CSC 495: University of Minnesota VR REU

     I messaged Vicki and asked if we could have a zoom meeting to further discuss my research. So yesterday we had the meeting and it wasn't even close to anything that I thought that we would be discussing. She completely changed the topic of what she was wanting to do research on. (This may be a bit long so I apologize). She listed out two different options that she was thinking about.       The first was basically where the user would have four different scenarios (one looking out of a window onto nature, one looking at a photograph of nature, one being a watercolor picture of nature, and one being an abstract art piece of nature). Why would you do this in VR when you can do it in real life? I hate to complain and be negative about things but this made no sense to me and wasn't even in the realm of what was originally proposed. I understand that this is her research that I am working on but I feel as though I haven't been directed at all. The secon...

      Today, I am feeling so relieved and I feel like I have a sense of direction now. My lab partner and I had our first meeting with Courtney today and it went very well. We were able to talk with her about some of our concerns about our projects and how we can move forward in completing them. Courtney went through with me about the protocol that I should lay out so that I can get it submitted to the IRB. The IRB ensures that I can actually run human participants in my study, and without it I can only do pilot testing. This protocol just includes the steps that I will take in order to run the program; and I already have a sense of what I am going to be doing so I don't have to worry about it too much.  Courtney also helped me with the outlay of my scene. We decided that I would essentially just be making a giant loop that would act as a trail in my environment. That was one of the concerns that I had so I'm glad that it got resolved. I felt as though...

     Within the program, we have seminars every week and some of them are done by a PhD student in another lab, Courtney. After Friday's seminar, she wanted to talk to Mac and I about how our projects were going. We truthfully told her that we still weren't sure of the exact process that we needed to be doing and that we hadn't had much guidance. She already knew that Vicki didn't give us much information to go off of and we couldn't communicate with her at the moment as she has Covid. So we discussed our projects and what we wanted our research to produce by the end of the summer. I told Courtney that I want to get to the point in my research where I could run participants in my study. Unfortunately she said that realistically with the time that we have I would probably only be able to do some pilot testing instead of actual testing. I wasn't too upset as I already knew that we have a time crunch as to what we can and can't do. I am feeling relieved that we...

 Is there anything that is holding you back in your experience?       So far I have been working with Maya to create just the landscape of my environment. But I realized today, after creating the base of my landscape, that Maya was not going to work the way that I wanted it to in Unreal Engine. In order for me to put the foliage (grass, sticks, rock) on it, I would have to create a heightmap, which is very different than my Maya landscape. I couldn't find any documentation where I could just take my file and make it into a heightmap so ultimately I resorted back to my first process of doing it in Unreal Engine.      I am not fond of rendering the base of my landscape in Unreal because it isn't going to look exactly how I wanted it to. It has a sculpting tool that I feel is not very uniform and you have to do it all yourself. Not only that, but I fear that it may slow down the engine because of how many assets that I have running in the program. Ri...

At what point are you in your research?       At this point in time, I already have my topic and my research question established. I am now attempting to render my environments. The idea is that I am going to have the same landscape of the environment but I am going to have different looking assets (trees, grass, sticks, rocks, etc.). This is so there won't  be an actual difference between the two, just that one is photorealistic and one is non-photorealistic (almost like a video game). I am using Maya Autodesk to establish the floor of my landscape and using Unreal Engine for the assets.       I have to say that I am a bit overwhelmed.  I have so many questions as to how I am going to complete the two environments while also making them look aesthetically pleasing. Does every asset for both environments need to be in the same location? How am I going to ensure that every coordinate is exactly the same for each asset? How can I properly ...

What stated internship goals do you still hope to meet? Are there any new goals in mind?       Vicky finally sent me some papers to read and also the paper of her last REU student who worked on a similar topic that I am working on. The topic was forest bathing, and essentially it was just comparing a desert environment and a forest environment and seeing if people had a restorative affect to both environments. Unfortunately this paper could not be published by ACM or IEEE, which are the main computer science organizations to get your papers published. I believe that Vicky said that there wasn't sufficient data to have it fully published.  With that being said, I would like to set up some new goals for myself. I want to be able to create a sufficient study that will have some sort of outcome. I know that not all studies will conjure sufficient data so I can't say that I will have the answer that I was hoping for; but hopefully I will discover something new with b...

  How has your perception of yourself changed since you began the internship? As I have stated before, I feel as though my lab partner and I haven't been given much direction and it has led to me taking initiative for my own research. I think I doubted the majority of things that I could do, which included me thinking about and starting my own research . I sometimes feel as though I have imposter syndrome when I am doing things related to computer science work. I doubt my ability to perform even simple tasks. I have proven myself wrong in this program as I have created a few things by myself with programs that I have never worked with before. This includes working with Unreal to create my own virtual environment and testing it with the VR headset, and also with Maya Autodesk which I used to create my own landscape. With that being said, today, I have formulated my own research questions at this point in time. We aren't sure if this is the direction that Vicky is wanting to ...

