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Providing services through online immersive real-timemirror-worlds. The Immex Program for delivering

services in another way at universityDidier Sébastien, Olivier Sébastien, Noël Conruyt

To cite this version:Didier Sébastien, Olivier Sébastien, Noël Conruyt. Providing services through online immersive real-time mirror-worlds. The Immex Program for delivering services in another way at university. VirtualReality International Conference (VRIC 2018), Apr 2018, Laval, France. �hal-01816469�

Providing services through onlineimmersive real-time Mirror-Worlds

The Immex Program for delivering services in another way at university

Sebastien, Didier1, Sebastien, Olivier1, Conruyt, Noël11IREMIA, LIM-EA2525, University of La Réunion, Saint-Denis, France

didier.sebastien/olivier.sebastien/noel.conruyt@univ-reunion.fr

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the “Immex”program, that experiences how to provideservices through virtual immersive online real-time environments. The idea is to offer anotherway to share data and make it accessible withinmirror-worlds. We try to gather the datadisseminated in the information system of theuniversity and present them at a relevant placeand in a meaningful form to the userexperiencing the simulation.

KEYWORDS

virtual worlds, metaverse, mirror-worlds,information system, data accessibility

1 INTRODUCTION

Universities are equivalent to big companiesthat generate a lot of heterogenous datatargeted to various profiles of persons. They areorganized around large campuses, with manybuildings, and are difficult to apprehend fornewcomers but also for other people, forinstance when they are in need for a specificservice for the first time. Even data centralizedon well structured and urbanized informationsystem (IS) [1] is not fully exploited becauseonly a few experts are able to access andprocess it to generate information and integrate

such content into a communication scheme.Examples of these could be websitesinformation, maps, files, databases of allsubparts of the university. To ease theapprehension of this information, a dedicatedtool to discover and give access to all thiscontent through a centralized, consistent andludic environment may be an original solution.

The Immex "Immersion Experience"program aims at experimenting and providinginnovative services based on immersiverepresentation technologies. This initiative ofthe University of La Réunion tries to offer analternative way (compared to traditionalinterfaces) to access content from informationsystems, in this frame, the IS of the university.The idea is to shape immersive environments toprovide a first-person vision, as if the user wasimmersed in a simulation. The virtual world, or"metaverse" [10] , reproduces the real-worldenvironment, that is why it is called a mirror-world. It naturally associates documents anddigital services with their geo- positioning tocreate a serious game [11] .

In this paper we first present our pastrelated works and the new approach we engagedin for Immex. Then we describe the createdenvironments, their services and the results of afirst survey conducted with users. We concludeby a discussion and the perspectives opened byour work.

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2 Previous experimentationsand methodology

2.1 e-Campus

e-Campus was a virtual world reproducingthe campus of La Reunion island university [9] .This platform was created between 2004 and2007 in the context of a collaboration betweenthe university and a private companyspecialized in video games. During 3 years, thisproject funded by the European Union, theFrench Government, and the Regional Councilof Réunion, allowed a team of computer scienceengineers, computer graphics experts, animatorsand designers to create a desktop softwarereproducing accurately the central part of thecampus.

This connected application was based on agame engine initially dedicated to MassiveMultiplayer Online Role Playing Game(MMORPG). It provided the same video gamefeatures that can be found in a real campus:persistent world and massive multiplayersupport. The aim was thus to provide users(students, teachers and administrativemembers) with the e-services a campus gives,from the online courses [10] to the restaurant’smenu, through immersive representations.Eventually, the project did not meet with thenumerous expectations in terms of services,mainly because of the game-engine limitation.

2.2 Immex Approach

Since 2011, we decided with Immex to try anew approach, in several ways at the opposite ofthe way e-Campus was conducted. Indeed, e-Campus was a big project, based on europeanfundings, employing a team of engineers,qualified computer graphics experts working onblueprints, collaborating with companiesmastering proprietary tools and technologies,like their own 3D engine, landscape generatorand data integration softwares.

Thanks to the evolution of the 3D enginesmarket, 4 years after e-Campus, an accessibleoffer had raised and we have been able toevaluate and compare their features. Therequirements to create immersive environmentshad chang ed t o a l l ow mo r e fl ex i b l edevelopments. We then decided to make Immexas a program made up of several projects, eachproject being a virtual environment, offering itsown services. At the opposite way of the e-Campus project was conducted, we workedmainly with students, during courses,pedagogical projects and through internship.Focusing on services more than visualappearance, we accepted the fact that theImmex environments will not have the sameaccuracy and modeling optimizations offered byexperts work. However, working with studentsprovided us with a larger team, able toreproduce and cover a larger area, eager tolearn and reproduce their campus in order toplay in it. This approach also have theadvantage to require a dramatically lowerfunding.

