Study on development of three-dimensional contents
for Education and Researchin the Immersive Virtual Reality Environment
Shunji Ido

Faculty of Engineering, Saitama Institute of Technology, Japan

Abstract—The immersive virtual reality environment (IVE) such as CAVE or Holostage etc has been applied in theeducation for both the undegraduate students and high school students, and in the scientific studies in the fields of thethree-dimensional configuration and motion. It has been used also in the three-dimensional computer graphics (CG). The
3D objects allpied for IVE will be shown in this presentation. The tools used in the development are (1)three-dimensional
visualization tool AVS, and (2) three-dimensional CG tools such as Shade, 3d max etc. The 3D contents have beenvisualized in the relating 3D environment (3D-PC, 3D projection etc). The application for education of these 3D contents
will be discussed.
Keywords—3D visualization, 3D data development in the education, 3D CG objects, 3D animation
1Introduction

The immersive virtual reality environment (IVE) such as
CAVE, or Holostage has been used in the universities foreducation and research. The applications using IVE arescientific visualization and entertainment of 3D scientificconfiguration and 3D CG. In the present paper the development
and applications using 3D visualization tools AVS and CG tools
will be shown and discussed in the fields of education andresearch.
23D environment

Two types of development tools have been used in thepresent studies. The one is the 3D visualization tool AVS. The
other type of tools is 3D CG software such as Shade, 3d max.
Some CG tools have been developed to include thestereographic rendering. The contents developed by using AVS
and the stereographic CG features have been shown in 3D
environment of 3D PCs and 3D projection. They are wellvisualized and give the intensive impression in IVE.

3Fig. 1 Visualization by AVS of a 3D molecular model

Results and Discussion

3.1The development of 3D configuration
The author has got the occasion to give the education
extended to the high school students, organized by JST (JapanScience and Technology Agency). The attendees came from thehigh schools, encouraged by the JST and teachers all over Japan
In the exercise of scientific visualization by using 3D
configuration, the high school students developed 3D scientificmodel by themselves as shown below Figure 1 shows the 3D
molecular model. They are shown in IVE as shown in Fig.2.
In the other case, the cross-section of fruits arephotographed (Fig.3). The cross-section images in the taken
photos are processed, and then piled into the 3D configuration
model as shown in Fig.4. The 3D model visualized by AVS isshown and examined in IVE as shown in Fig.5.
In this education course, the students have learned about
the 3D features of scientific matters and got the experiences toFig. 2 Visualization by AVS in IVE

Fig. 3 Photographing of a cross-section of a fruit

Fig.6 3D visualization of mathematical surface modelFig. 4 3D model piled from the cross-section images

Fig.7 IVE visualization of mathematical surface model
3.2

The development of 3D CG model
3D CG models are now developed by using 3D CG toolsthat are well prepared. Those 3D models are shown in IVE
through some processing and/or software tools. Figure 8 showssome sample of a 3D CG model in IVE.

Fig.5 Visualization of a 3D model of a fruit in IVE
observe the 3D configuration of the model that they made bythemselves.
3.2The development of 3D scientific model
In the research and education, 3D scientific model are
examined by the AVS visualization tool. Figure 6 shows the 3Dvisualization of mathematical surface model shown on PC. The
same 3D model is shown in IVE as shown in Fig.7.

Fig.8 IVE visualization of 3D CG model

4Conclusion

The IVE visualization is well applied in the fields ofeducation and research. The development and application are
shown in the present paper.