In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Science

Chien-Fen Carol Chiu
will defend her thesis

Virtual environments have been proposed for many varied applications including medicine, education, design, training and entertainment. In many virtual simulations effort has concentrated on construction an accurate, realistic, visual simulation; this, however, ignores the non-visual cues which are normally associated with moving through an environment. In this situation, visual information is not enough to provide highly immersed virtual environments. Therefore, it is necessary for designers to provide senses of balance and motion to these kinds of applications.

The Sarnicola Hexad-2000 Personal Motion Platform in the Virtual Environment Technology Lab at UH can provide six degrees of freedom which are surge, sway, heave, yaw, pitch, and roll. Current research explores the possibility of using this platform in virtual environments in order to provide the user in the virtual world with a high degree of presence and immersion. It also gives the researchers a chance to investigate the factors to reduce cybersickness in VEs. The discussion in the thesis includes a detailed description of the mechanical structure and software control of this Hydraulic Motion Platform. The interfacing program between the platform and the VR application is simple to code and portable. This platform is good for use in motion intensive virtual environments.

Date: Monday, November 1, 1999
Time: 10:00am - 11:00am
Place: 295 - VETL


Faculty, students, and the general public are invited
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Bowen Loftin