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upcoming book: Architecture Design in the Age of Extended Reality

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Handbook for Metaverse, Digital Twin, and Virtual Reality Development

As the director of the Extended Reality Lab at UC, I am thrilled to report that I signed a publication contract with Routledge on an authored book titled  “Architecture Design in the Age of Extended Reality, the handbook for Metaverse, Digital Twin, and Virtual Reality development”. The book includes 17 chapters covering the topics of XR in Architecture, development process from modeling, material, lighting, project management, interaction design, user interface design, character, animation, node-based programming, digital twin, project showcases,  virtual reality, mixed reality and augmented reality development and data analysis for VR-based evaluation. Routledge will publish the book in 2023.

Cheers.

 

Author:  Ming Tang, Adam Sambuco.  Publisher: Routledge. Publishing time: 2023

The book contains learning material and real project examples from Ming Tang’s XR studio courses taught at UC. Please check out another book by Ming Tang on Parametric Building Design, also published by Routledge.

 

 

Visual Impairment Sim

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Our research team at the Live Well Collaborative created a Visual Impairment Simulation VR prototype to simulate glaucoma vision and peripheral vision loss in 2021. Glaucoma comprises a group of glaucomatous optic nerve damage and visual field loss disorders. It is a significant cause of blindness in the United States and is the most common cause of blindness among black Americans. An estimated 1 million Americans over 65 years of age have experienced the loss of vision associated with glaucoma, and approximately 75 percent of persons who are legally blind because of glaucoma are over the age of 65.[1]

A prototype of glaucoma VR simulation was developed by our team in 2021.  A virtual kitchen scenario was created to allow users to experience the challenges of a visual impairment person in an immersive environment. Hand-tracking technology with Oculus Quest 2 was used for creating interactions with virtual objects.

Team: Ming Tang, Ryan Tinney, Alejandro Robledo, Tosha Bapat, Linda Dunseath,  Matt Anthony @ Live Well Collaborative. 

Screen recording of VR prototype glaucoma scenarios in a virtual kitchen to study cooking activities.

  

Hand Tracking in VR.

[1] Pizzarello LD. The dimensions of the problem of eye disease among the elderly. Ophthalmology. 1987; 94:1191–5.

XR Lab moved in Digital Futures

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As the director of the Extended Reality lab (XR-Lab), I am thrilled to report that our XR-Lab has moved into the new Digital Futures Building at UC.

Our Lab will continue to broaden the scope of collaborations, using our expertise in both academic and professional fields in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality. We look forward to the long-standing collaborative relationships with faculty at the UC Digital Futures, Criminology and Justice program at CECH, Civil Engineering program, and transportation program at CEAS, Live Well Collaborative, Council on Ageing, Cincinnati Insurance Company, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center.

Please visit our lab after August 2022 to check out the exciting lab space and facilities at the new UC Digital Future Building.

Location:

Room: 200 at Smart Connected Wing, & 207 VR?AR Center, Digital Future Building

3044 Reading Road, Cincinnati, OH 45206

Request a tour

XR-Lab projects

Contact:

Ming Tang, tangmg@ucmail.uc.edu

Director of Extended Reality Lab, University of Cincinnati.

seminar: Design in the Age of Metaverse and Extended Reality

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ARCH 7036-004 / ARCH5051.Elective Arch Theory Seminar.  Spring semester. DAAP, UC.
Design in the Age of Metaverse and Extended Reality

Instructor: Ming Tang.  Director, Extended Reality Lab. XR-Lab, Associate Professor, SAID, DAAP, University of Cincinnati

 

This seminar course focuses on the intersection of architecture design, and interior design with immersive visualization technologies, including Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Digital Twin, social VR, and real-time simulation. The class will explore the new spatial experience in the virtual realm and analyze human perceptions through hand-tracking, body-tracking, haptic simulation, and various sensory inputs. Students will learn both the theoretical framework and hands-on skills on XR development. The course will provide students exposure to the Oculus Quest, Teslasuit, Hololens technologies, and wearable sensors. Students are encouraged to propose their own or group research on the subject of future design with XR.

Hardware: Oculus Quest, and Hololens were provided by the course.

Student Research Project

Digital Twin

AR for community engagement. Price Hill

 

References:

Recommended podcast on Metaverse

 

 

Exhibition in Expo4Seniors

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Our VR app EvR Talk is presented at two Senior Health & Wellness Expo, organized by the Expo4seniors.

  • Fairfield Community Arts Center, 411 Wessel Dr. Cincinnati, OH. 11.03.2021
  • Gray Road Church of Christ. Cincinnati, OH. 11.20.2021

Expo4Seniors provides Senior Citizens access to services and products through education, collaboration, advocacy, and accessibility in order to make Aging In Place and Lifestyle, Health & Wellness available.

Team member Karly Hasselfeld demonstrated to the audience how to interact with virtual characters through hand tracking. Photo by Karly Hasselfeld and Lauren Southwood.

Ming Tang lead a design team at the LiveWell Collaborative developed this Care Giver Training for the Council of Ageing.  More information on the VR for Caregiver training and UC Urban Health Pathway grant support can be found here.

Ever talk project ( password protected) Please reach out to COA to get access permission.