SWE - Winter 2009 - (Page 28) KEVIN TESKE, VRA/IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY Engineering postdoc Eric Foo collaborates with mechanical engineering human computer interaction student Marisol EscobarMartinez, Ph.D., and graduate student Catherine Peloquin in the C6, exploring three-dimensional anatomy generated from MRI scans. The C6 is Iowa State University's six-sided, 100 million pixel immersive environment located at the Virtual Reality Applications Center. Judy Vance, Ph.D., Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty Fellow of Virtual Reality Applications Center, Iowa State University; recent Program Director for Engineering Design at the National Science Foundation; SWE Life Member KEVIN TESKE, VRA/ IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY “I wish I could give everyone the experience of walking into a virtual reality environment. It will be interesting to see where this technology goes … The technology is ripe for widespread use and getting better every day.” As her field is mechanical engineering, Dr. other uses of virtual reality outside of manuVance looks at the tremendous advances virfacturing, such as simulating dangerous envitual reality can make in this area. “These adronments so that people can become vances would be a major step for most acclimated and trained accordingly. manufacturing facilities if we can get virtual “There are many social aspects of virtual rereality capabilities early in the design ality. With virtual reality, we can communiprocess,” she said. She points to the savings in cate more effectively about three-dimensional product design if problems were dealt with shapes. Virtual reality is different from simuvirtually rather than on lation. It is immerthe assembly line. sive so that people My fellow SWE engineers: Other practical uses have a sense of scale “Think how computers have changed our lives such as how far they of virtual reality in so far. The future is going to look different manufacturing would are from a cliff or from what we have now. I was amazed at how how big a room is. allow designs to be fast microwaves got into every kitchen. Why drawn to scale. LookThis aspect would not virtual reality? There’s a lot of potential, ing at a design in a virallow surgeons to and we can make it happen.” tual environment is train in a virtual envastly different from vironment or people seeing it on a monitor. “Virtual reality is about to conquer a fear of heights.” human perception,” she explained, noting Dr. Vance is already looking ahead to virtual reality interaction devices in which people can touch objects and feel their weight. “People can walk through the Taj Mahal or Notre Dame and feel their spaciousness,” she explained, “but another aspect of virtual reality is to be part of it by changing it, not just walking through it.” She envisions a work environment in which “the keyboard could be replaced by a force feedback device or instrumented gloves. The monitor could become a projection screen on multiple walls. Instead of embedding objects within the confines of a small computer screen, you could be playing tennis with your Daniela Faas, doctoral student in mechanical engineering and colleague who is displayed in real time in real human interaction, assembles three-dimensional virtual parts using collision detection, haptic feedback devices, and desktop size on a wall in your house.” I immersion. 28 SWE WINTER 2009
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