The University of HONG KONG - ImseCAVE

The University of Hong Kong

The University of Hong Kong is the oldest tertiary education institution in Hong Kong.The Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering (IMSE) of the University of Hong Kong was found in May 1973. Since its inception, the Department of IMSE has witnessed Hong Kong’s transformation from a manufacturing oriented centre into a major international service and financial center, and in its moving towards a knowledge-based economy.

Jadason Enterprises Ltd.

Jadason Enterprises Ltd. is a limited liability company based in Hong Kong that was established in 1980. Ever since, it has become a leader in providing equipment in the P.C.B. industry. In 1990, a division was established for developing digital media and graphic arts businesses that provide complete solutions in Prepress, Animation, Video Post Production and Digital Imaging
industries. With 10 offices in China and the Asia-Pacific region employing more than 200 staffs and 30 engineers, Jadason has a proven engineering background support in both hardware and software applications. Jadason is actually one of the Virtools partners in China.

The Application

Based around a generic CAVE conceived by the University of Hong Kong, the imseCAVE training application teaches users how to control a crane in order to transport containers in a port or warehouse setting. The imseCAVE is a fully immersive and interactive visualization system that provides extremely vivid stereoscopic views of sceneries in 3-D. imseCAVE was developed by the
University of Hong Kong’s Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering researchers.

The system can be readily configured to provide immersive virtual environment to obtain first hand experience of such training environment without the limitations of time and space. In addition, the system can be tailored within a short period of time to produce other complex simulated environments such as product or architectural design reviews or mission planning applications.

For example, in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, the imseCAVE has been taillored to the simulation of very large and complex logistics systems including the automated air cargo terminals and port container terminals.

Such simulations provide a way for students to study their operations without the need to physically visit these facilities.

The Challenge

As the container handling business is one of the most important components in Hong Kong’s logistics industry, efficient terminal operation is essential to sustain service quality and future growth. The University of Hong Kong created an immersive training application for future port crane operators. A highly realistic, immersive interactive application is an important tool for high-quality training. Such applications accurately recreate environmental conditions crane operators will confront on the job. They offer students a chance to be trained in a truly realistic environment without expensive and risky on-site training. A quay crane costs over a million US dollars. Thus a determinate factor for success is to minimize training on real quay cranes, so they can be reserved for full production. Moreover, errors made with
a simulation application have no problematic repercussions, whereas the same miscalculation with such powerful machines can cause serious damage in a real situation.

Virtual scenery and interfaces for simulating the crane control cabin are developed along with a realistic model of the port container terminal, the quay crane system and other container handling equipment. The high degree of realism and efficiency requires that the application can integrate related physical phenomena (weight, inertia, collision, etc.).

In order to place the crane operators in most realistic working conditions (crane cabin with vertical panorama and integrated
commands), the University of Hong Kong needed a software development tool that would easily allow them to create immersive interactive real-time applications running on a PC cluster and able to manage the CAVE display with VR specifc features.

The Solution

The University of Hong Kong chose Virtools development solution because it met all the criteria for interactive 3D content creation combined with immersive VR hardware management capabilities. Virtools Dev provides a complete development environment, accessible via an intuitive GUI interface, a scripting language and an SDK. Furthermore, the Virtools add-on packs such as the Virtools Physics Pack or the Virtools VR Pack allow easy and rapid implementation of specific functionality critical to making immersive applications more realistic.

The Virtools Physics Pack allows the application to obey the laws of physics through gravity, inertia, collisions, etc. The Virtools VR Pack synchronizes distributed computing on a PC cluster, produce 3D stereoscopic imagery displayed in the imseCAVE.

With the highest level of realism is required to accurately recreate actions and interactions of actual machinery, working with complex data - such as the weight and inertia of the crane, containers, etc. - is a real challenge. The Virtools Physics Pack with its ready to use behavior building blocks did not require additional programming to create a realistic physical environment. Another major challenge was to create the immersive application on a CAVE display. The Virtools VR Pack made it possible thanks to its display synchronization, 3D stereoscopy and interactive VR peripheral management. A virtual quay-side crane control cabin generated by the imseCAVE, an immersive 3-D scenery of the container terminal and a vessel can be seen by the users seated at the center of the system. The user interface of the quay-side crane control system consists of a number of control buttons, indicator lights, and a joystick by which the user interacts with the virtual environment and the crane in real-time.

Key Benefits

• Ideal, flexible development solution to create high performance application for VR-based training.
• Ability to easily retarget the system to many other applications.
• Physics Pack to create a realistic environments that obey the laws of physics.
• VR Pack to synchronize distributed computing on a PC cluster, display synchronization, 3D stereoscopy and interactive VR peripheral management.