 What is your supervisor like and what were your first impressions?       Today we were able to meet with Vicky for the first time in person. She took my lab partner and I out for lunch just so we could all talk and get to know one another.  I felt quite relived being able to speak with her and just knowing that she will be able to actually guide us along in our research.           My overall impression of her is that she is an extremely intelligent woman who is passionate about what she does. We discussed each others' research topics more in depth which has helped us in some way. She speaks in a lot of detail which was a little overwhelming when talking about research because some of what she discussed I had never heard or read about before. She is very intrigued by the topic that I will be working on which is biophilic virtual environments. However I feel as though there still isn't a specific topic that she wants to hone in ...

What have you learned from the routine or boring parts of the internship? Explain      A PhD student from Vanderbilt came and talked with us today about research papers. We were given her paper to read which was about depth perception in augmented reality. I have not personally worked with AR before so this was a new subject to me and I found the paper very interesting and it was quite a short paper.       I mention this because in order to even start your own research you must look at other work that is similar to the topic that you have chosen. You also have to do this to ensure that you aren't just recreating another work that has already been published. I would count this process as both a routine and boring part of this research program as the papers are long and it can be time consuming. I have learned to be patient and to absorb all of the information that I am reading to really understand the paper. With my own research, I have read only a few ...

  What did you do to address the issues or problems you faced during your internship?      From the start of my internship, my lab partner and I have had an issue with contacting our advisor. We emailed her last week and she responded after six days. Within the email, she asked what project we wanted to work on (she had previously sent us a document with a list of projects on it) and if we had any questions surrounding the projects. She also included that some of the projects would use either Unreal Engine or Unity.      We have taken our time to only work with the Unreal Engine program, so I will be quite disappointed if I spent the past week and a half working with a program that I won't even be using. I also feel that my research is going to be hindered as we don't have proper communication with our advisor. Without having the guidance from my advisor, I feel as though I'm going into the dark with what actually needs to be completed. I have had to ...

After speaking with the PhD student in my lab, we have come to a conclusion about what my research topic will be, which is the role of nature virtual reality and how it can impact the wellness of a person. The research would require me to create a highly realistic virtual nature environment and an equally appealing non-realistic virtual environment. I would then compare various measures of well-being after immersion in each environment. I have already decided that I will be doing a forest environment for both using Unreal Engine and Maya Autodesk.  Since this is my first research project that I will solely be working on, it brings up a lot of questions; so I am thinking of ways that I can answer those questions and bring insight into my project and what I need to be focusing on. Some general questions that I have for the research are: How are these two environments going to compare? How many participants do I need? Do I need different virtual environments to test different levels o...

     We are going to be having weekly seminars within the program that are supposed to help us understand research as well as leading us through our own projects. This week Professor Evan went over what research was as well as the process surrounding it. I had an understanding of what research was prior to this (which was a study where you collect research or order to produce a result) but not how everything came together as I have never done research. They went over the entire process and how essentially it loops back to determining a problem. I am afraid that my research may not have enough material by the end of the summer. I feel as though there should be more time taken within research rather than just ten weeks. With that said, in the talk Professor Evan stated that there is never a perfect study within research; which made me feel better as I feel as though I need all of my questions answered and I am not too confident in my ability to get a fully completed project...

    Today, we continued with tutorials on Unreal Engine. I am quite proud of myself as I almost have my first virtual environment rendered within the first few days of being here. We met another PhD student that will be working in our lab full time. They went over some of the projects more in depth as Professor Interrante has not been able to meet with us. As they discussed the projects more in depth it made me potentially rethink my choice of a project. He said with one of the projects we could potentially have our names published on a paper which would be great for me for grad school; but the topic does not necessarily interest me. One of the other topics is very relevant in virtual reality at the moment but it would be more of collecting data for the research. We would have to get participants to do the simulation, which has to do with cybersickness. I am interested in this project and I may choose this one, unfortunately though I will not be able to render my own environme...

     Within the first two days of my internship, I have realized that a research program is a lot different than I had expected. From my previous understanding, we were going to be assigned a project and asked to continue research on that project while being closely supervised. I feel as though my perceived understanding is the exact opposite of what this program is doing. We do not have set schedules nor are we closely supervised. We were told that as long as we got our hours in for the week it did not matter when we did our research just as long as we got it done. I am quite surprised but also relieved by this; This will allow us to practice with trail and error. This is how actual research is conducted and I'm glad that we will have the freedom to do this.       I am paired with two other undergraduate students and one PhD student in Victoria Interrante's lab. We were not given clear instruction on what to do the first two days, we were asked to beg...