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Eye-Tracking for Drivers’ Visual Behavior

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Impacts of Work Zone Traffic Signage Devices and Environment Complexity on Drivers’ Visual Behavior and Workers Safety.

Ph.D student: Adebisi, Adekunle. CEAS – Civil & Arch Eng & Const Mgmt

Undergraduate student: Nathan Deininger, 

Faculty. Ming Tang

The objective of this study is to investigate the safety of roadway workers under varying environmental and work zone conditions. To achieve the objectives, a driving simulator-based experiment is proposed to evaluate drivers’ visual attention under various work zone scenarios using eye-tracking technologies.

Grant.

  • Using Eye- Tracking to Study the Effectiveness of Visual Communication. UHP Discovery funding. University Honor Program. UC. $5,000. Faculty advisor. 2021.
  • Adekunle Adebisi  (Ph.D student at the College of Engineering and Applied Science) applied and received a $3,200 Emerging Fellowship Award By Academic Advisory Council for Signage Research and Education (AACSRE).

 

Project Stage

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Project “Stage” is a stand-alone rendering engine developed by Ming Tang, using runtime load asset, as well HDRI backdrop methods in UE4. It is a windows application for users to quickly load their FBX file into a virtual environment for first-person, and third-person walk-throughs.

This stand-alone program allows users to load external 3D models in runtime instantly. The Stage environment includes UI to load FBX models during runtime, several HDRI lighting domes, and interactive characters. The Stage promotes iterative design and encourages designers to explore the creative potentials through real-time feedback. Project bus stop and burning man were both developed using the stage as a pre-VIZ tool.

The Stage allows students to (1) present their 3D model to the reviewer without waiting for renderings. No packaging time is required. Design is ready instantly in a game environment. (2) Control an avatar to navigate space and explore the form through first-person or third-person views. (3) By loading design iterations in Stage and examining the frame rate and loading time, students learned the importance of optimizing a model. (4) Test the UV mapping, and scene hierarchy (5) Test the low-poly collision objects and navigation mesh. (5) Have fun. There is a hidden Easter egg to be discovered.

 

download windows application “Stage” here. ( zip) 660MB

( password “stage”)

Tutorial 1.  how to use Stage

Export model from Rhino or 3dsMax as FBX, Create collision object with “UCX_” preface. Use standard material. import into Stage. Customize material. Notice. You might need to clean up your mesh model in Rhino or optimize at 3dsMax before exporting to FBX.

 

Tutorial 2. how the application was built in Unreal.

Third-person character, HDRI backdrop, FBX runtime import plugin.

 

Easter Egg

There is an Easter Egg in Stage, see if you can find it. Clue:

An invisible scroll,  only the hero can see

Not in the fall, but in the green

on the plain surrounded by trees

find the trail that leads ten feet underneath

to the fiery domain of Hades

Virtual Reality for caregiver training

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Assess the effectiveness of using Virtual Reality for caregiver training

Urban Health Pathway Seed Grant. PI: Ming Tang. Partner. Council on Ageing, LiveWell Collaborative. $19,844. 03. 2021-3.2022

Result: COA EVRTalk 

EVRTalk virtual reality caregiver training

 

This project aims to investigate the effectiveness of using Virtual Reality to build empathy for the care recipient by allowing the caregiver to experience day-to-day life from the care recipient’s perspective. Ming Tang leads a research team to work with COA and LiveWell Collaborative to develop and evaluate an expandable set of VR training modules designed to help train family and friends who are thrust into the caregiving role. Ming Tang lead the LWC team and design the simulated decision trees, scenarios, and hand-tracking technologies in an immersive VR environment.

Team members: Ming Tang, Matt Anthony,Craig Vogel, Linda Dunseath, Alejandro Robledo, Tosha Bapat, Karly Camerer, Jay Heyne, Harper Lamb, Jordan Owens, Ruby Qji, Matthew Spoleti, Lauren Southwood, Ryan Tinney, Keeton Yost, Dongrui Zhu

 

COA is awarded $25,000 from the CTA Foundation Grant in 2021.

In the UC News. share point.

Digital Landscape

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Large open world simulation. ARCH 7014 VIZ 3. DAAP, UC. Fall. 2020.

Download the interactive game for windows. ( 1.8GB. Password needed)

Students: Brooke Adams, Jake Bayer, Kyle Beck, Xu Cao, Roger Chanin, Nick Chism, Shanmukhi Chittanuru, Nick Earman, Sarah Fall, Ashley Franklin, Christian Gilbert, Chris Gilmore, Danielle Hall, Anna Hargan, Mitch Hoffman, Gabrielle Kalouche, Stephanie Knechtly, Rishyak Chowdhary Kommineni, Kenny Li, Nathaniel Liesch, Rachel Magee, Joy Mullappally, Ben Paulus, Alex Phinney, Halle Potoczak, Priyanka Raghuwanshi, Camila Rivera Torres, Cassidy Rodgers, Crawford Rogers, Christine Sima, Gustavo Vega Ramirez, Victoria Wanstrath, Gabrielle Waters, Trent Wenker, Tyler Wilson

VR for Police Training

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Active Shooter Simulation

Develop several fully immersive 3D VR active shooter scenarios that can run on cost-effective commercially available VR hardware.

Final Report for OCJS Project

Develop and Assess Active Shooter Virtual Reality Training for Ohio Law Enforcement.  PI: J.C Barnes. Co-PI: Tang Office of Criminal Justice Services. $50,000. 09. 2020-09.2021 ( $29,608)

Development of a Virtual Reality Augmented Violence Reduction Training System for Active and Mass Shooting incidents. PI: Ed Latessa. Co-PIs: J.C. Barnes, Ming Tang, Cory Haberman, Dan Gerard, Tim Sabransky. $10,000. Start-up fund. UC Digital Futures anchor tenant cohort.

Shimmer GSR sensor is used to test Physiological stress. 

Checklist

Using Checklists and Virtual Reality to Improve Police Investigations. Collaborative Research Advancement Grants. UC. $25,000. PI: Haberman. Co-PI: Tang, Barnes. Period: 07.2020-01.2022.

Team:

Ming Tang, Cory Haberman, J.C. Barnes, Cheryl Jonson, Dongrui Zhu, Heejin Lee, Jillian Desmond, Ruby Qiu, Snigdha Bhattiprolu, Rishyak Kommineni

Publications:

Cory P. Haberman, Ming Tang, JC Barnes, Clay Driscoll, Bradley J. O’Guinn, Calvin Proffit,. Using Virtual Reality Simulations to Study Initial Burglary Investigations. American Society of Evidence-Based Policing’s 2023 Conference. 2023. Las Vegas. Nevada.

Design Process

To create simulated human behavior, either during the active shooting, or the casual human dialogue, the team designed a A.I system to simulate the decision trees. Please watch the technique breakdown demo.