Drew Kessler's Research

Multi-user Virtual Environments

Explored methods of allowing multiple users (or computer agents) to share the same virtual environment. This is one of the subjects of my thesis research.

Networking Protocol for Virtual Environment Applications

Distributed virtual environment applications, where the application has been decomposed into different tasks that are run on different machines or as separate processes, require a networking protocol that addresses the specific needs of virtual environments. Namely, information that is communicated between tasks can be state information, which can change often, but only the current state is important; event information, which is unique, and needs to "save" the current state; and command information, which can be thought of as a send event coupled with a reply event. To address these issues, We developed the IPQ (Inter-Process Queue) protocol, which implements an updatable queue abstraction between tasks. (Presented in "A Network Communication Protocol for Distributed Virtual Environment Systems." )

The Simple Virtual Environments programming library development

A set of programming tools for easily creating a Virtual Environments Application, or a 3D visualization for flat screens or 3D glasses. Features a event callback mechanism to handle events and a hierarchical description of objects in the Virtual Environments or visualization. An object can be a graphical object of lines, text, polygons, or textured polygons, or an object can be a light or a user's view or hand cursor. SVE is the basis for many major VE research projects in the GVU center, as well as some other places.

Previous Research:

Whole hand input to Virtual Environments

We have examined device characteristics of the Cyberglove glove input device over a wide range of hand sizes to determine the capabilities of the device for hand input. In particular, we are concerned with obtaining gesture and hand recognition guidelines and algorithms that are user (or hand) independent. (Presented in "Evaluation of the CyberGlove(TM) as a Whole Hand Input Device.")

Naval Research Virtual Environment

Virtual Reality for Fire Testing and Training Simulation (Conducted at the Naval Research Laboratory)

The Phobia Project

Virtual Reality Graded Exposure for Acrophobia Treatment

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Last modified: Thu Sep 25 09:00:16 EDT 1997