Table Of ContentVIRTUAL REALITY AND
ENVIRONMENTS
Edited by Cecília Sík Lányi
Virtual Reality and Environments
Edited by Cecília Sík Lányi
Published by InTech
Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia
Copyright © 2012 InTech
All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for
commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which
ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work
has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in
any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the
work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify
the original source.
As for readers, this license allows users to download, copy and build upon published
chapters even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly
credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications.
Notice
Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors
and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the
accuracy of information contained in the published chapters. The publisher assumes no
responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any
materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book.
Publishing Process Manager Jana Sertic
Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic
Cover Designer InTech Design Team
First published April, 2012
Printed in Croatia
A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com
Additional hard copies can be obtained from [email protected]
Virtual Reality and Environments, Edited by Cecília Sík Lányi
p. cm.
ISBN 978-953-51-0579-4
Contents
Preface IX
Chapter 1 Virtual Environments in Physical Therapy 1
Felix O. Akinladejo
Chapter 2 A Survey of Some Virtual Reality Tools and
Resources 21
Moses Okechukwu Onyesolu, Ignatius Ezeani
and Obikwelu Raphael Okonkwo
Chapter 3 Training of Procedural Tasks Through the Use of
Virtual Reality and Direct Aids 43
Jorge Rodríguez, Teresa Gutiérrez,
Emilio J. Sánchez, Sara Casado
and Iker Aguinaga
Chapter 4 The Users’ Avatars Nonverbal Interaction in
Collaborative Virtual Environments for Learning 69
Adriana Peña Pérez Negrón, Raúl A. Aguilar
and Luis A. Casillas
Chapter 5 ROTATOR Model: A Framework for
Building Collaborative Virtual Workspaces 95
Charles J. Lesko Jr, Christine R. Russell
and Yolanda A. Hollingsworth
Chapter 6 Optical Touch Screen and Its Application as a
Next Generation Classroom Response System 117
Hong Zhang
Chapter 7 Personalization of Virtual Environments Navigation and
Tasks for Neurorehabilitation 135
Dani Tost, Sergi Grau and Sergio Moya
Chapter 8 Vision for Motor Performance in
Virtual Environments Across the Lifespan 151
Patrick Grabowski and Andrea Mason
VI Contents
Chapter 9 Ergonomics Design Criteria of a Virtual Environment 171
Zahari Taha, Hartomo Soewardi,
Siti Zawiah and Aznijar Ahmad-Yazid
Chapter 10 The Virtual Reality of Work –
How to Create a Workplace that
Enhances Well-Being for a Mobile Employee 193
Ursula Hyrkkänen, Suvi Nenonen and Inka Kojo
Preface
Virtual Reality is clearly interdisciplinary research area. It has, not only Information
Technology importance but social, educational, economical importance too. It
combines multiple disciplines for the development of virtual reality systems in which
the user has the immersive feeling of being in the real world. Virtual reality has several
applications in almost all fields of real life. The most typical fields for the application
of virtual reality are health-care, engineering and game industry.
The objective of this book is to provide new knowledge to the readers.
The reviews in this book describe the latest Virtual Reality-related knowledge in three
fields: virtual reality tools, virtual reality in education and rehabilitation and
ergonomic design.
The chapters selected for this volume offer new perspectives in terms, tested practices
and solutions. Our book may be a solid basis for the novice and advanced engineers
who would like to develop user friendly Virtual Environments for education,
rehabilitation and other applications of Virtual Reality.
The main features of this book can be summarised as follows:
1. The book describes and evaluates the current state-of-the-art in the virtual reality
field.
2. It also presents several applications of Virtual Reality in the field of Immersive
and non-Immersive Virtual Environments, Educations, Collaborative work,
Ergonomic design, and Neurorehabilitation. Last but not least, it introduces the
commonly used Virtual Reality hardware and software.
3. The contributors of this book are the leading researchers from Academia and
practitioners from the industry.
This book provides a resource for wide variety of people including academicians,
designers, developers, educators, engineers, practitioners, researchers, and graduate
students.
We would like to thank the authors for their contributions. Without their expertise and
effort, this book would never be born. InTech editors and staff also deserve our sincere
recognition for their support throughout the project.
X Preface
Finally the editor would like to thank her husband Ferenc Sik, her sons András Sik and
Gergely Sik for their patience and Professor Janos Schanda, the Head of the Editor’s
Laboratory for his wise advices.
Dr. Cecília Sík Lányi
Associate professor at the University of Pannonia,
Veszprem,
Hungary