3 Immex Environments

As we explained, the Immex program iscomposed of several pro jects, each onecorresponding to a metaverse. 6 mirror-worldswere created to experiment a wide variety ofservices that make sense depending on theirnature. They can be sorted in the 3 categoriespresented below.

3.1 Campuses outdoors

Campuses outdoors refer to the possibilityto explore the outsides of the buildingcomposing the campus. The aim of thismodality is to allow the user to navigate anddiscover the campus through its wholereproduction. The spatial range of the area iswide and the accuracy of the modelsapproximative. Three of the main campuseswere reproduced:

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• Moufia Virtual Campus. This metaverseis one of the first realized, as itreproduces the largest campus of theuniversity. Almost all faculties, services,departments or laboratories have adedicated area in it. The basic outdoorsservices were experienced in the MoufiaVirtual Campus.

• Vir tua l UTP. UTP s tands f o rUniversity Technological Park andrefers to the campus located on thescience park of the city.

• Tampon Virtual Campus. This campusis located in the south of the island andhas specific infrastructure for sportslearning.

3.2 Inside building focus

As its name refer, this type of metaversefocuses on one building and its related featuresand services. A special effort is made on thepresence of the tools and objects available inthe place. 2 particular indoor environments werecreated:

• Virtual Library. This project wasdeveloped with the documentationservice of the university, in order toprovide some of the services offered inthe real world, through its virtualreproduction. Each year, new studentsvisit the building in small groups, anevent which causes disturbance toregular users. The idea of this virtualenvironment is thus to allow them to

discover the place and its servicesthrough the playful approach of theproject.

• Virtual Data Center. The University ofLa Reunion owns a state-of-the-artData Center that hosts several servers.The building matches high-end securitystandards, with restricted access, anattractive configuration could lead tocommercial offers for partners. That iswhy, the information system servicepartnered with Immex program in orderto ease the visit and the promoting ofthe place though a metaverse.

3.3 Complete environment

Complete environment refers to a placewhere the outsides and the insides of thebuildings can be visited. A compromise had tobe found between level of details and the rangeof the reproduced area.

The Virtual Maido project is dedicated tothe Atmospheric Sciences Observatory at LaReunion. This scientific station is difficult toaccess (away from all cities, located 2200mabove the sea level high in the mountain), withan instrumental set composed by more than 40instruments. The LACy laboratory, that runsthe Observatory, teamed with us to create avirtual immersive replica. Their goal is to easethe discovery of the site, the buildings and themain instruments for general public, but also forresearchers who will have to carry out missionsthere.

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Figure 1: virtual UTP metaverse

Figure 2: virtual Library metaverse

4 IMMEX SERVICES ANDTECHNOLOGIES

As we worked for data accessibility, webuilt Immex with technologies providing theeasiest appropriation level for end- users. Eachmetaverse is available through simple a Webpage, using a Web-browser and the Unity pluginfrom Unity Technologies [6] . We also had theconstraint to not force content providers, whofeed the information system, to modify theirpractices. Our services must adapt to the IS theway it is but not try to change it .Each metaverse was the opportunity to developand test new services that can be sorted in 3categories.

4.1 Movement-based services

The very first natural service offered by areal-time metaverse is the possibility to freelystroll in the environment to discover itsstructure from several perspectives. Thisrequires users to be able to move in thedirection of their choice inside the 3D space. Asa first person point of view was selected for thisprogram, we chose to rely on the most commoninteraction scheme based on keyboard (to move)and mouse (to set the angle of viewing). Thistend to be rapidly natural as most 3Dimmersive video games rely on this convention.But to help those who are not used to navigatein an immersive environment, we implemented 3features:

• assisted moves, when toggled, thisfeature limits the angle of inclination ofthe vision to 20° above and below thehorizon, and reduces the speed ofmovements. Indeed, we noticed duringearly testing that certain users wereuncomfortable with first person viewresulting in them looking to the sky orthe floor because of bad mouse control.

• point and click to move, so that it isn o t n e c e s s a r y t o m a s t e r t h ecombination of mouse and keyboard toreach a visible location. The applicationcalculates the shortest path, gettingaround the obstacles, and automaticallymoves the user to the targeted place.

