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Thesis Project Form

Title (tentative): Grasping objects in Virtual and Augmented Reality

Thesis advisor(s): Chessa Manuela, Fabio Solari, Guido Maiello (Justus-Liebig-University Giessen) E-mail:
Address: Via Dodecaneso, 35 stanza 329 Phone: (+39) 010 353 6663
Description

Motivation and application domain
Grasping is one of the fundamental actions we perform to interact with objects in real environments, and it plays a fundamental role for interactive virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) systems in several application contexts. To ensure the effectiveness of such VR/AR applications, we must understand whether the same grasping behaviors and strategies employed in the real world are adopted when interacting with objects in VR.

General objectives and main activities
The main goal of this thesis is to analyze grasping behavior in immersive VR and augmented or mixed reality. As a starting point, an existing experimental setup developed for studying real grasping action will be replicated, to analyze similarities and differences. In this experiment, several properties of virtual objects will be considered (texture, visual appearance). Then, several grasping modalities (i.e. different devices and techniques) will be compared, always with respect to real-world counterparts. The goal of the thesis is to devise the limits and the potentiality of VR/AR systems in performing ecological interaction.

Training Objectives (technical/analytical tools, experimental methodologies)
1) To analyze the state of the art in the field of human grasping.
2) To replicate a real-world psychophysics setup into immersive VR (technical tools: Unity 3D, physics engine, texture mapping)
3) To replicate a real-world psychophysics setup into augmented/mixed reality (technical tools: Unity 3D, physics engine, texture mapping, real-virtual mapping)
3) To perform psychophysics experiments and to analyze data
4) To embed into the VR system different interaction devices (Leap Motion, Oculus Quest, VR gloves)

Place(s) where the thesis work will be carried out: DIBRIS- Valletta Puggia

Additional information

Maximum number of students: 2