Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
comprehensive and fully represents the
educational content.
five steps: i) requirements specification, ii) gather-
ing of reference material from real world objects,
iii) structuring the graphical model and dividing
it between designers, iv) building objects and
positioning them in the virtual environment, v)
enhancing the environment with texture, lighting,
sound and interaction and optimizing the environ-
ment. Extensive researches on the usability of a
virtual reality environment have shown that the
efficiency of the final application heavily depends
on three main features:
•
Uniform designing:
A uniform design
should be followed in all pages of a hyper-
media application.
•
Content update:
The maintenance of a
hypermedia application is of great impor-
tance for the fulfillment of its educational
objectives. Thus, the educational content
should be periodically updated by the
administrator of the application accord-
ing to the requirements of the educational
process.
•
Navigation:
Navigation is one of the most
important usability factors of a virtual en-
vironment. This feature allows users to
move within the virtual world and explore
it in order to find out new knowledge. In
the designing phase of an application, spe-
cial care is needed to the elimination of us-
ers' disorientation problems. To this end,
the use of signs, marks or maps is required
for the correct guidance of users within the
virtual world, ensuring so an easy approach
to the educational material. Moreover, the
designing of the navigation system should
be user-friendly so that non-familiar users
to be able to manipulate it easily.
•
Appropriate terminology:
The instruc-
tional designer should use appropriate ter-
minology, which is familiar and fully un-
derstandable by the learners.
Finally, apart from the aforementioned re-
quirements, a virtual learning environment with
regards to its hypermedia nature is a designed
information space, which integrates heterogeneous
technologies and provides interactive functional-
ities allowing the communication (synchronous
or asynchronous) among the learners and teachers
of a learning community (Dillenbourg, 2000).
Virtual Reality Requirements
•
Interaction:
Beyond a simple observation
of the visualized learning content, virtual
reality technology, due to its interactive
functionalities, moves one step further al-
lowing the manipulation of the educational
data. Therefore, a virtual learning environ-
ment should support a natural way of inter-
action, which mimics as close as possible
the real world, contributing so to the easy
and fast familiarization and adaptation of
users to the virtual environment. Finally,
the interactive points should be clear and
supported by suitable signs inciting users
to interact with the virtual environment.
Virtual reality technology has been recently intro-
duced in the field of education and thus there are
no explicit rules for the designing of a learning
environment containing 3D computer graphics.
Nevertheless, the designing of these applications
should fulfill some basic usability criteria charac-
terizing common virtual reality environments. In a
simplified methodology the designing of a virtual
world can be divided in four basic steps (Masso
& Lopez, 2003): the geometry and appearance of
virtual models, their import to the virtual reality
toolkit, the modeling of their behavior and finally
the virtual environment visualization in a virtual
reality facility. Another approach is presented by
Kaur (1998), which proposes a methodology of
•
Presence:
The third factor, concerning
the concept of presence in a virtual world,
deals in essence with the realism level. The
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