Kahaner Report: Industrial Virtual Reality, June 1994, Tokyo

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

From:
 Dr. David K. Kahaner
 US Office of Naval Research Asia
 (From outside US):  23-17, 7-chome, Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106 Japan
 (From within  US):  Unit 45002, APO AP 96337-0007
  Tel: +81 3 3401-8924, Fax: +81 3 3403-9670
  Email: kahaner () cs titech ac jp
Re: Industrial Virtual Reality, June 1994, Tokyo
07/09/94 (MM/DD/YY)
This file is named "ivr.94"


ABSTRACT. Summary of the conference/exhibition, Industrial Virtual
Reality, held 22-24 June 1994 in Tokyo.


This conference was held at the Makuhari Messe, the very large
conference and fairgrounds just outside Tokyo. It was part of a much
larger show and conference, CIM Japan. The following report was prepared
by


     Mr Ivo Kwee, Visiting Researcher
     Scientific Office, Royal Netherlands Embassy
     Tokyo Japan


Kwee remarked on the lack of Japanese products, as most hardware was
imported from the US.  However, in the field of head mounted displays
(HMDs), Shimadzu and Olympus showed high quality visual equipment. There
were few application demonstrations present.




Name:     IVR, 2nd Industrial Virtual Reality.
Contact:  Reed Exhibitions Japan
          18F Shinjuku-Nomura Bldg
          1-26-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 163-05 JAPAN
           Tel: +81 3 3349 - 8501; Fax: +81 3 3345-7929
Date:     22-25 June 1994 (Makuhari Messe, Tokyo)






The 2nd Industrial Virtual Reality Show & Conference was held on
June 22-25 at the Makuhari Messe near Tokyo. The conference was
held simultaneously together with the 5th Computer Integrated
Manufacturing Systems Exhibition & Conference. Hereafter follows
a short report.


CONFERENCE (referred from proceedings):


                       OPENING SESSION
-Prof. Tachi (Tokyo Univ. RCAST [tachi () tansei cc u-tokyo ac jp]):
Industrial VR, Present and Future


According to the speaker Virtual Reality has emerged from different
perspectives, like tele-robotics, CAD, human-interface for computer
science, simulators, art and amusement, and tele-communications.


     Virtual Reality should consist of a life-size 4-dimensional
environment, integration of all human senses, interactivity, and
multi-user sharing of the virtual space.


     Future themes for research are expected in modality fusion, virtual
physics, description of virtual worlds, reality virtualization,
object-oriented or reality-oriented programming, VR system architecture.


-Prof. Hirose (Tokyo Univ., RCAST)   -VR and new image technology


The speaker emphasizes the successful use of VR for Intelligence
Amplification (IA). With IA the speaker means visualization of
physical phenomena that normally people could not perceive. As
example he gives the airflow visualization at NASA Ames Research
and the network software visualization at TEPCO, a electric
company in Tokyo.


[Tachi and Hirose are among the leading Japanese researchers in VR.
Note that July 14-15, ICAT'94 (the fourth International Conference on
Artificial Reality and Tele-Existence) will be held in Tokyo. Prof Tachi
is Chairman of the Organizing Committee and readers should contact him
for further information, or send a fax message to ICAT'94 Secretariat, at
Fax: +81 3 3273-2445. DKK]


-David Zeltzer (MIT)     -VR: Technology in Search of Answers
                         and Applications


Zeltzer stresses his speech on his taxonomy of Autonomy, Interaction and
Presence as key components of any virtual environment. By analyzing each
of these dimensions one can decide for a VR-system for a particular use.
His group at MIT have developed a VE system as platform for training
systems.  Evaluation of the effectiveness is integrated.


