An Intelligent Software-AGENT: Innovates Adaptive Workplace eTraining Tools. Maintaining well skilled and knowledgeable employees is key to sustaining our competitive advantage through smarter information use of digital technologies. By reviewing current government training practice and IT governance, the Project Team will share valuable insight enabling multi-disciplinary collaboration for effective information systems development. Access to our individual virtual learning space is critical; th ....An Intelligent Software-AGENT: Innovates Adaptive Workplace eTraining Tools. Maintaining well skilled and knowledgeable employees is key to sustaining our competitive advantage through smarter information use of digital technologies. By reviewing current government training practice and IT governance, the Project Team will share valuable insight enabling multi-disciplinary collaboration for effective information systems development. Access to our individual virtual learning space is critical; this Project places Australia at the centre of virtual reality and emerging Web 2.0 technologies in the race to empower the global reach of an individual's access to adaptable eLearning tools and the unyielding intellectual thirst for new learning spaces for the next decade.Read moreRead less
A Gesture-Based Interface for Designing in Virtual Reality. Many design professions including architecture, fashion, and engineering can benefit from the outcomes of this project and may return financial benefits to Australia, since they heavily rely on sketching in the conceptual design process. Other areas, such as films, computer games, user interface design that involves storyboarding and visualization may also benefit from sketching in virtual reality. Further research may be carried out us ....A Gesture-Based Interface for Designing in Virtual Reality. Many design professions including architecture, fashion, and engineering can benefit from the outcomes of this project and may return financial benefits to Australia, since they heavily rely on sketching in the conceptual design process. Other areas, such as films, computer games, user interface design that involves storyboarding and visualization may also benefit from sketching in virtual reality. Further research may be carried out using a variety of VR facilities and a responsive workbench (3D interactive table-top display) to allow distributed Virtual Prototyping between geographically separated design teams, to assemble the product drawn using a force feedback device to place Australia in a leading position.Read moreRead less
Broadcasting 3D Audio: Recording, Transmission, and Playback. With the current state of the art, a performance at the Sydney Opera House cannot be recorded and broadcast such that you can listen to it as if you are in the best seat of the house. The goal of our project is to develop the ultimate form of multi-channel audio broadcasting to create this experience. We will develop and implement effective systems for recording, broadcasting and playback of 3D audio in three different scenarios: indi ....Broadcasting 3D Audio: Recording, Transmission, and Playback. With the current state of the art, a performance at the Sydney Opera House cannot be recorded and broadcast such that you can listen to it as if you are in the best seat of the house. The goal of our project is to develop the ultimate form of multi-channel audio broadcasting to create this experience. We will develop and implement effective systems for recording, broadcasting and playback of 3D audio in three different scenarios: individual headphone reproduction; small loudspeaker array reproduction; and large loudspeaker array reproduction. We will create optimal recording techniques and broadcasting software for each of these playback techniques.Read moreRead less
Risk Management using Agent-Based Virtual Environments. Since September 11, terrorism and its prevention has been high on the agenda of modern governments. On reflection, there were many signs that could have alerted US government officials to what was about to transpire and saved many lives. But much of the knowledge needed to detect and handle such situations can not be learnt from a book. Many things we need to experience in order to learn. This project combines the investigators' expertise i ....Risk Management using Agent-Based Virtual Environments. Since September 11, terrorism and its prevention has been high on the agenda of modern governments. On reflection, there were many signs that could have alerted US government officials to what was about to transpire and saved many lives. But much of the knowledge needed to detect and handle such situations can not be learnt from a book. Many things we need to experience in order to learn. This project combines the investigators' expertise in knowledge based, agent based and natural language fields to produce an interactive virtual environment for the user to engage with.Read moreRead less
Mobile spatial-audio telecommunication systems. We will develop an inter-personal electronic spatial-audio telecommunication system that works outdoors in a mobile environment. Talkers using the system will be acoustically aware of other talkers? locations because the communication channel is rendered as 3D audio. The system provides situational awareness useful during activities such as fire fighting, search and rescue, surveillance, audio/video teleconferencing. The research investigates syste ....Mobile spatial-audio telecommunication systems. We will develop an inter-personal electronic spatial-audio telecommunication system that works outdoors in a mobile environment. Talkers using the system will be acoustically aware of other talkers? locations because the communication channel is rendered as 3D audio. The system provides situational awareness useful during activities such as fire fighting, search and rescue, surveillance, audio/video teleconferencing. The research investigates system implementations using wearable computing with personal location sensors (differential GPS) and personal orientation sensors (hybrid gyroscopic/magnetic system). The work will result in fundamental data relevant to the development, testing and validation of a mobile telecommunication system with individualised spatial audio.Read moreRead less
