Anthony Steed

University College London | UCL · Department of Computer Science

Boundaries define regions of space and are integral to episodic memories. The impact of boundaries on spatial memory and neural representations of space has been extensively studied in freely-moving rodents. But less is known in humans and many prior studies have employed desktop virtual reality (VR) which lacks the body-based self-motion cues of t...

Sketch and speech are intuitive interaction methods that convey complementary information and have been independently used for 3D model retrieval in virtual environments. While sketch has been shown to be an effective retrieval method, not all collections are easily navigable using this modality alone. We design a new challenging database for sketc...

Sketch and speech are intuitive interaction methods that convey complementary information and have been independently used for 3D model retrieval in virtual environments. While sketch has been shown to be an effective retrieval method, not all collections are easily navigable using this modality alone. We design a new challenging database for sketc...

Collaboration using mixed reality technology is an active area of research, where significant research is done to virtually bridge physical distances. There exist a diverse set of platforms and devices that can be used for a mixed-reality collaboration, and is largely focused for indoor scenarios, where, a stable tracking can be assumed. We focus o...

Users within a Virtual Environment often need support designing the environment around them with the need to find relevant content while remaining immersed. We focus on the familiar sketch-based interaction to support the process of content placing and specifically investigate how interactions from a tablet or desktop translate into the virtual env...

Drawing tools for Virtual Reality (VR) enable users to model 3D designs from within the virtual environment itself. These tools employ sketching and sculpting techniques known from desktop-based interfaces and apply them to hand-based controller interaction. While these techniques allow for mid-air sketching of basic shapes, it remains difficult fo...

In real‐time rendering, the appearance of scenes is greatly affected by the quality and resolution of the textures used for image synthesis. At the same time, the size of textures determines the performance and the memory requirements of rendering. As a result, finding the optimal texture resolution is critical, but also a non‐trivial task since th...

Maintaining an application across different virtual reality systems can be difficult and time-consuming. Different systems require different strategies for implementing simple interactions such as locomotion and object manipulation. In this chapter, we describe a pattern that we have used to minimize the interactions between the interaction style (...

A large number of imaging and computer graphics applications require localized information on the visibility of image distortions. Existing image quality metrics are not suitable for this task as they provide a single quality value per image. Existing visibility metrics produce visual difference maps, and are specifically designed for detecting jus...

We describe a novel method for searching 3D model collections using free-form sketches within a virtual environment as queries. As opposed to traditional sketch retrieval, our queries are drawn directly onto an example model. Using immersive virtual reality the user can express their query through a sketch that demonstrates the desired structure, c...

A large number of imaging and computer graphics applications require localized information on the visibility of image distortions. Existing image quality metrics are not suitable for this task as they provide a single quality value per image. Existing visibility metrics produce visual difference maps, and are specifically designed for detecting jus...

Real-time interactive systems such as virtual environments have high performance requirements, and profiling is a key part of the optimisation process to meet them. Traditional techniques based on metadata and static analysis have difficulty following causality in asynchronous systems. In this paper we explore a new technique for such systems. Time...

Hand gesture recognition is a key aspect to make interaction of virtual reality more convenient. A good way to make users’ idea understood by computers including characters input plays an important role in interaction. Current methods of hand gesture and character input are too limited to make full use of powerful capacity that computers have nowad...

We describe a novel method for searching 3D model collections using free-form sketches within a virtual environment as queries. As opposed to traditional Sketch Retrieval, our queries are drawn directly onto an example model. Using immersive virtual reality the user can express their query through a sketch that demonstrates the desired structure, c...

As we explore the use of consumer virtual reality technology for training applications, there is a need to evaluate its validity compared to more traditional training formats. In this paper, we present a study that compares the effectiveness of virtual training and physical training for teaching a bimanual assembly task. In a between-subjects exper...

360° images and video have become extremely popular formats for immersive displays, due in large part to the technical ease of content production. While many experiences use a single camera viewpoint, an increasing number of experiences use multiple camera locations. In such multi-view 360° media (MV360M) systems, a visual effect is required when t...

When rendering virtual objects in a mixed reality application, it is helpful to have access to an environment map that captures the appearance of the scene from the perspective of the virtual object. It is straightforward to render virtual objects into such maps, but capturing and correctly rendering the real components of the scene into the map is...

Modern virtual reality simulations require a constant high-frame rate from the rendering engine. They may also require very low latency and stereo images. Previous rendering engines for virtual reality applications have exploited spatial and temporal coherence by using image-warping to re-use previous frames or to render a stereo pair at lower cost...