-Prof. R. Stone     -A vision of the future: VE for British industry


Prof. Stone if senior consultant for the Intelligent Systems Solutions
Limited (former Advanced Robotics Lim.). Examples of VR applications in
GB are as design visualization of complex aircraft engines at
Rolls-Royce; simulations of solid nuclear waste effects in deep waste
repositories; simulations of a robot manipulator for rod recovery
exercises an the Scottish Nuclear Facility. ISSL is pursuing to work on
a Computer Supported Cooperative Working (CSCW) initiative.


More interesting is the current 2-years VRS industrial project (started
May 1993) that initially includes 15 members from industry (including
Rolls, ICI, Bell Northern Research, etc) and university. The aim of VRS
is to keep up with international developments and to provide know-how to
use VR with minimal technical and financial risks.


Present status of VRS: own laboratory with facilities; project to design
compartments of Trident Nuclear Submarine; design of Cooperative
Wholesale Society (CSW) supermarkets and space planning; training
simulators for England Wolfson Centre for Minimally Invasive surgery;
urban planning




                 FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH SESSION


MOTION AND PERCEPTION IN ACTIVE SPACE   -T. IFUKUBE (HOKKAIDO UNIV.)
In active space the lightning and sound can be obstructed by (moving)
objects in the virtual environment. The mechanisms for human perception
are theoretically explained and application to VR are proposed.


TOUCH FEEDBACK AND VIRTUAL REALITY,     -BETH MARCUS (EXOS)
Exos conducts research in touch perception. Recent developments in
hardware interface technology for entertainment as the Powerstick, an
haptic feedback joystick, and in medicine the Surgical Simulator are
discussed.


3D ULTRASONIC MOUSE AND TRACKERS,  -R. SOMMER (LOGITECH)
Ultrasonic position sensing is based on measuring the propagation delay
of each of, mostly 3, burst of 23 KHz from small speakers.  Measuring at
3 microphones generates 9 vectors used to calculate the six degrees of
freedom. Logitech 3D mouse, headtrackers and stereographic
shutter-glasses are using this technology. Also discussion of the
optical technology of the Magellan stationary mouse.


A SCALABLE HIGH PERF. GRAPH. PROCESSOR -T. IKEDO (AIZU UNIV.)
The university has reported the development of the Aizu Supercomputer
that should be well suited to VR applications. It employs highly
parallel MIMD architecture, that is comprised by two networks: a pyramid
network for basic electronic channels, and a reconfigurable network at
electronic and optical multilink level. The system is based on a visual
language system and reaches 10 million polygons/sec with Phong shading,
texture mapping and hidden surface removal at the same time.
[See my report "aizu-u.94", 6 Jan 1994. DKK]


CONSTRUCTION OF DISTRIBUTED VIRTUAL WORLDS APPLICATIONS - C.F.
CODELLA (IBM, USA)
Presentation of VBuild, an integrated system for designing and
construction of virtual worlds. It supports distributed computing,
multi-user, and a variety ofvI/O support. The system is based on C++ and
has and X-window interface.


VIRTUAL CLAY MODELER (VCMS)   -R. KANEI (TOKYO TECHN.)
The speaker has developed a virtual environment for 3D design with force
feedback. With different virtual tools the user can manipulate a lump of
clay.


OPTICAL SYSTEM OF HMD                   -(OLYMPUS)
Technical discussion of lens design of Olympus new helmet-
mounted-display, that reaches 97.000 pixels at 35 degree FOV using two
0.7 inch color AM-LCDs. Special features include: pupil adjustment is
not necessary, see-through and superimposing feature, built-in speakers,
weight: 360 g.


HIGH RESOLUTION SEE-THROUGH HMD         -(SHIMADZU)
First public introduction of design of Shimadzu new see-though
helmet-mounted-display, that reaches NTSC resolution (more than
350 horizontal lines) with miniature CRTs. The FOV is 60 degree
at 75% stereoscopic overlap; weight around 1.8 kg.


ELECTROCHROMIC SEE-THROUGH HMD          -(NISSAN)
A new see-through display is being developed based on electro-chromatic
mirror that has better contrast ratio than traditional halfmirrors.