A clinically valid simulator with tactile sensing to train specialists to perform cochlea implantation. This project aims to create a medical simulation system with tactile sensing for cochlear implant operations. The developed system will provide an opportunity to study cochlear implantation process and examine its effect in a patient before it is carried out. It will be also used to train ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) specialists in cochlear implantation, thus replacing the current costly and no ....A clinically valid simulator with tactile sensing to train specialists to perform cochlea implantation. This project aims to create a medical simulation system with tactile sensing for cochlear implant operations. The developed system will provide an opportunity to study cochlear implantation process and examine its effect in a patient before it is carried out. It will be also used to train ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) specialists in cochlear implantation, thus replacing the current costly and non-effective method of using temporal bones.Read moreRead less
Through Walls Collaboration to Support Command and Control Operations with Eyes and Ears in the Field. Australia is a geographically dispersed country with locations of high concentrations of technology resources. Australia requires the ability to gather real time intelligence information in the field to support planning and operational decisions by a command team for military and civil defence operations. Currently Australia supports such operations in remote areas of the country and numerous o ....Through Walls Collaboration to Support Command and Control Operations with Eyes and Ears in the Field. Australia is a geographically dispersed country with locations of high concentrations of technology resources. Australia requires the ability to gather real time intelligence information in the field to support planning and operational decisions by a command team for military and civil defence operations. Currently Australia supports such operations in remote areas of the country and numerous overseas operations. A major research outcome is the design and development of interaction techniques for the mobile users in through walls collaboration systems to control and manipulate augmented reality information in the field across a number of application domains, such as medical, maintenance, military, search and rescue, and GIS visualization.Read moreRead less
Acoustic Filter Functions from Morphological Measurements. This project works toward enabling the broadcast of high-fidelity 3D audio. By developing an efficient technique for deriving personalised acoustic filter functions based on image data of the listener's head and ears, we hope to enable high-fidelity 3D audio decoding and rendering. Morphological parameterisation techniques and databases recently developed at the University of York will be combined with the statistical synthesis technique ....Acoustic Filter Functions from Morphological Measurements. This project works toward enabling the broadcast of high-fidelity 3D audio. By developing an efficient technique for deriving personalised acoustic filter functions based on image data of the listener's head and ears, we hope to enable high-fidelity 3D audio decoding and rendering. Morphological parameterisation techniques and databases recently developed at the University of York will be combined with the statistical synthesis techniques and databases developed at the University of Sydney to substantially reduce the development time required for either group alone. Psychoacoustic experiments carried out at the University of Sydney will demonstrate the fidelity of the delivered 3D audio.Read moreRead less
An interactive drama engine in virtual reality. In computer games, the narrative is generally limited to a graph of possibilities predetermined by an author. In this project, our aim is to go beyond predetermined graphs and build an Interactive Drama Engine to provide the users of the system a fully immersive interactive dramatic experience in a virtual world. Integration of interactive narrative and virtual reality hardware and software is a novel approach to the current problems in digital med ....An interactive drama engine in virtual reality. In computer games, the narrative is generally limited to a graph of possibilities predetermined by an author. In this project, our aim is to go beyond predetermined graphs and build an Interactive Drama Engine to provide the users of the system a fully immersive interactive dramatic experience in a virtual world. Integration of interactive narrative and virtual reality hardware and software is a novel approach to the current problems in digital media. It is expected to lead to the development of new generation interactive films and computer games that benefit from the Interactive Drama engine in the context of narrative.Read moreRead less
Audio Nomad - A Location-based Handheld Audio Device for Sound-Art Applications. Audio Nomad is a cross-disciplinary project exploring location-aware, mobile audio devices for augmented audio reality systems. A unique and exciting combination of people and research in mobile devices, user interface design, spatial audio and streaming, spatial information systems, and positioning systems with new media arts and sound-art will create a handheld platform and design tools for use in culturally-signi ....Audio Nomad - A Location-based Handheld Audio Device for Sound-Art Applications. Audio Nomad is a cross-disciplinary project exploring location-aware, mobile audio devices for augmented audio reality systems. A unique and exciting combination of people and research in mobile devices, user interface design, spatial audio and streaming, spatial information systems, and positioning systems with new media arts and sound-art will create a handheld platform and design tools for use in culturally-significant applications. User-centred design embracing audio artists and content developers will create design tools for the emerging industry of virtual audio environments. Artists will be energised with new tools to create enriched and unique mobile audio user experiences for entertainment or productivity.Read moreRead less