Welcome
at RWTH Aachen University!
The Virtual Reality and Immersive Visualization Group started in 1998 as a service team in the RWTH IT Center. Since 2015, we are a research group (Lehr- und Forschungsgebiet) at i12 within the Computer Science Department. Moreover, the Group is a member of the Visual Computing Institute and continues to be an integral part of the RWTH IT Center.
In a unique combination of research, teaching, services, and infrastructure, we provide Virtual Reality technologies and the underlying methodology as a powerful tool for scientific-technological applications.
In terms of basic research, we develop advanced methods and algorithms for multimodal 3D user interfaces and explorative analyses in virtual environments. Furthermore, we focus on application-driven, interdisciplinary research in collaboration with RWTH Aachen institutes, Forschungszentrum Jülich, research institutions worldwide, and partners from business and industry, covering fields like simulation science, production technology, neuroscience, and medicine.
To this end, we are members of / associated with the following institutes and facilities:
 | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
 | |
 |
Our offices are located in the RWTH IT Center, where we operate one of the largest Virtual Reality labs worldwide. The aixCAVE, a 30 sqm visualization chamber, makes it possible to interactively explore virtual worlds, is open to use by any RWTH Aachen research group.
News
| • |
Christian Nowke receives doctoral degree from University of Trier Today, our colleague Christian Nowke successfully passed his Ph.D. defense and received a doctoral degree from the University of Trier for his thesis on "Semantic-Aware Coordinated Multiple Views for the Interactive Analysis of Neural Activity Data". Congratulations! |
May 22, 2023 |
| • |
If you are interest in a student worker position dealing with social locomotion of VAs click here. |
May 16, 2023 |
| • |
Cover on the German GI Informatik Spektrum The cover of the current issue of Informatik Spektrum of the Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI) presents results of a project between the EON Energy Research Center and us on an important issue. The use of air filters in classrooms to fight the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been and continues to be a much-discussed topic. The cover shows a visualization in our aixCAVE, enabling an analysis of the temporal and spatial dynamics of aerosol concentration for each person in the respective room. Virtual reality is proving to be an effective tool for scientists here. It demonstrates the potential risk of aerosol dispersion in enclosed spaces with many people, which can be intuitively experienced even by laypersons. Additional information on this project is provided in the IT Center Annual Report 2020/2021, page 58f (german only). |
Dec. 16, 2022 |
| • |
BugWright: Succesful on-site Field Tests In a nutshell, our EU project BugWright2 deals with the development of semiautonomous robots which are able to inspect and constantly monitor ship hulls of container ships for corrosion. In September, Simon Oehrl and Sebastian Pape travelled with colleagues from University of Trier to Metz, France to test their current implementations on-site. A short travel report is now available online. |
Oct. 11, 2022 |
| • |
Immersive Art: Our Cooperation with Jana Rusch in Press Some time ago, the contemporary Belgian painter Jana Rusch approached us to explore our mutual interest in cooperating with her in the area of immersive art. Our colleagues Sevinc Eroglu and Patric Schmitz directly came up with many ideas. Thus, they teamed up with Jana and created Rilievo, a virtual authoring environment for artistic creation in VR, enabling Jana to convert her 2D drawings effortless into 3D volumetric representations while relief sculpting allows volume manipulations. This successful cooperation and the resulting framework have now been presented in the press. Click here for the online article (in German only). |
Oct. 5, 2022 |
| • |
WSCG 2022 Ali Can Demiralp presented his research paper on "Performance Assessment of Diffusive Load Balancing for Distributed Particle Advection" during the 30. International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization, and Computer Vision 2022 (WSCG2022). |
May 18, 2022 |
Recent Publications
 Effect of Head-Mounted Displays on Students’ Acquisition of Surgical Suturing Techniques Compared to an E-Learning and Tutor-Led Course: A Randomized Controlled Trial International Journal of Surgery
Background: Although surgical suturing is one of the most important basic skills, many medical school graduates do not acquire sufficient knowledge of it due to its lack of integration into the curriculum or a shortage of tutors. E-learning approaches attempt to address this issue but still rely on the involvement of tutors. Furthermore, the learning experience and visual-spatial ability appear to play a critical role in surgical skill acquisition. Virtual reality head-mounted displays (HMDs) could address this, but the benefits of immersive and stereoscopic learning of surgical suturing techniques are still unclear. Material and Methods: In this multi-arm randomized controlled trial, 150 novices participated. Three teaching modalities were compared: an e-learning course (monoscopic), an HMD-based course (stereoscopic, immersive), both self-directed, and a tutor-led course with feedback. Suturing performance was recorded by video camera both before and after course participation (>26 hours of video material) and assessed in a blinded fashion using the OSATS Global Rating Score (GRS). Furthermore, the optical flow of the videos was determined using an algorithm. The number of sutures performed was counted, visual-spatial ability was measured with the mental rotation test (MRT), and courses were assessed with questionnaires. Results: Students' self-assessment in the HMD-based course was comparable to that of the tutor-led course and significantly better than in the e-learning course (P=0.003). Course suitability was rated best for the tutor-led course (x=4.8), followed by the HMD-based (x=3.6) and e-learning (x=2.5) courses. The median GRS between courses was comparable (P=0.15) at 12.4 (95% CI 10.0–12.7) for the e-learning course, 14.1 (95% CI 13.0-15.0) for the HMD-based course, and 12.7 (95% CI 10.3-14.2) for the tutor-led course. However, the GRS was significantly correlated with the number of sutures performed during the training session (P=0.002), but not with visual-spatial ability (P=0.626). Optical flow (R2=0.15, P<0.001) and the number of sutures performed (R2=0.73, P<0.001) can be used as additional measures to GRS. Conclusion: The use of HMDs with stereoscopic and immersive video provides advantages in the learning experience and should be preferred over a traditional web application for e-learning. Contrary to expectations, feedback is not necessary for novices to achieve a sufficient level in suturing; only the number of surgical sutures performed during training is a good determinant of competence improvement. Nevertheless, feedback still enhances the learning experience. Therefore, automated assessment as an alternative feedback approach could further improve self-directed learning modalities. As a next step, the data from this study could be used to develop such automated AI-based assessments. 
|
 DasherVR: Evaluating a Predictive Text Entry System in Immersive Virtual Reality Towards an Inclusive and Accessible Metaverse Workshop at CHI'23 Inputting text fluently in virtual reality is a topic still under active research, since many previously presented solutions have drawbacks in either speed, error rate, privacy or accessibility. To address these drawbacks, in this paper we adapted the predictive text entry system "Dasher" into an immersive virtual environment. Our evaluation with 20 participants shows that Dasher offers a good user experience with input speeds similar to other virtual text input techniques in the literature while maintaining low error rates. In combination with positive user feedback, we therefore believe that DasherVR is a promising basis for further research on accessible text input in immersive virtual reality.
|
 A Case Study on Providing Immersive Visualization for Neuronal Network Data Using COTS Soft- and Hardware 2023 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW) COTS VR hardware and modern game engines create the impression that bringing even complex data into VR has become easy. In this work, we investigate to what extent game engines can support the development of immersive visualization software with a case study. We discuss how the engine can support the development and where it falls short, e.g., failing to provide acceptable rendering performance for medium and large-sized data sets without using more sophisticated features.
|