TRENDS IN FORCE DISPLAY TECHN.  -M. SATO (TOKYO INST. OF TECHN.)
The speaker discusses force display systems like GROPE (North Caroline
Univ), Master Manipulator (Tsukuba Univ.), TouchGlove (W Industries),
MH-actuator (Hokkaido Univ.), Joystring (Feldman) and the author's own
SPIDAR.


FORCE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY FOR TELE-ROBOTICS -(TOSHIBA)
Discussion of the development of an bilateral force-feedback
master-slave-arm using a Twin Pantrograph Mechanism and Direct-dirve
motors.


SOUND FIELD SIMULATION AND VR IN ARCHIT. -(NIHON UNIV)
HIGH RES. SIMULATION OF ACOUST. ENV.    -(LAKE DSP.)
Overview of important issues in audio simulation systems. Sound arrival
is composed of three components: direct sound, early reflections and
reverberant part. Any of these components should be generated for high
quality audio simulations. Head-related-transfer function are also
necessary research topics.




                INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION SESSION


RESEARCH OF VR APPL. FOR EMOTION-ORIENTED DESIGN (LAB. INF. PROC)
Participating in MITI's project of human information sensing, the
speaker introduces research that will eludicate "kansei" (=emotion).
This kind of research will be important for future product design.


PREFERENCE-ORIENTED KITCHEN DESIGN      -(MATSUSHITA)
The KIPS (Kitchen Planning in Virtual Space) system will propose
semi-automatically a kitchen design after the preference of the customer
is asked by keywords like: cool, warm, classic, modern, etc.


VR IN STEEL INDUSTRIES
The use of tele-existence for tasks in steel industries has many
advantages. Test results of pick-and-place, critical points and present
state of art is discussed.


MULTI-MEDIA-BASED OPERATION ENV. TRANSMISSION  -(TOKYO UNIV)
Speaker proposes a method for information transmission from remote
environment or micro-environment through multi-media channels. Time-lag
is an inevitable problem in the control-loop.


NETWORKED VR AND ITS APPLICATIONS       -SHINOHARA (NEC)
With respect to the possibilities of the expected B-ISDN, the speaker
discusses possibilities for CSCW (Computer Supported Collaborative
Workspace).


GLOBAL CYBER SPACE AND HABITAT-WORLD    -(FUJITSU)
The Cyber-space system of networked users is not only applicable for
entertainment, but easily extentable to tele-shopping, tele- concerts
and tele-education. Habitat counts presently 10,000 users.


DEVELOPMENT OF THE DYNAMIC FORCE SIM.   -HASHIMOTO (TOKYO UNIV)
A combination of a force sensor using a gyroscopic construction, and a
tele-opereated dextrous robothand can extract human skills for infinite
replay.


TELE-EXISTENCE AND REMOTE CONTROL OF CONSTR. ROBOTS -(FUJITA)
Unmanned robots play important role in present and future construction
works. Remote robots work at 250 m distance or 10 m below ground.
Speaker discusses current projects.


MAN-MACHINE MANIPULATOR FOR CONSTR. WORKS -(TOKYU KENSETU)
Present tele-operated robot are uni-lateral systems with visual
feedback. Developments for bi-lateral force-feedback robots are
necessary.


VIRTUAL SKI                             -(NEC)
Speaker presents the ski-simulator for education purposes.  Physical
condition is measured for real-time adaptation of the environment. CG
graphics and a motion platform create the virtual ski-slope.


FLIGHT SIMULATORS AND REALITY           -(LAB. AEROSP.)
Different types of flight simulator technology is explained, regarding
functions, components, and degree of reality.


3D DISPLAY FOR SURGERY SUPPORT.         -(TOKYO WOMEN MED. COLL.)
Speaker discusses the use of VR for visualization of CT and MRI data;
discusses HiVision technology and surgical navigation systems. Predicts
Tele-surgery for the future.


