Photos of RUIS apps from 2012 VR course

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Takala

In May 2012 we finished a virtual reality course where 13 students from Aalto School of Science and Technology and Aalto ARTS’ MediaLab learned about virtual reality.

Five student teams created their own virtual reality applications and below are photos of four of them that used RUIS for Processing:

WW2 era flying

WW2 era flying

One player flies the plane with two PS Move controllers, and second player can use the machine gun to at fire enemy planes.


Squash-like ball game

Squash-like ball game

A futuristic ball game where two players compete by trying to hit the ball as close to the targets in the back wall.


Soundscape from boids

Soundscape from boids

A flock of boids are affected by PS Move controllers, and their motion is forwarded to SuperCollider to synthesize sounds. I’ll upload a video/music file of this later.


Aquarium simulator

Aquarium

Two players compete by trying to catch as many fish as possible, by using PS Move controlled nets.

All you see above is created by students who have no or very little experience in creating VR or 3D user interface applications. This time RUIS for Processing was more mature when compared to the situation in 2011’s VR course, and the resulting apps were more fun.

A new course is starting in January of 2013. The details will be in my next post.

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RUIS is released, try it now!

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Takala

(Updated again 4th of March: See new video. And yet again on 2nd of May for version 0.89)
We just have released RUIS version 0.81 0.86 0.89, which is a major update since our last update in May 2011! Download the latest version here. RUIS is now provided as a Processing library, and you only need Processing 1.51 to test its basic functionality.

Some of the features included in RUIS version 0.86:

  • Supports Kinect, PlayStation Move, and WiiMote MotionPlus input devices
  • Easily modifiable 3D selection and manipulation routines
  • Integrated JBullet physics engine
  • Multi-display stereo-rendering
  • Projector keystone correction
  • Calibration for matching PlayStation Move and Kinect coordinate systems
  • Kinect and PlayStation Move -based head tracking
  • Kinect skeletons affect JBullet’s physical world simulation
  • Kinect skeleton data point manipulation with 3D transformations

This is a preview release for Aalto University’s Virtual Reality 2012 course, so there are still number of things that we will polish. Currently we are aiming to release an improved version of RUIS within February and March.

Coming soon:

  • Extensible Kinect gesture recognition system
  • More refined application programming interface
  • Documentation with illustrations
  • Demonstration video

Have fun everyone!

P.S. In March I will present my paper Survey of 3DUI Applications and Development Challenges at “Symposium on 3D User Interfaces 2012”, which is part of IEEE Virtual Reality 2012 conference in Orange County, California. Let me know if you are there and want to meet up.

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Release getting closer, new virtual reality course in Spring

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Takala

We missed the Autumn release, but the new and user-friendly version of RUIS is being worked on!

I’m just finishing writing a paper based on the 3DUI survey (see previous blog update), and after that I’ll get back to RUIS.

Kinect and PlayStation Move are already working with RUIS, and best of all it’s all Java based and works on Windows, Mac, and Linux!
You will be able to install RUIS just like any other Processing library. If you already can connect to Kinect using SimpleOpenNI, then you’ll have no problems using RUIS with Kinect.

I still have some bugs to fix and programming interface improvements to be made before the release.
Just wanted to let you know that RUIS is still coming and it will be awesome! 🙂

P.S. Virtual reality course will be organized again in Spring 2012 Aalto School of Science, this time with new RUIS and better toys!

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Lets make 3DUI development easier

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Takala

Creating 3DUIs that use Kinect, Wiimotes etc. can be tricky with getting the hardware and software to work, and then coding the actual interaction.

I created the following survey to map problems in 3D user interface development:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEhzeXRZdE9IQ1BhNWx2QzdQUmdBVHc6MQ

If you have tried developing your own 3DUI applications, please answer the survey. The results will help to make things easier for 3DUI hobbyists. I’ll publish the results in a scientific publication next year.

Keep on prototyping,
-Tuukka

P.S. Currently we are working hard with getting first major release of RUIS out: Kinect support is mostly added, and we just acquired PS3 to add support for Move.me (and the Move controllers). The release should be out in August or September.

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RUIS applications by students (pics included)

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Takala

In May we wrapped up Virtual Reality course lectured by prof. Lauri Savioja in Aalto University’s Department of Media Technology.

In the course 14 students from School of Science and Technology and Taikki’s MediaLab formed 5 teams and created virtual reality applications using RUIS. Here are pictures of their work:

Super Ski Jumping
Ski Jump
Ski Jump
Ski Jump
Ski Jump

Interior Design
Interior Design
Interior Design

Jedi Training
Jedi Training

First Person Shooter
First Person Shooter

Grappling Hook
Grappling Hook

It was exciting to see the students to develop their applications. The course showed us that RUIS can be used for VR application and 3D user interface prototyping even by inexperienced developers.

Videos of students’ applications will be released later.

P.S. We are now working hard to add Kinect support for RUIS by the end of August 2011. Our plan is that this upcoming release can be easily installed by anyone with a computer and Kinect.

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RUIS in Singapore!

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Takala

We are participating in 3D user interface Grand Contest that is part of Virtual Reality 2011 Conference, this year organized in Singapore. Our contest entry is a 3D puzzle application, built with RUIS. See its demonstration video below:

A list of all the contest participants can be seen here.

UPDATE: Our puzzle entry placed 4th out of 8th participants and one of the judges gave us 10 out of 10!

So far there has been a great presentation by Sony’s Richard Marks, who demostranted PlayStation Move’s conception and design history, as well as novel 3D user interface demos that use PS Move.

