The Lab
The ACSys VE laboratory is the central VE facility for the ACSys VE Program. It is located on the second floor of the Computer Science and Information Technology building in the Department of Computer Science at the Australian National University. The VE Lab facility consists of the following hardware:
The Haptic Workbench
The
Haptic Workbench (HW) is an ACSys
developed extension of the Virtual
Workbench (VW), developed by the Institute
of System Science at the National University
of Singapore. The VW is a "reach in" scale virtual environment that
was designed as a dextorous 3D workspace. The ACSys VE Program has extended
the VW with a Phantom
force feedback (or haptic) device from SensAble
Technologies. The Phantom is a forearm length robotic arm that
is capable of projecting a high fidelity point force in 3D space. The integration
of the Phantom with the VW results in a "reach in" display that has the
visual display co-located with the haptic display. This means that users
of the Haptic Workbench can both see and feel a virtual object in a co-located
3D space.
The Barco Baron
The
Barco Baron
is a rear projected drafting-table styled virtual environment. Through
the use of stereo imagery, head and hand tracking, it is capable of highly
immersive displays. The Baron is a similar system to the ImmersaDesk
and Immersive Workbench
in that it is a drafting table sized environment. The Baron has the added
benefit of being usable as a horizontal table (like the Virtual Workbench) at
an angle (like the ImmersaDesk), and a vertical display (like a standard
large screen projection system). Both the height of the table and the angle
of the display can be controlled though an RS-232 interface as well as
through a manually operated remote control.