• reset position, that restores the initialposition of the camera when the definedkey is pressed. This feature is useful ifthe user feels lost or in case of bugs (forinstance an invisible hole in the floor).

4.2 Orientation-based services

These services aim at helping users torealize where they are, find their way to theplace they want to go, and match theirexperience in the virtual world and itscounterpart in real world. To achieve this goal,we developed 6 features:

• mini-map is a classic of Head-UpDisplay (HUD) for Graphical UserInt e r f a c e (GUI ) ye t u s e f u l t ocomprehend the direct surroundings.

• global map, when the dedicatedkeyboard key is pressed, displays thefull map of the metaverse and locatesthe user on it.

• pano ramic jump , f o r ou tdo o r smetaverses, produces the highestvertical jump possible, while tiltingdown the view. It offers an automatic,smooth, transition sequence between

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Figure 3: virtual Maido metaverse

the first-person view and the globalmap representation. It is a link betweenimmersive view, 3D view, and 2D map.

• photo-sphere, positioned as an icon atinterest points of the environment,triggers the immersion in a spherewhose interior is textured with a 360°photo of the real place. This featurecompletes the immersive view, which isflexible but limited in term of Level OfDetai l s (LOD), by providing apanoramic photo which is a detailedpoint of view from a fixed position.

• navigation to remarkable place offers anautomatic guiding, adapted to thecurrent position of the user in themetaverse. At anytime, the user candisplay the list of remarkable places ofthe metaverse and select one of them.This action triggers an analysis of theshortest path and an automatic drivingto the chosen position.

• introduction sequence, as its namerefers, is the integration of a video thatintroduces the environment and theoriginal position where the user isplaced at the beginning of thesimulation. For outdoors metaverses, arelevant approach is to match the endof a sequence shot with a drone thatlands in a particular position with thesame position in the virtual world,hence allowing the user to start hisexploration at a well defined place. Itprovides a smooth transition betweenthe realistic view of video and thesimulation.

4.3 Information-based services

These services aim at offering informationto users experiencing the simulation. The idea isto gather information from the IS anddynamically connect it with the virtualenvironment. Several modalities were developedin order to disseminate the providedinformation:

• contextual information automaticallydisplays a message depending on thelocation of the user in the metaverse. Iti s a s t a t i c i n f o rmat i on who seappearance is triggered by the userentering into a geographically definedarea, often near a building or in a room.

• dynamic data injection refers to theimportation and display of files in themetaverse. Their appearance is adaptedto the needs and actions of the user inthe simulation. We implemented theconnection between a 3D object andseveral file formats : plain text toprovide textual descriptions of buildingso r in s t rument s , Rea l l y S imp l eSyndication (RSS) to automate thedisplay of up- to date news, andpictures that dynamically wrap a 3Dmodel when the metaverse is loaded.Indeed, in our case, university campusessupport offices have their own websitesthat regularly post news referenced asRSS feeds. We added a board on their

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Figure 4: remarkable places list withautomatic guiding

respective buildings to indicate theavailability of news. When no RSS feedis available, and the information is onlyshared on static websites, we used anautomatic and periodic web-pagecutting system that generated a pictureused as a texture. This allowed us, forinstance, to display the menu of theu n i v e r s i t y r e s t a u r a n t .As this feature can be triggered byclicking on an object or a specifickeyboard key, we used this latter withtextual input to display all thes imu l a t i on c ommands and th eapplication credits.

• 3D information layer allowed us torepresent specific information, dedicatedto a particular metaverse, throughsimplified visualisations. These layerscan be activated on demand, like inGeographic Information Systems (GIS).In the frame of Immex, we experienceda static representation of the position ofWiFi and its coverage

• educational module is a short scriptedexperience where the user mustaccomplish a succession of tasks tofulfill a mission. It is a mini-seriousg a m e d e d i c a t e d t o a s p e c i fi cenvironment. For Virtual Maido, wedeveloped an educational modulesimulating the main steps to activatethe atmospheric laser of the station,acquire and visualize data.

• web-link allows to connect a model inthe metaverse with an URL. On click,the link is triggered and eitherdownloads a file or opens a popupbrowser with the targeted web-page. Weused this feature to connect the mainbuildings of the university faculties,services, departments or laboratories toits dedicated website. It is another wayto navigate between the websites of the

university, through the positioning oftheir infrastructures.

