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This page discusses about LIMBO and CAVE Collaborative Console, CCC,. CCC is currently under a development at the VT-CAVE. CCC is funded by NSF NCSA PACI. Two graduate research assistants form Computer Science Department involve in CCC: Kevin Curry focuses on CAVE Collaborative Console while Kent Swartz works on Awareness Tools. Once we have an Open Inventor file of a building, we can load it into the immersive CAVE environment and have a submersed walkthrough experience. CCC then allows other users to share a virtual space and have real-time, face to face discussion. This technology can support collaboration among architects, engineers, owners, and contractors in construction projects.
LIMBOLIMBO is a simple collaborative program available form CAVERNUS web page. It was developed by Dr. Jason Leigh of Electronic Visualization Lab, EVL, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago. Limbo allows multiple participants represented as avatars to present and collaborate in the same virtual space. An avatar is a computer representation of a person presence in the virtual environment. An avatar consists of a body, a head, and an arm. The movement of the head and arm is supported by tracking the stereo glasses and wand in the CAVE,and the I-DESK or by keyboard in the CAVE Simulator. Users can also load and manipulate 3D models into the scene, and move them. The maximum number of objects that can be loaded into the virtual world is 64.
INSTRUCTIONS OF HOW TO USE LIMBOHere are the summary of instructions of how to use LIMBO from README page in the LIMBO software package. There are 2 modes you can run the program in. 1. Connecting 2 clients to each other------------------------------------------------------ Lets say you want to connect 3 computers called: cave.adesign.com, idesk.acontractor.com and sgi.aowner.com Lets assume that you are on cave.adesign.com and will act as the server in this case. So, on cave.adesign.com type: %limbo YourName On idesk.acontractor.com type: % limbo cave.adesign.com Michael On sgi.aowner.com type: % limbo idesk.aowner.com David Now you should be able to see the contractor and the owner as avatars named Michael and David. Use the wand's joystick for navigation.
Lets say the contractor on idesk.acontractor.com want load a new doorframe object into the virtual space. Type: %delimbo cave.adesign.com doorframe.iv 0 doorframe.iv is a local inventor / vrml1 file in idesk.acontractor.com. The number 0 is the index to choose for the object (You can choose values between 0 and 63.)
Type: %delimbo cave.adesign.com NONE 0 Back To Top2. Connecting clients to a central server---------------------------------------------------------------- In this example a designate computer is acted as the server. On the server (let's say it's beeviz.server.com), go into the SERVER directory and run: irb Now on any other machine run limbo by typing: %limbo beeviz.server.com Michael
Type: %delimbo beeviz.server.com doorframe.iv 0 where doorframe.iv is a inventor / vrml1 file in your machine. The number 0 is the index to choose for the object (You can choose values between 0 and 63.)
Type: %delimbo beeviz.sever.com NONE 0
NAVIGATION TOOLS------------------------------------------------------------ Wand Buttons: LEFT Button - lets you pick and move an object. The intersection is shown as a blinking white box. MIDDLE Button - lets you fly towards whatever your wand is intersecting with so you don't have to deal with navigation.
CAVE COLLABORATIVE CONSOLE, CCCCCC is built on top of LIMBO. It is simply a modified LIMBO program that add awareness tools to what a regular LIMBO can do. It was designed to use with LIMBO and CAVERNSoft. Standard LIMBO command are valid in CCC, e.g. connecting command, and load object command. Kevin Curry and Kent Swartz of Computer Science Department, Virginia Tech are developing the CCC for the Master Degree thesis. For more information about CAVE Collaborative Console, please go to CCC's page. limAware is the first version of CCC. It contains several awareness which will be described later on. Back To Top
DESCRIPTIONS OF TOOLS IN CCC
MapView Radar is circle representing the world from a top view perspective. The center of the map is based on the position of the head tracker. The range of the radar is set to 75 units. Therefore, other participants in the range will appear as blips around the center.
The Participant List is a head-up graphical text display of everyone sharing the virtual space. The Participant's List shows the names of each users, machine's name of each user and relative distance from the center of the MapView (your location). This information combined with MapView Radar will help locating other users.
Teleport allows you to instantaneously jump into the other participants location and see whatever that participant is looking at. in the other words, Teleport will enable other users to see what you want them to see. Teleports are bi-directional which means that you can go to other participants' location and other participants can come to your location.
Tethering enables one or more participants in the virtual world to connect to a participant in the way that he or she will go along with the participant they are connected to. Therefore, the connected participant is the only one that does the navigation while other participants just go for a ride. This command tool is very useful when a participant want all other participants to go to a particular location. There will be other Awareness tools available in a very near future. Click here to learn more about CCC Back To Top |
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