A Study on Visual Perception of 3D Texture

By:

A texture refers to the characteristics of a surface and the appearance of an object. It is generally described as being smooth or rough, soft or hard, matt or glossy. Inadequacy of in-class tools has been a challenge for design students in learning to choose correct texture with right lighting condition for a specific space. The learning experience of architecture and interior design students in this subject matter can be enhanced through the use of interactive virtual environment. Using an interactive virtual environment can enhance the present teaching methods that mostly use static rendered images and photographs in conjunction with lecture sessions. In this paper, we present our findings from a pilot study that we conducted on the visual perception of texture depths (3D texture) used in different lighting conditions. The data for this study was gathered from an experiment conducted on students of architecture and interior design major. Specifically for this study, we developed an interactive VE utilizing a next generation 3D Game Engine. Computer graphics technology especially those employ in many next generation video games (such as the ones developed for the Xbox360 and Playstation 3) allows for realistic game environment to be displayed on the TV screen. The VE also utilized an image-texturing technique known as bump-mapping to allow a more realistic material representation. Real-time dynamic lighting was also used in the VE. This paper also describes the development process of the interactive VE to support photorealistic 3D textures in combination with different lighting conditions.

Stream: Creative Arts and Learning

Paper: Study on Visual Perception of 3D Textures, A

Mohd Fairuz Shiratuddin is an assistant professor at the School of Construction at the University of Southern Mississippi. Prior to joining the academic sector, he has worked as Electrical and Electronics Engineer. He also worked as a multimedia developer for a company in the United Kingdom. Mr Shiratuddin has been involved in Virtual Reality and Virtual Environment since 1999 and developed various virtual worlds. At the School of Construction, he teaches the Modeling and Animation I and II, Virtual Reality Applications I, Electrical and Mechanical Systems, CADD I and Advanced CADD courses. He is also the program coordinator for the Master of Science in Engineering Technology (MS-ET) in Architecture and Construction Visualization (ACV) program. All the courses he teaches are available online through Blackboard Learning System as either asynchronous lecture supplement or fully synchronous online format. He is active in research and has established the Architecture and Construction Visualization Research Lab (ACV-rl). Mr Shiratuddin’s areas of research interest and expertise are in 3D Game Engine, Virtual Environment and Information Technology; for education, design and construction processes. He has published more than 35 academic papers in national and international conference proceedings, journals, book chapters and reports, namely in the areas of 3D Game Engine, Virtual Environment, education and, architecture design, and construction.

-