The projection system is a professional solution provided by Cyviz company.
Our setup is made of two pairs of 1400x1050 projections side by side, with an overlap of 304 pixels: all in all, the screen is 2496x1050 px covering a 5x2 m area.
http://www.cyviz.com
This HMDs provides good quality pictures in SVGA (800x600) and integrates a 3DOF inertial tracker (head rotations). Good price/quality compromise. It supports sequential stereoscopic video signals.
http://www.3dvisor.com/
Speech is common in multi-modal human-computer interaction. Writen in Java, this library allows to easily develop speech interfaces (key words, sequence in a dictionnary, etc). Unfortunately, it is provided only with American English language.
http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/sphinx4
The VRPN library is used to connect VR devices such as magnetic sensors, spaceball, etc.
http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/vrpn/
Physics engines are used in virtual environment to simulate gravity and objects interactions, but also to control in a physically correct way the dynamics of navigation engines (magic carpet, airplane, etc.)
http://www.continuousphysics.com
Our developments are made under Linux for simplicity and efficiency. We deeply rely on various librairies in the Open Source community.
This linux distribution has been choosen for its stability and friendliness.
The Noldus Observer XT provides a wide range of features for data collection in the study of observable behaviours such as activities, postures, gestures, facial expressions, movements, and social or human-system interactions. The additional plug in 'Theme' is a tool for the detection and analysis of patterns in time-based data.
http://www.noldus.com
Vizwall requires active stereo signals for each output of the graphics card plus a synchronization signal. This is available with the QUADBUFFER option (Quadro cards).
http://www.nvidia.com
3D simulation programs have to generate images with the correct projections for each eye. The code of the Pulsar by Paul Bourke is a good tutorial and a good test bed for sensorama screen.
As the development of real time 3D requires a lot of optimizations, we need a good scene graph library.
We chose OSG because it is efficient, supports a lot of features and formats, and its community is very active.
http://www.openscenegraph.org/
Open Computer Vision Library
Originaly relased by Intel, OpenCV is the library we use for camera tracking. It provides all the basic features for image processing, tracking, and more...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencvlibrary/
Although VR simulation often focus on graphics, audio have a great impact on user experience. A correct integration of sounds into space requires a correct management of stereo or surround, as well as the simulation of dynamics effects (Doppler) and room acoustics.
http://www.openal.org
Microsoft operating system is installed in order to support a large choice of professionnal applications.
Basically, we can use the system as a "normal" PC...
