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@PHDTHESIS{Valvoda:52341,
      author       = {Valvoda, Jakob T.},
      othercontributors = {Bischof, Christian},
      title        = {{V}irtual humanoids and presence in virtual environments},
      address      = {Aachen},
      publisher    = {Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University},
      reportid     = {RWTH-CONV-114573},
      pages        = {VIII, 163 S. : Ill., graph. Darst.},
      year         = {2007},
      note         = {Zsfassung in dt. und engl. Sprache; Aachen, Techn.
                      Hochsch., Diss., 2007},
      abstract     = {The broad range of methods for virtual humanoids and their
                      evaluation as avatars in virtual environments is handled in
                      this thesis. The enabling methods, as well as experimental
                      evaluations are the main contributions of the thesis. The
                      central conclusion of the work can be summed up as the fact
                      that virtual humanoids are beneficial for a number of
                      interaction scenarios typically found in virtual
                      environments. The thesis presents the technology required
                      for an interactive simulation of virtual humanoids in
                      virtual environments. It presents the VRZula toolkit and its
                      main features, mainly a layered data structure derived from
                      functional anatomy, separation of data and simulation
                      algorithms, and the control and propagation of modifications
                      to the data. This elementary approach leads to an extendible
                      and flexible system for virtual humanoids. The toolkit is
                      capable of simulating even sophisticated models of virtual
                      humanoids in complex distributed virtual environments. It
                      integrates a variety of current approaches to the
                      representation of virtual humanoids, as well as methods for
                      kinematic and physiology simulation. Substantial
                      improvements and novel approaches are introduced in the
                      areas of deformation of musculature, multimodal
                      representation and synchronization, construction of motion
                      graphs, and synchronous body tracking. Within the scope of
                      this work, the VRZula toolkit is used for the evaluation of
                      several hypotheses regarding the application of virtual
                      humanoids in virtual environments. The two studies presented
                      contribute to the understanding of the influence of virtual
                      humanoids on the sensation of presence. It has been shown
                      that avatars equipped with synchronous kinematics affect the
                      real motion of the user and optimize the kinematics in the
                      virtual world. Even though the mental and attentional
                      resources bound to the exocentric virtual body
                      representation led to a decrease of presence scores in
                      room-mounted virtual environments, a strong identification
                      of the user with the avatar has been shown. In addition,
                      correlations between presence scores and physiological, as
                      well as performance measures have been found. The results of
                      the two studies are the basis of the evaluation of virtual
                      humanoids used as avatars in typical interaction scenarios
                      of virtual environments, and identify beneficial areas of
                      application in certain navigation tasks and most
                      manipulation scenarios. The use of avatars equipped with
                      synchronous kinematics is clearly recommended. The VRZula
                      toolkit developed within this work and the experimental
                      evaluations have contributed to the prevailing knowledge on
                      virtual humanoids and their application in virtual
                      environments. The thesis demonstrates that virtual humanoids
                      are the central methodology in future interaction techniques
                      of sophisticated virtual environments.},
      keywords     = {Virtuelle Realität (SWD) / Immersion <Virtuelle Realität>
                      (SWD) / Computersimulation (SWD) / Avatar <Informatik> (SWD)
                      / Künstlicher Mensch (SWD) / Kinematik (SWD) / Präsenz
                      <Philosophie> (SWD)},
      cin          = {120000 / 124170},
      ddc          = {004},
      cid          = {$I:(DE-82)120000_20140620$ / $I:(DE-82)124170_20140620$},
      typ          = {PUB:(DE-HGF)11},
      urn          = {urn:nbn:de:hbz:82-opus-20144},
      url          = {https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/52341},
}