist, but aren't collaborative

        • Building a 3D grapher from scratch feels like it would be difficult and time-consuming, but maybe I can find existing code, make it work in VR, and then make it compatible?

        • Found this project outline that a student in a previous iteration worked on

        • Found this package which seems similar to what I want, but not quite

        • C++ Network Visualization package

Project 2 Draft (Idea 1):

• • • Idea

      • Collaborative 3D graphing software in Unity

    • Things I will do

      • ??? Need to do a lot more research for this one

      • General plan is to find open-source 3D modeling software, translate it into VR and then make it collaborative?

      • If I can find a Unity package for making 3D graphs and then focus on making it collaborative, that would be ideal

    • Activity

      • Have folks try my project, or try another (probably non-collaborative) 3D graph app in headsets and discuss features/experience

    • Deliverables

      • Unity Project

      • Insttructions on how to download/use

      • Maybe a tutorial on how I made the project?

Project 2 Draft (Idea 2):

• • • Idea

      • Evaluate different Brown class' collaborative VR needs and come up with solutions

    • Things I will do

      • Survey the current use of collaborative VR in classrooms, knowledge of it, and gauge interest

      • Hone in 1-2 classes or research labs to get a deeper insight into their needs

      • Come up with solutions, or blueprints for solutions for how these classes/labs can incorporate collaborative VR

    • Activity

      • Try out one of the solutions and evaluate it

    • Deliverables

      • Survey results

      • Activity plans for classes (software, instructions, plan, etc.)

3/17/21 - 1 Hour

• Posted my issue on Slack

• Worked on presentation

3/24/21 - 3 Hours

• Finished survey

• Started brainstorming people to send the survey to

3/28/21 - 5 Hours

• Downloaded Arkio (Paul's activity) and completed in-app tutorials

• Shared a link to the survey across student groups and research labs as listed in this spreadsheet

  • Taregting students was relatively easy because the channels for reaching them are familiar, still want to brainstorm more/better ways of reaching faculty and researchers

3/31/21 - 3 Hours

• In-class activity prep

• Explored Tripp VR app

4/4/21 - 2 Hours

• Read over new survey responses

• Played around with GeoGebra AR app and brainstormed potential class activity

4/5/21 - 3 Hours

• Prepared GeoGebra3D in-class activity

• Made an update presentation

• Started GeoGebra page

4/6/21 - 1 Hour

• Prepared for others' in-class activities

4/9/21 - 2 Hours

• Finished Michael and Shenandoah's in-class activities and did their surveys. Ran into some technical difficulties along the way which made the activities take longer.

4/12/21 - 5 Hours

• Finished GeoGebra page by adding feedback from in-class activity

• Started working on summary page for survey results

  • Some of the faculty members who filled the form ended up on the student version due to a glitch, so I had to spend some time separating the data and manually making graphs because the ones in the Google form results were no longer accurate

4/13/21 - 5 Hours

• Continued working on VR @ Brown page

• Made data visualizations for survey results

4/14/21 - 6 Hours

• Finished VR @ Brown page

• Made final presentation

• Cleaned up journal and accounted for missing assignments like journal reviews etc.

• Revisited Spatial and explored the app's functionality and potential use for art and museum settings

4/20/21 - 9 Hours

• Did some research into the use of VR for gallery and museum use. It seems like right now there are a lot of applications for AR in museums and galleries as a supplement to written text or to reveal extra layers to art pieces, but I couldn't find a ton on entirely VR-based galleries or museums.

• Some cool findings:

  • VR and AR use in a Chinese Museum 

  • AR art exhibition in Seoul

  • Will Virtual Reality Art Destroy  Visual Art

  • NYT article on a VR art firm

• Explored Acute Art, the AR art application mentioned in the NYT article 

  • The app seems to mainly be for viewing AR art, not creating it

  • The art pieces were all quite slow to load despite good Internet connection. Would be curious to learn more about how they are implemented and to examine the source of the lag

  • The app has you place a pin where you want the model to be grounded, which I thought was a cool UX feature that could be useful for a variety of applications, especially ones with VR/3D models

• Looked up 'museum' in the Oculus store

  • Found and watched video tours of actual physical museums

  • The Anne Frank house had its own app on the store which was super fascinating to explore. The entire house has been recreated in VR

    • The app has both a narrative mode, which is somewhat like a guided tour of the house, and an explore mode, which lets you walk around on your own. The explore mode did not work for me.

  • Did not find any applications for making your own gallery or museum. Also did not find any apps that mirrored the real-world museum-going experience, which somewhat makes sense because instead of showing things in 2D or a plaque developers can immerse you in the content, but I would be interested in seeing what that could look like. Could also be cool to have a mixed experience, like walking around a museum room in VR but when you click on something it takes you into an immersive version of it. 

• Found this video of a VR art gallery using services from the company Gigoia Studios which offers various VR services, including VR galleries for artists

• Downloaded and tried VRZone

  • The app has a variety of galleries you can buy tickets to

  • UX is kind of poor, very unclear how to turn around in the app or if that's even possible and walking is done in relatively small increments

  • Galleries are/can be multiplayer, which is cool!

  • You can lease galleries in the app by applying through a form on the company's website

  • Got a ticket and went to the Banksy exhibit. It was pretty cool, the gallery is a small VR town where you can walk around wherever and Banksy's pieces displayed as murals on the side of buildings

• Made a wiki page for VRZone

• Downloaded and explored Arthur

• Added a page for Arthur under the Collaborative Workspaces page

• Finalized and practiced final presentation

• Factory reset headset