This course presents the concepts of augmented reality (AR) or often called ‘mixed reality’ where the real world objects and computer generated 3D synthetic objects are augmented together in real-time to form realistic environment to visualize complex scenarios. This course helps the students to learn the basics of augmented reality, multiple components of augmented reality, and how to use and design augmented environments for real-world applications. Some of the broader areas that are covered in this course include: advanced visualization and augmented reality technologies, augmented environments, stereoscopic 3D displays, multimodal user interaction, Haptics (Force Feedback), Global Position System (GPS) Navigation, and Augmented Reality applications.

This course studies the field of collaborative virtual and augmented environments in a shared, multi-user, same-site and multi-site immersive environments. Students gain the knowledge in the following research areas: multiuser interaction, collaborative virtual and augmented environments, latest software and hardware tools. In this collaborative environemnts students not only interact with in the same virtual environment, but collaborate between physically different environments through distributed environments. This course covers the following sections: introduction to virtual reality and augmented reality, multimodal user interfaces and interaction, communication infrastructure, networked environments, distributed simulation, QoS and performance issues, and collaborative environments.

This course presents the concepts of engineering design using virtual reality and haptic devices in the design and manufacture of products. In the last decade complexity of product and engineering design, analysis and visualization of simulations have increased tremendously. This growth requires new techniques to effectively perform, analyze, evaluate and interpret the design process and analysis results. In this course, students learn how to use VR and haptics technology to enhance the design of products by visualizing and interacting with their designs in a 3D multimodal virtual environment. Students also learn how this technology is currently being used in industry and anticipated technological advancements.

Virtual Reality (VR) is a technology that has been under development for a number of years. It is emerging as an important and more commonly used technology in engineering design, scientific visualization, and information visualization, as well as industries such as petroleum exploration, automotive, and aerospace. This course covers the following sections: introduction to virtual reality, human perception (vision, sight, vestibular, haptic, olfactory, taste), perceptually-based development issues (shape approximation, materials, lighting, LOD, animation, interaction, collision detection), hardware (visual display devices, graphics/image generators, tracking systems, input devices, aural, haptic, olfactory, taste displays), software tools, designing virtual environments (interaction and interface techniques, evaluation and metrics, differences among users, collaboration styles and collaborative VEs), software framework and graphics libraries, audio development methods, haptic development methods, and applications of VR.