TY - JOUR
T1 - Surveying reality (SurReal)
T2 - Software to simulate surveying in virtual reality
AU - Bolkas, Dimitrios
AU - Chiampi, Jeffrey
AU - Fioti, Joseph
AU - Gaffney, Donovan
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: Brandi Brace is acknowledged for her assistance with the Unity software. This project has been supported via grants from the following sources: Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence of the Pennsylvania State University; the Engineering Technology and Commonwealth Engineering of the Pennsylvania State University; and Chancellor Endowments from Penn State Wilkes-Barre. In addition, we would like to thank our Associate Director of Academic Affairs Lynda Goldstein for her help and support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors.
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - Experiential learning through outdoor labs is an integral component of surveying education. Cancelled labs as a result of weather, the inability to visit a wide variety of terrain location, recent distance education requirements create significant instructional challenges. In this paper, we present a software solution called surveying reality (SurReal); this software allows for students to conduct immersive and interactive virtual reality labs. This paper discusses the development of a virtual differential leveling lab. The developed software faithfully replicates major steps followed in the field and any skills learned in virtual reality are transferable in the physical world. Furthermore, this paper presents a novel technique for leveling multi-legged objects like a tripod on variable terrain. This method relies solely on geometric modeling and does not require physical simulation of the tripod. This increases efficiency and ensures that the user experiences at least 60 frames per second, thus reducing lagging and creating a pleasant experience for the user. We conduct two leveling examples, a three-benchmark loop and a point-to-point leveling line. Both surveys had a misclosure of 1 mm due to observational random errors, which demonstrated that leveling can be conducted with mm-level precision, much like in the physical world.
AB - Experiential learning through outdoor labs is an integral component of surveying education. Cancelled labs as a result of weather, the inability to visit a wide variety of terrain location, recent distance education requirements create significant instructional challenges. In this paper, we present a software solution called surveying reality (SurReal); this software allows for students to conduct immersive and interactive virtual reality labs. This paper discusses the development of a virtual differential leveling lab. The developed software faithfully replicates major steps followed in the field and any skills learned in virtual reality are transferable in the physical world. Furthermore, this paper presents a novel technique for leveling multi-legged objects like a tripod on variable terrain. This method relies solely on geometric modeling and does not require physical simulation of the tripod. This increases efficiency and ensures that the user experiences at least 60 frames per second, thus reducing lagging and creating a pleasant experience for the user. We conduct two leveling examples, a three-benchmark loop and a point-to-point leveling line. Both surveys had a misclosure of 1 mm due to observational random errors, which demonstrated that leveling can be conducted with mm-level precision, much like in the physical world.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106528088&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85106528088&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/ijgi10050296
DO - 10.3390/ijgi10050296
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85106528088
SN - 2220-9964
VL - 10
JO - ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
JF - ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
IS - 5
M1 - 296
ER -