The proliferation of head-mounted displays (HMD) in the market means that cinematic virtual reality (CVR) is an increasingly popular format. We explore several metrics that may indicate advantages and disadvantages of CVR compared to traditional viewing formats such as TV. We explored the consumption of panoramic videos in three different display s...

The term big data occurs more frequently now than ever before. A large number of fields and subjects, ranging from everyday life to traditional research fields (i.e., geography and transportation, biology and chemistry, medicine and rehabilitation) involve big data problems. The popularizing of various types of network has diversified types, issues...

Modern virtual reality simulations require a constant high-frame rate from the rendering engine. They may also require very low latency and stereo images. Previous rendering engines for virtual reality applications have exploited spatial and temporal coherence by using image-warping to re-use previous frames or to render a stereo pair at lower cost...

We aim to further explore the transfer of spatial knowledge from virtual to real spaces. Based on previous research on spatial memory in immersive virtual reality (VR) we ran a study that looked at the effect of three locomotion techniques (joystick, pointing-and-teleporting and walking-in-place) on object location learning and recall. Participants...

One potential application for virtual environments (VEs) is the training of spatial knowledge. A critical question is what features the VE should have in order to facilitate this training. Previous research has shown that people rely on environmental features, such as sockets and wall decorations, when learning object locations. The aim of this stu...

As Web3D technology advances, the need for delivering real-Time 3D content online has gained traction in the academic as well as commercial world. Various efforts have been made in creating a suitable transmission format for streaming of 3D assets over the Internet. Despite being accustomed to waiting for long periods of time for massive scenes to...

Communication technologies are becoming increasingly diverse in form and functionality. A central concern is the ability to detect whether others are trustworthy. Judgments of trustworthiness rely, in part, on assessments of non-verbal cues, which are affected by media representations. In this research, we compared trust formation on three media re...

It is increasingly apparent that the traditional scene graph is not fulfilling the requirements of real-time interactive systems. The use of a single graph as a representation of the current state of the world means that display systems, that may operate at very different rates, or may need to predict ahead the state, need to be very tightly integr...

Consumer virtual reality systems are now becoming widely available. We report on a study on presence and embodiment within virtual reality that was conducted 'in the wild', in that data was collected from devices owned by consumers in uncontrolled settings, not in a traditional laboratory setting. Users of Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard devic...

Latency - the delay between a user's action and the response to this action - is known to be detrimental to virtual reality. Latency is typically considered to be a discrete value characterising a delay, constant in time and space - but this characterisation is incomplete. Latency changes across the display during scan-out, and how it does so is de...

Due in large part to new consumer virtual reality systems, panoramic media is an increasingly popular image and video format. While the capture of panoramic media is well understood, editing still poses many challenges. In this paper we explore object removal in 360° images. First, a method is proposed in which field-of-view expansion using retarge...

Head gaze, or the orientation of the head, is a very important attentional cue in face to face conversation. Some subtleties of the gaze can be lost in common teleconferencing systems, because a single perspective warps spatial characteristics. A recent random hole display is a potentially interesting display for group conversation, as it allows mu...

Reconfigurable hardware has been used before for low latency image synthesis. These are typically low level implementations with tight vertical integration. For example the apparatus of both Regan et al and Ng et al had the tracker driven by the same device performing the rendering. Reconfigurable hardware combined with the dataflow programming mod...

Telepresence involves the use of virtual reality technology to facilitate apparent physical participation in distant events, including potentially performing tasks, while creating a sense of being in that location. Traditionally, such systems are asymmetric in nature where only one side (participant) is “teleported” to the remote location. In this...

We propose a new video conferencing system that uses an array of cameras to capture a remote user and then show the video of that person on a spherical display. This telepresence system has two key advantages: (i) it can capture a near-correct image for any potential observer viewing direction because the cameras surround the user horizontally; and...

Space syntax is an important knowledge domain and focus of study for students of Architecture. It centers on the understanding of spaces, tectonics and volumes for the informed design of buildings or outdoor spaces. Space syntax is considered to be a threshold concept in Architecture, in that understanding and interpreting this knowledge domain is...

Gaze, attention, and eye contact are important aspects of face to face communication, but some subtleties can be lost in videoconferencing because participants look at a single planar image of the remote user. We propose a low-cost cylindrical videoconferencing system that preserves gaze direction by providing perspective-correct images for multipl...