Mr. Marks stated that PS Move.me beta is not available outside U.S. yet, and it is not known when it will be available in other continents. We are looking forward to add PS Move support for RUIS in the coming months. Support for Kinect should also become available, by summer of 2011.

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RUIS sounds!

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Pugliese

UPDATE: Max/MSP demo patch for RUIS has finally been uploaded 🙂

Dear artist, designer, technology enthusiast, hobbyist, et al.,

when you start prototyping your 3D application…don’t forget about SOUND!

The use of sound adds very much to the immersion in a virtual environment and if carefully designed, can provide invaluable feedback to the user in many tasks she can try to accomplish. Although neglected in the past, recent research trends such as sonic interaction design have been focusing on the importance of sound as a primary channel for conveying information (auditory display) and as a mean for interaction.

In RUIS you have different way to develop your sonic ideas: use one of the audio library available for Processing (Minim, ESS , SuperCollider) or use an external platform such as Max/Msp or PureData. For the latter, RUIS provides you with Open Sound Control (OSC) communication which means that potentially all the parameters present in the virtual space are available to be used for sonification elsewhere.

To get you started, feel free to download a Max/Msp patch available in the download section. The patch receives the position of the particles immersed in the physics engine and maps their accelerations to the amplitude of different customizable sound waves. In addition to that you can also use your samples library and play a sampler as you have probably never done before.

Sound makes you feel where you are.

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Virtual Reality course starts!

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Takala

UPDATE:  Lecture times have changed! The first lecture will still be on Wed 19.1. in Odeion at 14.15. After that the lectures will be given in lecture hall T4 (computer science building, address: Konemiehentie 2) on Wednesdays at 12.15, i.e two hours earlier than the original schedule.

Virtual Reality course organized by Department of Media Technology (Aalto University) starts next week with introduction lecture on Wednesday 19th of January 2011. RUIS (Processing) will be used as the main platform for the course, and advanced students can use any technology they choose, including Kinect.

The course is available for students of Media Technology and Taikki’s MediaLab. Programming skills are not necessary, because cross-disclipinary groups will be formed during the course: An ideal group has 3 people, with two people focusing on programming and technical implementation, and one person focusing on interaction design, visuals, audio, or content production. Students form their own groups, and the course assistants will make sure that each group has at least someone with average programming skills, mixing groups if necessary.

TKK students use Oodi system to enroll for the course, and MediaLab’s students enroll by sending their name and student number to roberto.pugliese (at) tkk.fi

Course is organized in English, see details from course homepage:
https://noppa.tkk.fi/noppa/kurssi/t-111.5400/etusivu

Check the assignments page for details on the project work.

https://noppa.tkk.fi/noppa/kurssi/t-111.5400/etusivuAalto University
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RUIS is gaining momentum

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Takala

We are happy to report that demand for RUIS is growing:

  • RUIS has been selected to be the main platform for course T-111.5400 Virtual Reality in Aalto University School of Science and Technology, lectured by prof. Lauri Savioja in 2011 Spring term.
  • RUIS technology will be used in the Great Conspiracy multimedia opera, which is under works in MediaLab of Aalto University of Art and Design.
  • We have begun initial talks about using RUIS in a dance project with people who have previously combined dance and new media.

In additional news, a new release (2010.11.14) of RUIS can be downloaded from the download page. The codebase is more clean compared to earlier releases, and now only OpenCV and two Processing libraries need to be installed. We will still do more work on cleaning the code, and eventually release RUIS as a group of Processing/Java libraries.

This new release also enhances desktop usability, by allowing selection and manipulation of the virtual objects via mouse or Wiimote. The full six degrees of freedom manipulation, currently achieved in RUIS only by our custom color LED tracker, should become significantly more accessible as we include the Playstation Move support next year.

Keep on (hobbyist) hacking 🙂

We are happy to report that RUIS is getting acknowledged:
<ol>
RUIS has been selected to be the assignment platform for course T-111.5400 Virtual Reality in Aalto University School of Science and Technology, lectured by prof. Lauri Savioja in 2011 Spring term.</ol>

In additional news, a new release (2010.11.14) of RUIS can be downloaded from the download page. It enhances the desktop usability, by allowing manipulation of the virtual controller via mouse or Wiimote.

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Introducing RUIS

Posted on October 4, 2010 by Takala

Do you want to create fun applications that take advantage of the latest state-of-the-art game controllers? Our work aims to make that possible, even if you don’t have background in computers or programming.

RUIS (Reality-based User Interface System) from Roberto Pugliese on Vimeo.

In the above video you see us with motion tracked Wiimotes doing simple manipulation of objects and navigating in an example application. The application is built on our RUIS (Reality-based User Interface System) platform, which runs on Processing, a development environment that is favored by many artists, designers, and architects among others ( http://processing.org/about/ ).

RUIS-platform connects controllers like Nintendo’s Wiimote to Processing, so you can use them easily in your Processing applications, without the usual hassle that is associated with getting new hardware to work in custom-made software.

Developed in Aalto University’s Department of Media Technology, RUIS-platform is open source and currently in its early stages. We have initiated this project because novel user interfaces (with gestures, 3D tracking, multitouch surfaces, etc.) is an exciting field that still needs many innovations and standards to become more mature.

We believe that hobbyists and amateur software developers have enormous potential for coming up with not only cool applications, but also major contributions to the way we interact with computers. Just consider how our use of technology has been redefined by amateurs like Shawn Fanning (Napster and music distribution) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook and social media).

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