2025 (Current Year) Faculty Courses School of Engineering Department of Information and Communications Engineering Graduate major in Information and Communications Engineering

Virtual Reality and Interaction

Academic unit or major: Graduate major in Information and Communications Engineering
Instructor(s): Shoichi Hasegawa
Class Format: Lecture (Face-to-face)
Media-enhanced courses: -
Day of week/Period (Classrooms): 3-4 Tue (J2-203 (J221)) / 3-4 Fri (J2-203 (J221))
Class: -
Course Code: ICT.H507
Number of credits: 200
Course offered: 2025
Offered quarter: 1Q
Syllabus updated: Mar 19, 2025
Language: English

Syllabus

Course overview and goals

Virtual reality systems generate experiences of virtual worlds in computers by presenting multimodal sensory information to the users and inputting motions of the users to the virtual worlds. The concept of virtual reality, making experience by giving sensory information corresponding user's motion is an important concept for interaction design concerning users' experiences.
The principles and techniques to make virtual reality systems are also important to create interactive systems.
Thus, this course aims that students understand the idea of virtual reality and know the methods for implementations.

Course description and aims

Be able to explain principles and concepts of virtual reality, human sensory motor system, overview of sensors, actuators, simulation and rendering techniques.
Be able to propose abstract of new virtual reality system.

Student learning outcomes

実務経験と講義内容との関連 (又は実践的教育内容)

Based on experiences on operation of IVRC (Interverse Virtual Reality Challenge) and making and teaching experiences on VR work, teaching designing of original VR system.

Keywords

Virtual Reality, Interaction, Human Interfaces, Simulation

Competencies

Specialist skills
Intercultural skills
Communication skills
Critical thinking skills
Practical and/or problem-solving skills

Class flow

The class consists of 12 lectures and two poster presentations.
Participants give poster presentations in the 4th and 14th classes proposing new virtual reality systems.

Course schedule/Objectives

	Course schedule	Objectives
Class 1	What is virtual reality	Understand concept, principle, effect and limitation of virtual reality
Class 2	How to make a good VR system / How to use value graphs	Understand what to consider when designing a VR system. Understand how to expand and confirm ideas using value graphs.
Class 3	Metaverse and character motion	Understand overviews of metaverses and character motion.
Class 4	Poster presentation 1 (will be held face-to-face (or online, depending on the situation))	Gain a deep understanding of what needs to be considered when designing a VR system.
Class 5	Overview of physical engine and simulation of mass points and rigid bodies	Understand the basics of physics engines
Class 6	Mathematical expression of three-dimensional space and rotation, and simulation of deformation and fluids	Understand advanced topics of simulation for virtual reality
Class 7	Human vision	Understand human vision basics
Class 8	Visual display	Understand basic visual displays.
Class 9	Computer graphics	Understand basic computer graphics.
Class 10	Human auditory sense, characteristics of sound, sound generation, sound localization, and sound presentation	Understand human auditory sense and related sonic physics.
Class 11	Haptics and somatosensory system	Understand the basics of human haptics and somatosensory system
Class 12	Haptic interface	Understand the principles and creation of haptic interfaces
Class 13	Vestibular system and its comparison with auditory sense and haptics	Understand vestibular system and similarity and difference with auditory sense and haptics
Class 14	Poster presentaiton	Presentation and exchange of ideas on the new virtual reality system designed in the previous class.

Study advice (preparation and review)

To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterward for each class.
They should do so by referring to the course material and references on it. After the second class, it should include the preparation of the proposal for a new VR system. For the preparation, we encourage you to consult with faculty members and other students during the class. Also, we recommend discussing with other students and seeking criticism after the lecture. Students are expected to spend about 100 minutes each for preparation and review, including preparation for the proposal.

Textbook(s)

no text book is used

Reference books, course materials, etc.

Use slides, Please download slides from the class web page.

Virtual Reality Technology 2003/6, Grigore C. Burdea

Evaluation methods and criteria

The contents of the new virtual reality system presented in the poster presentation and the poster.

Related courses

ICT.A406 ： Human-Centric Information Systems I
ICT.A418 ： Human-Centric Information Systems II
ICT.C309 ： Multimedia Distribution Technology
ICT.H411 ： Basic Sensation Informatics
ICT.H313 ： Sensation and Perception Systems
CSC.T421 ： Human Computer Interaction
ART.T463 ： Computer Graphics
ICT.I317 ： Embedded Systems
ZUQ.T303 ： Simulation Engineering

Prerequisites

Basic knowledges on computational machinery, numerical computation. Experience of virtual reality.

Other

Poster presentations will be held in the classroom. If the poster presentation is held online, posters and discussions will be conducted using proximity chat.