• Journal of Practical Engineering Education
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• v.16 no.5_spc
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• pp.701-708
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• 2024

The challenges of exploring distant locations have become increasingly apparent, especially since COVID-19 has made visiting even nearby museums and attractions more difficult. Various factors contribute to this, including time constraints, financial limitations or language barriers. However, these challenges can be overcome with recent technologies by transforming how users experience and interact with spaces. With the latest advancements, it is now possible to create virtual representations of famous attractions, allowing users to take virtual tours as if they were physically present. This paper presents a comprehensive framework for creating virtual tours using Matterport, a leading 3D scanning technology, and Unity 3D, a powerful game engine. The paper outlines methodologies for capturing 3D data with Matterport, importing it into Unity, enhancing user interaction, and optimizing the overall experience. By integrating these tools, the framework aims to facilitate immersive virtual experiences. This approach will allow affordable virtual tickets for famous attractions around the world which will be great educational opportunities. In addition, this framework can be applicable to facilitate easier navigation in complex environments such as airports and hospitals.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2003.11b
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• pp.141-144
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• 2003

This paper proposes the distributed virtual environment framework for collaboration between heterogeneous platforms. The proposed system consists of Client, Content Server(CS), and Reflector Server(RS). The Client is composed of VR library(VRL), Interaction Manager(IM), Distributed Interaction Manager(DIM), and Network Interface(NI). The proposed Client structure can support various display environments. The XML-based IM and DIM lets the users define and add the interactions. The proposed Server structure synchronizes the distributed interaction between heterogeneous platforms and provides transparency to the users. Therefore, the proposed framework enables the users to implement virtual collaboration environment for their tasks. Moreover, it can also be used for research and development activities between a large number of the remote users. The usefulness of the framework was verified by applying it to the virtual heritage tour system.