We report on two experiments that investigate the influence of display type and viewing angle on how people place their trust during avatar-mediated interaction. By monitoring advice seeking behavior, our first experiment demonstrates that if participants observe an avatar at an oblique viewing angle on a flat display, they are less able to discrim...

In a complex world students need to be equipping with a range of capabilities that will enable them to be critical and flexible learners and citizens. The central research objective in this paper is to explore the argument that virtual reality (VR) technologies, collaborative learning approaches and recognition of the values and importance of thres...

This paper explores body ownership and control of an 'extended' humanoid avatar that features a distinct and flexible tail-like appendage protruding from its coccyx. Thirty-two participants took part in a between-groups study to puppeteer the avatar in an immersive CAVETM -like system. Participants’ body movement was tracked, and the avatar’s h...

Additive manufacturing (3D printing) is commonly used to produce physical models for a wide variety of applications, from archaeology to design. While static models are directly supported, it is desirable to also be able to print models with functional articulations, such as a hand with joints and knuckles, without the need for manual assembly of j...

The movement of human gaze is very important in face to face conversation. Some of the quality of that movement is lost in videoconferencing because the participants look at a single planar image of the remote person. We use an array of cameras to capture a remote user, and then display video of that person on a spherical display. We compare the sp...

Although telerehabilitation systems represent one of the most technologically appealing clinical solutions for the immediate future, they still present limitations that prevent their standardization. Here we propose an integrated approach that includes three key and novel factors: (a) fully immersive virtual environments, including virtual body rep...

An emerging form of telecollaboration utilizes situated or mobile displays at a physical destination to virtually represent remote visitors. An example is a personal telepresence robot, which acts as a physical proxy for a remote visitor, and uses cameras and microphones to capture its surroundings, which are transmitted back to the visitor. We pro...

Autonomous virtual characters (AVCs) are becoming more prevalent both for real-time interaction and also as digital actors in film and TV production. AVCs require believable virtual human animations, accompanied by natural attention generation, and thus the software that controls the AVCs needs to model when and how to interact with the objects and...

Models for animating the eyes of virtual characters often focus on making the face appear natural and believable. There has been relatively little work in computer graphics that investigates the relevance of the objects of interest (gaze targets). In this paper, a gaze animation model has been constructed that allocates visual attention to relevant...

Within perceptual psychology, visual masking describes a process whereby the presentation of one image, the mask, affects the conscious perception of another, the target. Given the right conditions the target can effectively be rendered invisible. There is a dearth of research into the effects of visually masked stimuli within virtual environments,...

The Access Grid supports collaboration between geographically distributed groups, by allowing each group's local "node" to connect to one of several shared "virtual venues". We have explored ways of extending the Access Grid Toolkit version 2, specifically: to integrate a collaborative mobile pollution monitoring and visualisation application; and...

When compared to gaze, animation of the eyelids has been largely overlooked in the computer graphics literature. Eyelid movement plays an important part both in conveying accurate gaze direction and in improving the visual appearance of virtual characters. Eyelids have two major motion components: lid saccades that follow the vertical rotation the...

The success of visual telecommunication systems depends on their ability to transmit and display users' natural nonverbal behavior. While video-mediated communication (VMC) is the most widely used form of interpersonal remote interaction, avatar-mediated communication (AMC) in shared virtual environments is increasingly common. This paper presents...

Locomotion interfaces pose a large challenge for designers of immersive virtual environments. While treadmills and other actuated interfaces can be integrated with spatial displays or head-mounted displays, they are expensive or they constrain walking to one direction. In this technical note we demonstrate the integration of a passive walking inter...

Complex interactions occur in virtual reality systems, requiring the modelling of next-generation attention models to obtain believable virtual human animations. This paper presents a saliency model that is neither domain nor task specific, which is used to animate the gaze of virtual characters. A critical question is addressed: What types of sali...

In most contemporary forms of musical and other technologically mediated artistic performance, systems are used where digital control information is transmitted from the interfaces used by the performers, to the devices producing the intended output. There is considerable ongoing discussion regarding how this control data is mapped between its sour...

For efficient collaboration between participants, eye gaze is seen as being critical for interaction. Video conferencing either does not attempt to support eye gaze (e.g. AcessGrid) or only approximates it in round table conditions (e.g. life size telepresence). Immersive collaborative virtual environments represent remote participants through avat...

In face-to-face collaboration, eye gaze is used both as a bidirectional signal to monitor and indicate focus of attention and action, as well as a resource to manage the interaction. In remote interaction supported by Immersive Collaborative Virtual Environments (ICVEs), embodied avatars representing and controlled by each participant share a virtu...

