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We present StarWatch, our application for real-time analysis of radio astronomical data in Virtual Environment. Serving as an interface to radio astronomical databases or being applied to live data from the radio telescopes, the application supports various data filters measuring signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), Doppler's drift, degree of signal localization on celestial sphere and other useful tools for signal extraction and classification. Originally designed for the database of narrow band signals from SETI Institute (setilive.org), the application has been recently extended for the detection of wide band periodic signals, necessary for the search of pulsars. We will also address the detection of week signals possessing arbitrary waveforms and present several data filters suitable for this purpose.

We present a generic approach for focused ultrasonic therapy planning on the basis of numerical simulation, multi-objective optimization, stochastic analysis and visualization in virtual environments. A realistic test case is used to demonstrate the approach. RBF metamodeling of simulation results is performed for continuous representation of two optimization objectives. The non-convex Pareto front of the objectives is determined by means of non-dominated set and local improvement algorithms. Uncertainties of metamodeling are estimated by means of a cross-validation procedure. The 3D visualization in virtual environment framework Avango allows detailed inspection of MRT images, the corresponding material model and spatial distribution of the resulting thermal dose.

Individual handwriting is an important feature of a person, reflecting his personality, cultural and intellectual level. The possibility of using in the cyberspace a unique manner of writing the text, which is inherent in every person, promotes the strengthening of the personal principle, emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual. The article deals with the problem of constructing individual digital fonts based on handwriting samples. To describe the font, a "trajectory format" is used, in which characters of the font are represented by fat curves. A fat curve is a family of circles centered on a smooth curve. To build a font for a given pattern, we solve the problem of fitting the fat curves to the bitmap image of handwritten text. The article proposes the solution of this problem, based on the continuous medial representation of the object shape in binary images.

Numerical simulations of river bed evolution (morphodynamics) can be used for evaluating river engineering concepts and efficient operation of waterways. Reliability analysis is used to detect the origin of uncertainties, to track their propagation in the model and to evaluate their contribution to the result of the modeling. We have developed a new approach for the reliability analysis of morphohydrodynamical simulations, including a fast interpolation of simulation results with radial basis functions (RBF) and an efficient quantile estimator based on quasi-Monte Carlo sampling. Realistic examples are used to test the efficiency of the approach. An interactive 3D virtual environment has been employed for visual exploration of the results. The developed virtual environment application allows for a detailed inspection of the numerical model, including the evolution of the water level, river bed profiles and their quantiles. In this way one achieves a full immersion into the model space and an understanding of morphohydrodynamical processes in an intuitive way.

Building resilient infrastructures is cross-disciplinary topic which is important in systems engineering, network security, transportation systems, etc. This paper describes dynamic quantitative model for estimating infrastructure resilience and it potential costs. Currently there are no models that could describe dynamic effects of threat impact on infrastructure and estimate costs of different prevention strategies. This work defines multi-layered graph model that describes threat impact through system interdependencies at every moment of time and chooses optimal response strategy in the terms of system performance and resilience strategy costs.

An application of Virtual Environment for real-time analysis of radio astronomical data is presented. Serving as an interface to radio astronomical databases or being applied to live data from the radio telescope, the application supports various data filters measuring signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), Doppler's drift, degree of signal localization on celestial sphere and other useful tools for signal extraction and classification. The application is created using Avango VE framework (avango.com). The application has been used for analysis of radio astronomical data from SETI Institute (setilive.org).

Recently, new interactive devices such as hap tic devices became available for game development. 6DOF hap tic devices give the user an opportunity "to feel" the simulated virtual environment in the way similar to the real world. Hap tic-based interaction can add a new dimension to "serious games" development. The user can "feel" objects surfaces and complex objects interaction forces in a 3D virtual environment. In this paper, we propose two hap tic-based serious games. In the first "T Puzzle" game, the user can "feel" the weight of objects, rotate and move the 3D puzzle pieces in the virtual world. This game can be used to improve the user's spatial abilities. In the second "Mol Docking" game, the player can feel interaction forces between molecular systems and learn the process of molecular docking in collaborative virtual environment.

This work is dedicated to detailed analysis of fire dispatchers activity. The main question is how to detect locations, which require immediate dispatching of fire brigades. In other words, every minute dispatcher should choose location, order and quantity of fire brigades to be dispatched. Article considers several factors, which could influence fire locations priority decision and proposes a heuristics that computes priority of fire locations based on those factors. Also, this article briefly touches visualization techniques of fire location factors with the help of emergency management ontology.

The main article focus is creating of machine and human readable vocabulary describing emergencies. Vocabulary tends to solve problem of low interoperability and technological and semantic incompatibility of departmental information systems. Vocabulary is developed in the form of OWL ontology. Proposed ontology could help to establish shared situation awareness between all participants of crisis management (emergency services, medical services, police, population exposed to risk). Article describes all stages for creating such ontology, from creating high level conceptual metamodel to development of formal ontology and it evaluation in real information system prototype. Ontology depicts all phases of emergency management, from mitigation and preparedness to recovery. Developed ontology is deployed to public access and could be freely used in information systems, it could serve as semantic foundation for information exchange within "system-of-systems".

A new engineering paradigm of integrated safety and security provision for built environment is proposed. Evolution and limits of former safety paradigms are described. Definition of building/structure resilience is introduced. Differentiation of building/structure resilience from community resilience and organizational resilience are delineated. Main hypotheses for multi-hazard resilience paradigm development are introduced.