5 FIRST FEEDBACKS

As Immex aims at offering new ways ofaccessing content for university users, we founduseful to set a survey especially dedicated tostudents (but not only) at an early stage of theproject. The goal was to determine their profileregarding immersive technologies as well as togather their feelings toward the Immexenvironments. 50 replies were obtained, 3 fromuniversity staff and 47 from students rangingfrom first postgraduate year to Master ofScience in the fields of Laws, Economics andComputer Science. The number of participantsinvolved is not so high, but it is sufficient togather early feedbacks that are to be usedfirstly to set development directions for thefuture and secondly to prepare a largerevaluation stage. In the frame of this article,they are useful to present a trend on how thecommunity welcomes such a service.

All testers were thus presented theapplication and the first choice they were givenwas to try it on their own or not. One quarterof them made the effort to install the Unityplugin to access Immex outside the campus.This is a first interesting feedback because thisparticular action requires the user to have theknowledge to download and install such aplugin. 91% of the persons who tried it reportedthat it was a very simple action. This is quite

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Figure 5: educational module in VirtualMaido

encouraging as this plugin is a requisite until areal time 3D-content playback standard for theWeb emerges. Indeed, WebGL [8] and X3D [4]are interesting technologies but despite theirsupport from major organisms and companies(including main browsers editors), they are notso popular.

The second point that was evaluated wasthe maneuverability. This is a major concern asmoving in a 3D immersive environment with afirst person point of view is of course easy forgamers (the typical controls are always thesame whatever the application is) but may bedifficult for newcomers. Regarding this point,83% of testers responded that it was easy, ananswer that goes beyond the number ofstudents in Computer Science who might besometimes considered as a specific public, whotend to be more used to videogames. Ease ofuse was also rated as rather good as only 20%of testers found Immex quite hard to use. Thesame feeling was perceived concerning theattractiveness of the solution, with the sameamount of users seeing it as low.

Finally, the last aspect evoked was relatedto the desirability of features. Each person wasasked to rate the following proposed featuresthat are specific to immersive worlds:Figure 6 shows the feedbacks for each one witha visualization ranging from 1 (= no interest) to5 (=strong interest). All the features receive arather positive opinion, therefore it isinteresting to focus on the subset of them whichare shown the strongest interest. The mostawaited ones, features (b) and (c) and at alower point (a), relate to spatial localizationindicating that users are very concerned by therelationship between the real world and thevirtual world for their moves. The social aspectof the virtual environment then follows : astrong interest is shown from more than oneuser out of three for feature (g) which aims atenabling virtual interaction. This can beexplained by the current trend that promotesvarious social media along with mobility. Quitesurprisingly, using the application to study andlearn in the 3D space is less popular than theprevious features.

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Figure 6: interest in several services

(a) Virtually visit of technical or scientific locationsthat are not opened to general public(b) Locate a place before having to go to it(c) Benefit from a visual guidance system to abuilding or a room(d) Match buildings or rooms to their correspondingwebsite

(e) Retrieve contextual information by clicking on3D objects (f) Learn new knowledge in 3D worlds dedicated toa given topic (g) Enable discussions and interactions betweencampus users

6 DISCUSSION

Through the different projects of theImmex program, we increased the number ofservices. The idea is to match the needs of thetwo main types of users: those using thesimulation to freely stroll in the virtualenvironment and discover the experience, andthose who came with a precise idea and want tofulfil a goal, like identify the path to reach aprecise place.

For each new environment, we tried todeploy the previously conceived services andimagine new ones. In terms of re-usability, theservices could be sorted in 3 categories:

• replicable services rely on scripts andassets that can be directly deployedfrom a scene to another. For instance, itis the case for all the presentedmovement-based services.

• transposable services is about featuresthat are relevant from a metaverse toanother one, but need transformation inorder to be adapted to the newenv i ronment . For example , thenavigation to remarkable place had tobe adapted from the Moufia VirtualC a m p u s ( l e a d t o a s p e c i fi camphitheater) to the Virtual Librarymetaverse (lead to a thematic section,adapted to multi-floor building).

• specific services are dedicated to aspecific environment. It is the case foreducational modules : the mission toactivate the atmospheric laser obviouslyonly makes sense for the Virtual Maidoenvironment. In this way, even if theseservices are often the more relevant inthe context of a virtual world, they alsoare the less re-usable.

