Advanced Building Simulation

240 Malkawi
Figure 9.27 Viewer with HMD. (See Plate XIX.)
CFD simulation
Sensors/boundary
conditions
HCI
Display
Multimodal
interface
Graphics
software
earlier sections. Some of these challenges are being researched such as integrating sensors
and boundary conditions for automatic updating and calibration. This allows the
user to view sensor information such as temperature and airflow in real-time and compare
it with the simulated results. In addition, interactions with the CFD output require
a new intuitive method of interfacing that is specific for the application (Figure 9.29).
This involves the integration of a multimodal HCI by transforming human perceptual
cues such as hand movements (haptic), speech recognition, etc. to a set of functions for
effective data visualization within the AR environment.
The CFD output was generated as a VRML file, scaled and oriented such that it is
accurately mapped with the real scene, and posed into the HMD. The VRML
importer communicates with the CFD engine through loading classes that receive
input from the user about the orientation and position of the data requested and
passes this information on to the command generator. The generator creates a set of
command-line directions and calls the CFD engine to execute the file. The results are
saved in a specified location in a VRML format. The data is then imported into
Java3D using a plug-in package to convert the data from VRML to native Java3D
CFD
data
Figure 9.29 Integration of multimodal interface with AR environment.
Figure 9.28 Registration of room in real-space.
(See Plate XX.)