EXHIBITION:
Thirteen companies joined the VR-exhibition. Most of the products were
American imports. A short review of some of the companies is given
below:




YASUKAWA ELECTRIC, showed a proto-type of a tele-existence robotic
system with autonomous mobility. The robot is autonomously navigated,
avoiding obstacles automatically to reach the destination. A
tele-existence robotic system enables operation with a sensation of
tele-presence. According to Yasukawa, applications are expected in
medical fields.


Features are: a grasping force feedback for the Master-Hand;
Light-weight Head-Mounted-Display (Olympus); and wireless transmission.


Specifications:
-    Olympus HMD (stereo color, 100.000 pixels, 35 degr FOV,
     stereo-speakers; Polhemus Fastrak headmovement detector),
-    Master-Hand with grasping force feedback (Max. grasping
     force 2.6 kg.cm with DC Servomotor),
-    Slave system with autonomous mobility (gyroscope
     navigation; obstacle avoidance by ultra-sonic, infra-red,
     and touch sensors),
-    Neck, with 3DOF; Eye with 2 color CCD cameras (380.000
     pixels),
-    Arm, with 6DOF of anthropomorphic type (payload 1.2 kg),
-    Hand, grasping force 1.0 kg; opening width 46 mm.


NK-EXA and MATSUSHITA, showed a demonstration of a walkthrough of
interior design based on a Division platform and designed with the
Virtual Design Environment (VDE) of the same Division.


FUJI GOLF: Showed a VR golf simulator that is actually an import from
the US, however the software has been translated to Japanese. A golf
course is projected on a large screen (projector from Matsushita). A
player can hit the ball in front of the screen; the direction and speed
of the ball is calculated by an array of 60.000 infrared sensors. One
system costs around 700 man yen (around US $70.000).


Main customers of Fuji Golf (started March 1993) are amusement and game
centers. Trend of, so-called, "golf-karaokes" are growing in Japan, i.e.
centers with four or more VR golf simulator rooms that can be rent on an
one hour base. There are already ten or eleven of such centers in Japan.


TIME WARE, will soonly start selling a driving simulator of the French
firm CRC Rousseau, and should compete with the driving simulator market
of Mitsubishi. There is a one screen version, but also a three screen
version available. Traffic situations can be replayed from any view
angle. The French simulator is a PC-based system (of Real World
Simulation) using a Motorola 88110 RISC processor with polygon based
graphics upto 100.000 polygon/s; supports also texture mapping,
anti-aliasing, gauroud-shading. Software is based on Multigen, but can
import many other data-formats.


SHIMADZU, introduced its see-through high resolution HMD (STV-01) for
the first time. The HMD is based on side-mounted high resolution
miniature CRT, which give normally better resolution and brightness than
LCD based HMD's. Field-of-view is 48x36 degr.  at 100% overlap and 60x36
degr. at 75% overlap of right-left view, and is comparable to a 100 inch
screen at 2m distance. The present version accepts NTSC or RGB signals,
but a PAL version will be developed in the future. The HMD weights 1.8
kg. The HMD should especially compete with the British n-vision that
costs 15 million yen; the STV-01 costs 3.7 million yen (around US
$37,500).


LAKE DSP, an australian firm exhibited its audio signal processor FDP-1
plus for use aurolization in VR-environments. The processor does
real-time convolutions or correlations at more than 30 frames/sec.
Demonstration system used four speakers to generate a 3D sound field.


NISSHO ELECTRONICS Corp. and ASAHI ELECTRONICS are the main dealers of
(US) VR products in Japan. Both companies were present at the exhibition
with their product line.


IBM showed its VR-Deck software that runned on a RS/6000 RISC system
with additional graphics extension.


MITSUBISHI ATOMIC POWER INDUSTRIES show their PRISM/SIM 3D-CAD/VR
system. The demonstration used shuttered LCD-glasses and a space ball.




----------------------------END OF REPORT-----------------------