The VCoRE Project: First Steps Towards Building a Next-Generation Visual Computing Platform (VCoRE : vers la prochaine génération de plate-forme de Réalité Virtuelle) Bruno Raffin, Hannah Carbonnier, Jérôme Esnault, JeanChristophe Lombardo, Rémi Felix, Thierry Duval, Alain Chauffaut, Georges Dumont, Ronan Gaugne, Valérie Gouranton, François Faure, Jérémie Allard, Romain Primet, Stéphane Huot, Yvonne Jung, Ulrich Bockholt, Johannes Behr, Karsten Schwenk and Gerrit Voss Journées Scientifiques INRIA 25 juin 2013
Teams Involved Scientific leader: Bruno Raffin (MOAIS) Technical leader: Jean-Christophe Lombardo (DREAM) MINT SHAMAN SED IN-SITU SED HYBRID MIMETIC MOAIS EVASION DREAM 2
Traditional VR Platforms are complex 3
What is coming is even worst 3D graphics, 3D user interfaces Virtual, mixed and augmented reality Real-time physics More Sensors GPS, accelerometers, cameras, etc. Real-time data acquisition and fusion Distributed and collaborative virtual/augmented environments Games Tele-presence Social networks Cloud architecture Vision, rendering, etc. 4
Towards an Open Software Framework Modular and scalable Built around a kernel of existing software tools Open architecture to enable the integration of new tools Shared-source framework Rely on, but also propose adaptations to, standards Connection with ISO, W3C and Khronos Group Adapted to research and industry needs for prototyping and testing new applications Validated on existing scenarios and platforms from INRIA and IGD 5
Initial Software Pieces OpenSG (Fraunhofer IGD) SOFA (INRIA Lille Grenoble Sophia) Collaboration engine ICon (INRIA Saclay) Physics engine Collaviz (INRIA Rennes) Scene graph Input manager FlowVR (INRIA Grenoble) Parallelization middleware 6
Possible Architecture for VCoRE Immersive space ICon Site 1 Collaviz OpenSG Collaviz Mobile device Session manager FlowVR JMonkey ICon Site 2 FlowVR Collaviz Physics Workstation Java3D ICon FlowVR Collaviz FlowVR Site n Collaviz Server Sofa Grid 7
Ongoing Developments Exploration of coupling mechanisms for ICon SOFA OpenSG Collaviz Avoid too simple scenarios Work with soft objects Deformable meshes Mesh used for physics can be different from the one for rendering (mappings) First steps with ad-hoc coupling OpenSG SOFA SOFA ICon Collaviz ICon Collaviz OpenSG Collaviz SOFA 8
Ongoing Developments SOFA ICon MechanicalStateController OpenSG SOFA Collaviz Graph wrapping 9
First Benefits Interoperability between our tools SOFA rendering on VR cluster OpenSG rendering coupled with Collaviz Collaviz as a broker between OpenSG and SOFA Loosely coupling of ICon with SOFA and Collaviz Better knowledge of the work of the other Inria teams! Reusable interaction metaphors with ICon Will lead to more interactions between them Ongoing collaboration with Fraunhofer IGD FP7 proposal: YouShape (failed) Web3D 2013 paper about VCoRE possible web architecture Based on REST access of Visual Computing data structures, websockets Second best long paper paper award 10
Conclusion An effort to Avoid spending time in developing/maintaining code pieces that are not central to our research activities Build a framework for the next gen applications Emerging couplings and concepts with Let people focus on their research activities Sofa ICon OpenSG Collaviz FlowVR Future work Connection with standards Deployment/orchestration cloud Integration of new API Unity3D... 11