vrNav

Description of vrNav2

vrNav2 is an easy-to-use 3D scene navigation program for viewing 3D models in a virtual reality environment. It runs under Linux and Windows and on the Mac. When run under Linux, vrNav2 supports multiple tiles in a tiled display. Additionally, Collaborative VR allows two communicating vrNav2 instances, both running on the same model, to communicate and work together.

vrNav2 is built on top of OpenSceneGraph (OSG) and vrJuggler. It allows you to load models in any of the data formats that OSG supports. The properties of the models and the navigation are configurable both via a model config file and by arguments to the program. Spherical (multiple viewing frustum), spherical stereo, flat plane (single viewing frustum), flat plane stereo and any size tiled display are configurable via base and display config files. A set of these config files come with vrNav2 and you can easily modify them for your particular display configuration. The scripts that come with vrNav2, and which start it up, automatically select the appropriate config files according to the way the system is set up.

vrNav2 has been configured to work with both architectural models and models created as part of scientific visualizations. It supports multiple time steps for the scientific models and multiple switches and date switches for the architectural models.

The mouse and keyboard are used for navigation and control. In addition, a remote GUI, written in Java, can be run on any machine, the one running vrNav2 or another machine. This GUI can connect to a running vrNav2 in order to control it. The vrNav2 GUI provides many of the same control features as the keyboard does. It also provides controls not available via the keyboard.

vrNav2 allows you to make movies on the fly by saving a numerical sequence of images that you can later paste up into a movie. It can save left and right eye image sequences when run in stereo mode. These images can later be pasted up into either a red/blue stereo movie or into an active stereo movie.

As you navigate around the virtual world vrNav2 can save segment(s) of your flight path or key frames along your flight path. Subsequently it can navigate through the virtual world on either the path you saved or a path it creates via spline interpolation of the key frames. Pre-defined flight paths are often created and then flown in conjunction with saving the frames for movie creation.

vrNav2 Features

  • Many aspects of the 3D Model are configurable
  • Navigaton is configurable for each modelMap feature
  • Configurable OpenGL graphic states
  • Display is configurable. Config files are provided for a single display, a tiled display, and a spherical display (in spherical and flat plane)
  • Stereo mode support
  • The vrNav GUI can be used for control. It can be run independently on the same or a different machine.
  • Time step support for scientific models for which multiple time steps were created
  • Switch and date switch support
  • Map of the world with current location pointer
  • The Bird's eye view feature transports the viewer above the scene for a bird's-eye-view of the model.
  • The ability to record and play back on pre-recorded paths, and the ability to record keyframes and play back on spline paths computed from those keyframes.
  • The ability to automatically save images for movie and stereo movie paste up.
  • The ability to save named locations in model space as Jump Points and the ability to jump immediately to a Jump Point in the model at any time.
  • vrNav2 can add a sun, sun path, and/or a sun time sequence to the scene according to the geographic location and date and time.
  • Interactive sound support communicates with the remote DySE Builder Sound Server built by David Beaudry of UCLA in Max.
  • Collaborative VR allows two people or groups running vrNav2 at different locations to run it collaboratively on the same model. When one flys or drives through the model, the other follows.

The vrNav GUI

The vrNav GUI can be run independently on the same or a different machine. It controls all aspects of the state of the model except navigation. The vrNav GUI is written in Java and can be run on any system that has a Java run-time environment installed.

You can connect with the GUI to a running vrNav2 at any time and disconnect and reconnect at will from a GUI run on the same or on a different system. Only one vrNav GUI can be connected to a single running vrNav2 at any given time.

Operating Systems

vrNav is supported on the following operating systems.

  • Linux
  • Windows
  • Mac (both PPC and Intel)

Download vrNav2

vrNav is based on the 3D scene graph toolkit  OpenSceneGraph 2.4.0 and the vrJuggler 2.2.1 virtual reality application development framework.   A source distribution is available for Linux and you need to have OpenSceneGraph and vrJugler installed before building vrNav.  (vrJuggler can be gotten with yum.) For Windows and the Mac, vrNav2 comes as a binary distribution, with all the dependencies built in.

  • Download vrNav (source distribution for Linux and binary distribution for Windows and the Mac)

Documentation

The following documents document the use of vrNav2:

3D File Formats

vrNav can read any data format that OpenSceneGraph can read. OpenSceneGraph supports the following 3D formats for model files.

3dc 3DC Point Cloud
ac AC3D format
3ds AutoDesk 3DStudio binary data
dw Artifice, Inc. Design Workshop format
flt MultiGen OpenFlight format
geo Carbon Graphics format
gem Carbon Graphics format
iv SGI OpenInventor format
ive OSG binary format
logo Logo 3D format
lwo LightWave Object file
lw LightWave Object file
lws LightWave Scene file
md2 Quake 2 model
obj Wavefront Technologies format
osg OSG ASCII format
medit Medit Productions medit modeling tool
pfb OpenGL Performer Binary format
wrl VRML 2.0 format

 

 
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