Project Ideas

Over the course of the semester, you'll work on two research projects centered around collaborative VR software. If you're feeling stuck, consider pursuing one of the following projects:

Miscellaneous

• Use medical data to visualize in VR

• Use data visualization dashboards to render in VR

• Evaluation and Exploration of Paraview Web / VTkWeb

  • With emphasis on analysis of performance, speed, comprehensiveness as a visualization library. This will be especially helpful since the main critiques of current WebVR libraries are that they lack comprehensiveness, and Paraview Web could solve that gap. 

• Wiki Page on Guide to Collaborative Frameworks for different applications

  • Many have experimented with different collaboration frameworks, of which some have worked, and others haven't. It would be fantastic to have a guide to how to implement each one, and what the tradeoffs are between them. 

  • Note that there is already a section on the WebVR Page about collaboration, but this could be expanded into an entire wiki page

Logistics

• Improving the overall organization of the wiki

  • There have been many times where I have started writing about a subject not knowing it already existed somewhere in the wiki. It seems almost impossible to organize the content of this wiki by index alone, since many subjects overlap and cannot neatly be placed in a category. It would be helpful to think of better ways of organizing all of this information for ease of access. 

• Improving Wiki save ability / migrating to other wiki tech than google sites

  • One noted problem is that almost every time one edits the VR wiki, it does not save changes and asks you to copy your changes, reload the page, and paste them in again. This process is both inconvenient and a waste of time. Past students have lost typed work because of failure to save, and then reloading the browser automatically.  Not only does one have to worry about saving the actual content, but they also have to worry about formatting, as copying the content does not guarantee that the formatting will carry over. A great project would be to fix this issue within Google Sites itself or by migrating the wiki into a different service. One could research the pros and cons of each, present them to the class, and have the class decide what to do moving forward. 

• Creating a Google Calendar with Homework Due Dates, Class times, and Presentation Dates

  • Its easy to forget to check the Course Timeline Page for Homework for next class, but Google Calendar makes it much more convenient because it is integrated into your existing schedule, and it can send you reminders about homeworks and events. It would be great to setup a course google calendar to keep track of everything that is going on.

Scientific Visualization Software and Analysis

• Find a scientific dataset (e.g. from the scientific data page) and compile a list of collaborative visualization software that supports your dataset. Then, compare the features and usability of each piece of software. 

  • Core questions: How simple is it to view your dataset in each piece of software? In other words, quantify the time and number of steps each software package requires. What collaborative features are supported, if any? What obstacles exist for scientists who may want to use this software. 

• Consider pursuing one of the project ideas from CSCI 2370.

• Find and evaluate frameworks / plugins for Unity and/or Unreal Engine that support collaborative VR scientific visualization (e.g. volume rendering).

  • Core questions: How easy is it to build a collaborative VR app? How much programming experience is required to build collaborative experiences? 

• Find and evaluate VR games that support collaboration and which could potentially extended to support scientific visualization.

  • Core questions: To what extent can VR games be used for collaboration and scientific visualization? 

Software Development 

• Expand upon the collaborative functionality of Cave Painting and/or DinoVR.

  • Skills required: Experience with C++, CMake, and OpenGL, windows development, possibly ocuslus development

• Extend MinVR to support collaborative VR development. 

  • Skills required: Experience with C++, CMake, and OpenGL, windows development, possibly oculus development

• Find what VR support ParaView has, whether it is collaborative, and if it can be extended

  • same as above

User Experience (UX)

• Evaluate the state of scientific tooling (e.g. UI elements designed specifically for scientific visualization) across various VR software.

  • Core questions: How can existing VR software be redesigned to better support the needs of scientists?  

• Evaluate what collaborative techniques work well in VR and propose some new techniques that could aid scientific visualization. 

  • Core questions: What visual cues are missing from virtual environments that might help collaborative work? How do sound and latency impact collaborative work? What can be done to reduce motion sickness and fatigue when working in collaborative environments?