Visual perception of 3D space is a major source of information for a person. The role of athlete’s visual perception and corresponding psychomotor actions is very important for adequate actions in sport. Taking into account our team specialization (the virtual environment technology), we decided to investigate the impact of visual 3D perception different parameters on sport results of alpine skiing athletes.

Visual perception of 3D space is a major source of information for a person. The role of athlete's visual perception in movement behaviour is very important for adequate action in sport. Given the specialization of our team (virtual environment technology), we decided to investigate the impact of visual 3Dperception different parameters on the results of the virtual alpine skiing.

Virtual 3D model of the Valley of Geysers, Kamchatka provides virtual travelling and interactive storytelling in the cyberspace and serves for scientific visualization, geodynamical processes modeling, disaster preparedness and response, environmental studies, ecological education, and virtual ecotourism.

Resilience of the civil built environment is an ultimate mean for protecting the human lives, the private or public assets and biogeocenosis environment during natural catastrophe, major industrial accident or terrorist calamity. This paper outlines a theoretical framework of a new paradigm - "risk-informed, multi-hazard resilience of built environment" and gives a sketch of concept map for a minimal set of the shared (between different scientific and engineering cyber worlds) computational and analytic resources, which can facilitate a designing and maintaining of a higher level of the real built environment resilience.

The presented work is related to the problem of repairing incomplete reconstructed (damaged) CAD-models. To solute this problem, a general concept of the repairing, that uses various types of mathematical fields, is proposed. This concept provides an open framework to use together various methods of missing surface estimation. Many of existing ones can be embedded in this framework by defining the corresponding fields. The concept provides that during the repairing process the embedded methods supplement each other to achieve the best result. Ability of the concept to be effectively used to repair even heavy damaged CAD-models has been proved.

This paper is dedicated to the idea of studying in virtual worlds and discusses how virtual storytelling technology (VST) can provide an educational process. We try to answer the question — is it possible to substitute a real learning environment with a fully immersive 3D virtual space? And if so, what role should a virtual teacher play and what skills should he have? We describe several advantages that virtual environment (VE) has as compared to an ordinary classroom. It enables children to explore a phenomenon involved and gives them a strong incentive to study. Further, in VE we can transfer a lesson to inaccessible places and carry out demonstrations and experiments that are unrealizable on Earth. We consider the relationship between VST and game-like environments. We present some particular educational applications developed at our institute on the basis of Avango VR-system. Finally, we discuss the future of educational virtual environments and virtual storytelling.

In this paper, we review application of virtual environment systems to emergency management. Section 1 describes new possibilities that virtual environment technology offers. In Section 2, we analyze application of virtual environment technology to simulation and first responders training during the preparedness phase of an emergency. Section 3 discusses mobile augmented reality systems for first responders’ equipment, navigation and three-dimensional (3D) geographic information representation, damage evaluation and reconstruction of buildings. Section 4 explains how virtual environment technologies provide visualization and decision support for management personnel. In the last section, we make some conclusions about current research in this field, present systems and future trends.

This paper considers the representation of an induced virtual environment (IVE) system as a distributed system with remote supervision of real objects (first of all - space vehicles) according to telemetry data. The general approach of middleware and client layer software implementation and peculiarities of such software are described

We describe a system for real-time simulation of linear elastic deformations of volumetric objects in virtual environments, implemented in Avango VE framework [T. H. Avocado (1999)]. The approach makes use of the methods of finite and boundary elements and precomputed Green's functions, and supports real-time interactive deformations of large elastic models, containing more than 10,000 volumetric nodes, at the graphics update rate 85fps.

We have implemented a scheme for elimination of depolarization artefacts in passive stereo-projection systems. These problems appear due to non-perfectness of stereo-projection equipment: depolarization of the light due to reflection from the screen or due to the passage through the screen; non-ideality of polarizing filters; mixing of left- and right-eye images in a change of relative orientation of the filters. These effects lead to strong violations in stereo-perception (known as "ghosts"). They can be eliminated by software methods, using linear filtering of the image before its projection to the screen, based on the formula L' = L -/spl alpha/R, R' = R -/spl alpha/L , where L, R are images, destined for the left and right eye respectively, /spl alpha/ is constant, defining intensity of the ghosts. This receipt, in theory leading to exact compensation of the ghosts, in practice possesses certain limitations, which allow not complete elimination but only strong suppression of the ghosts, at very careful calibration of the system. We have implemented this algorithm in VE system Avango by means of texture mappings. All necessary operations are performed by the graphics board, thus providing the real-time rendering rate. The described method considerably improves stability of stereo-perception, making high-quality performances of virtual environment possible on affordable equipment.

Differential geometry and topology are the areas of higher mathematics, which particularly require visual representation of studying objects for better understanding of the material. On the other hand, the complex structure of such objects makes their visualization a challenge for modern graphical systems. In this video we demonstrate real-time methods for adequate representation of topologically non-trivial objects in virtual environment systems, particularly the acceleration of standard mechanisms for rendering of transparent surfaces, applicable for complex cases of self-intersecting time-dependent surfaces, not necessarily admitting continuous fields of normal vectors. We also use the technique of image-based rendering, which places stereo-photographs of real environments as static background for 3D virtual scenes. The methods are implemented in educational application, which demonstrates the main properties of elementary topological objects (Mobius band, Klein bottle, projective plane etc) and gives a possibility to explore interactively the complex constructions, arising in higher mathematics.

Various application areas of presentation graphics and a number of requirements to them in the field of experimental high energy physics are considered. A pipeline model of the presentation graphics software for the applied graphics system and functional capabilities of the graphics package ATOM'84 are discussed.