If the information based services representour main goal, we realized that we spent a lot oftime creating services dedicated to movement

and orientation. Indeed, as evoked previously,we made the university community test ourmetaverses during the whole developing process[7] . Depending on the public, we receivedfeedback about the three categories of servicesin different proportions. Elderly and middle-aged colleagues mainly focused on theirmovement and or ientation difficulties .Implementing these assistance services was anecessity. To work on data accessibility, we firsthad to ensure a good level of appropriation ofour simulations.

Once the helpers are in a mature state, it ispossible to focus on information based services,namely, develop more connectors between theuniversity IS and the metaverses. A challenge isto find a way to enrich the data so that theycan be represented inside the virtualenvironment. Although a transitional approachis to use a simple icon that links outside themetaverse though a popup, the best integrationscheme should avoid to force the user to changethe environment and allow him/her to consultall informations directly in the 3D space.

Thus, apart from developing a connector,integrating a piece of information in ametaverse means identifying:

• a proper representation, that is to say a3D model with the suitable texture todisplay information,

• a precise position (geographicalpositioning and orientation/inclination),obviously, in mirror-worlds, the geo-referencing of each object is stronglylinked to its use,

• a behavior, when the user will interactwith its representation. For instance, a3D chart should orientate itself towardthe user in order to ease its readingwhatever his approach is.

That is why our recent researches led us toconce ive a modu l e ded i ca t ed to the

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centra l izat ion and the enr ichment o finformation, in order to prepare their injectioninto multiple metaverses through metaphor ofrepresentation. The idea is that this metaphorinstantiation system (MIS) would gather theconnectors and the data flows to the IS so thathuman content provider can choose what pieceof information should be inserted in a givenmetaverse, at a given place and through a givenrepresentation to support a specific interaction.Thereby, a component added on each metaversewould, on each load, check MIS and fetch eachflow dedicated to him. This system is currentlyin early development stage in our team andfocuses on connectors with the pedagogical andschooling parts of our IS, in order to involvestudents.

This system could also be used for 3Dobjects that have a direct representation inmetaverses, but need to change theirarrangement regularly. For instance, VirtualLibrary was modeled as a reproduction of allthe shelving and indexing configuration.However, this configuration changed and thestatic positioning realized is now obsolete. Byusing a module like MIS, it would be possible toinsert all shelves dynamically and let the librarystaff change only their positions when needed.Apart from this major structuration work thattargets to facilitate the filing of the virtualworlds the automation and reuse of processes,we are also considering two ways to enhance theexperience of the simulation. The first one is thepossibility to personalize the virtual worlds.Indeed, in the frame of the university, usershave different roles and access to different flowsof information. For instance, researchers

working on Virtual Maido instruments canaccess in real time to all the measures providedby the station sensors. By authenticating thembefore their immersive navigation, a click oneach three-dimensional reproduction ofinstrument should allow them to access theirdata at the level of accuracy they are grantedfor. In the same way, an authenticated studentshould easily access his personal course scheduleon campuses.

The s e c ond enhanc ement we a r econsidering is to offer a multi-users experience.It is one of the major feature we lost fromeCampus, who was built on an MMORPGengine, to Immex. Indeed, the currentsimulation let the user visit virtual worlds fullof objects but empty from people. Firstfeedbacks also encourage us to develop thisfeature. Even if the experience does not supporta massive amount of users, group simulationscould improve the experience [2] and allow newkind of collaborative educational modulescenarios [3] .

7 CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVES

In this paper we presented the Immexprogram, that aims at providing servicesthrough virtual, real-time, online environments.As we have seen, Immex is more than just acollection of virtual worlds or a list of features :it is a real attempt to experiment and offerusers an alternative to discover and shareinformation in an alternative, ludic way. Firstfeedbacks are encouraging, especially those fromyoung students, although we also producedservices to ease the use of older publics.

Future developments of the program aim atcentralizing the data flow in a module that willenrich it and dynamically inject them in thetargeted metaverses, through the chosenappearance. An improvement of the userexperience will also mean offering simulationssupporting personalized multi-user to open a

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Figure 7: MIS positionning in IS

new field of interactions and learning orientedtoward serious gaming.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Immex program was funded by theUNR RUN-CO and the French Ministry ofHigher Education and Research. The authorsare grateful to the university services thatcontributed to the program. We also would liketo thanks M.-H. Rakotobe, C. Porlier, P.Letellier and all students that worked on theImmex program.

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