Eye gaze is an important and widely studied non-verbal resource in co-located social interaction. When we attempt to support tele- presence between people, there are two main technologies that can be used today: video-conferencing (VC) and collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). In VC, one can observe eye-gaze behaviour but practically the targe...

Participants' eye-gaze is generally not captured or represented in immersive collaborative virtual environment (ICVE) systems. We present EyeCVE, which uses mobile eye-trackers to drive the gaze of each participant's virtual avatar, thus supporting remote mutual eye-contact and awareness of others' gaze in a perceptually unfragmented shared virtual...

Eye gaze is an important conversational resource that until now could only be supported across a distance if people were rooted to the spot. We introduce EyeCVE, the worldpsilas first tele-presence system that allows people in different physical locations to not only see what each other are doing but follow each otherpsilas eyes, even when walking...

A desktop tool for replay and analysis of gaze-enhanced multiparty virtual collaborative sessions is described. We linked three CAVETM-like environments, creating a multiparty collaborative virtual space where avatars are animated with 3D gaze as well as head and hand motions in real time. Log files are recorded for subsequent playback and analysis...

This paper presents the quantitative and qualitative findings from an experiment designed to evaluate a developing model of affective postures for full-body virtual characters in immersive virtual environments (IVEs). Forty-nine participants were each requested to explore a virtual environment by asking two virtual characters for instructions. The...

In this chapter, we give an overview of some of the issues that face programmers and designers when building collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). We do this by highlighting three aspects of CVE system software: the environment model (data structures, behaviour description) that the system provides, the data-sharing mechanism (how the environm...

In collaborative situations, eye gaze is a critical element of behavior which supports and fulfills many activities and roles. In current computer-supported collaboration systems, eye gaze is poorly supported. Even in a state-of-the-art video conferencing system such as the access grid, although one can see the face of the user, much of the communi...

We have developed software bots that inhabit the popular online social environment SecondLife (SL). Our bots can wander around, collect data, engage in simple interactions, and carry out simple auto- mated experiments. In this paper we use our bots to study spatial social behavior. We found an indication that SL users display distinct spatial behav...

The Presenccia project takes an operational approach to the concept of presence. Presenccia's approach lets the project team assess the extent of presence using tools beyond traditional questionnaires, and therefore avoid many of the problems involved with sole reliance on these. Instead, the team considers the extent to which mixed reality and VR...

Abstract We have set up a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) to be used as aninput device to a highly immersive,virtual reality Cave-like system. We have carried out two navigation experiments: three subjects were required to rotate in a virtual bar room by imagining left or right hand movement, and to walk along a single axis in a virtual street by im...

Many existing Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) systems have two major deficiencies. Firstly, they support the situation of face-to-face meetings poorly. Secondly, many systems deal badly with data sets and workspaces. This paper outlines the requirements for a class of CSCW tools that would focus on supporting closely coupled collaborativ...

This paper reports on the results of an experiment designed to study fine grain physiological responses of participants to an immersive virtual simulation of an urban environment. An experiment was carried out with 40 participants who were asked to walk through a virtual street, which had virtual characters walking through it. The analysis of diffe...

This paper presents a study of the fine grain physiological respon- ses of participants to an immersive virtual simulation of an urban environment. The analysis of differences in participant responses at various stages of the experiment (baseline recordings, training, first half and second half of the urban simulation) are examined in de- tail. It...

Working together at a distance has been a long-standing research goal of collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). While desktop-based CVEs have come into widespread use for online games and to some extent for distributed work, immersive projection technology (IPT) systems [1] are still relatively rare and they are typically used in specialized ap...

Healthy participants are able to move forward within a virtual environment (VE) by the imagination of foot movement. This is achieved by using a brain-computer interface (BCI) that transforms thought-modulated electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings into a control signal. A BCI establishes a communication channel between the human brain and the compu...

Presence research relies heavily on empirical experiments involving subjects in mediated environments. Since presence is a complex, multidimensional concept, experiments on presence can be extremely resource intensive and produce large amounts of data of different types. As the presence community matures, we would like to suggest that data collecte...

This paper presents an experiment that investigates the importance of nonverbal behavioral cues when designing affective virtual characters for an immersive virtual environment (IVE).Forty-nine participants were each instructed to explore a virtual environment by asking two virtual characters for instructions in a CAVE#8482;-like system. The underl...