Handbook of Virtual Environments

A Complete Toolbox of Theories and Techniques

The second edition of a bestseller, Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design, Implementation, and Applications presents systematic and extensive coverage of the primary areas of research and development within VE technology. It brings together a comprehensive set of contributed articles that address the principles required to define system requirements and design, build, evaluate, implement, and manage the effective use of VE applications. The contributors provide critical insights and principles associated with their given areas of expertise to provide extensive scope and detail on VE technology and its applications.

This second edition includes nine new, as well as forty-one updated chapters that reflect the progress made in basic and applied research related to the creation, application, and evaluation of virtual environments. Contributions from leading researchers and practitioners from multidisciplinary domains provide a wealth of theoretical and practical information, resulting in a complete toolbox of theories and techniques that you can rely on to develop more captivating and effective virtual worlds. The handbook supplies a valuable resource for advancing VE applications as you take them from the laboratory to the real-world lives of people everywhere.

Dr. Kelly S. Hale is Sr. Vice President of Technical Operations at Design Interactive, Inc., a woman-owned small business focused on human-systems integration, which she joined in 2004. Her research and development efforts in human systems integration across areas of virtual environment design and evaluation, augmented cognition, multimodal interaction and haptic interfaces, and training sciences. She holds a patent for a tactile display language, and serves on the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, and Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science. She has received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Office of Naval Research (ONR), Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Department of the Army. Through these efforts, Kelly and her team have developed advanced neurophysiological measurement techniques, including a patent-pending Fixation-locked Event-Related Potentials (FLERPs) approach to capture electroencephalography ERP data in a naturalistic setting, and have advanced real-time mitigation strategy framework and induction techniques to optimize training, situation awareness, decision making, and operational performance through optimization of user cognitive and physical state within simulated training environments. In addition, Kelly has guided Design Interactive, Inc. to be a leader in developing advanced performance metrics and diagnostic capabilities, including behavioral, physiological and neural metric suites for capturing traditionally ‘unobservable’ behavioral data to evaluate perceptual skills and cognitive processing in real-time by synchronizing data with system events/areas of interest dynamically throughout simulated scenarios. She received her BSc in Kinesiology/Ergonomics Option from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada in 1999, and her Masters and PhD In Industrial Engineering, with a focus on Human Factors Engineering, from the University of Central Florida in 2001 and 2006, respectively.

Dr. Kay Stanney founded Design Interactive, Inc. in 1998 and serves as President. She provides executive leadership and strategic direction, formulating and driving key business strategies across DI’s three business units. Dr. Stanney is recognized as a world leader in virtual environment (VE) technology, especially as it relates to training. During her 25+ years of carrying out research in the area of VE training, she has led numerous efforts involved in furthering adaptive VE training techniques. Recipient of 2013 Women Who Mean Business Award, 2012 and 2011 Top Simulation & Training Company for innovation, and the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award. She has an MS and PhD in Human Factors Engineering from Purdue University, a BS in Industrial Engineering from SUNY Buffalo, and is a CHFP.