Blog Archives

Saving text files in Unity

5/30/2010

One of the most important things for me whenever I use Unity for any experiment is the ability to store lots of information on my hard drive. I record every aspect of the program, locations and timings of events, recordings of movements and anything that could be of importance later on. By saving to a text file, it is really easy to export that recorded information into any statistical program for analysis. I created two short scripts (using JavaScript) and a video which explains their use. Feel free to send me questions and comments.
The example in the video is only meant to demonstrate the general use of these scripts for saving information. I cannot guarantee that this is the most elegant or optimized method for saving to a text file, but it worked for me in many projects so far. You can literally save anything you want and trigger the saving process with whatever you want (Triggers, Time, Button Clicks, Quitting the application, User actions, etc.). Loading information into Unity from text files is just as easy with a very similar process. The "save.js" script handles both. With loading data into your environment it's very simple to visualize your results after the experiment (or game session) is done.

-Sebas

HD version of the video tutorial and the two Javascript scripts for download

unity_saving_hd.mp4
File Size:	29638 kb
File Type:	mp4

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save.js
File Size:	0 kb
File Type:	js

Download File

saveobject.js
File Size:	0 kb
File Type:	js

Download File

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Thesis Update

5/21/2010

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My research seems to be taking off and going straight through the roof at the moment. Last week I secured a deal with a large German rehabilitation hospital to integrate my training tools into their day-to-day rehabilitation of patients with neuro-psychological deficits.
I will be going back to Germany in late September and I will most likely work with the patients for about 6 months. This gives me the opportunity to collect large amounts of data and push development of all my projects much further. Getting feedback from patients, therapists and actually seeing my applications perform in the midst of a clinical routine in this large hospital is an amazing opportunity for me.
On top of that I received news today that my main project, the evaluation of navigation through virtual environments, has been accepted for the ICDVRAT conference in Viña del Mar, Chile. I will travel to South America in late August to present my results there and show a glimpse of what's to come next in Germany. Great stuff! I'm very excited.
If anyone is also at the conference in Chile, let me know. I'd love to meet up.

-Sebas

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Modeling in Google SketchUp, Walkthrough in Unity

5/11/2010

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I finally made it and finished the video tutorial of how I created the HIT Lab NZ model. It got much longer than expected. It's around 30ish minutes in three parts and I talk about some aspects of Modeling in Google SketchUp (parts 1&2) and how to turn it into a walkthrough in Unity (part 3).
For better resolution I added the original video files as download.

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HIT Lab NZ Model Walkthrough

5/6/2010

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It's finally done; or at least complete enough to post it online. I had to make some modifications to the original walkthrough of the HIT Lab NZ, because it was intended to run on the 3 screens of the VisionSpace theatre as a stereoscopic display. The current version of the walkthrough is running in a standard web browser and is approximately a 6MB download (+ the Unity plugin if you don't have that already).

I only released parts of the hallway and the VisionSpace room. It is nothing but a demo project, but this can show you what is possible with very little amount of work. I finished the project in a few days after accurately measuring out the lab and taking pictures for reference and textures. Some of the texturing is very primitive and only rudimentary lighting via a lightmap is implemented. Every 3D artist would most likely run away screaming, but it's not art but rather the kind of environment I could use to simulate a navigation training or cognitive training for problem solving. I could give this to our Health & Safety Department so they can have people simulate fire / earthquake / tsunami alarms etc. It's not pretty, but useful....and very accurate. If the floorplan is accurate, this model is to scale to the closest millimeter.

You can walk with WASD or the arrow keys on your keyboard and head rotation works via moving your mouse. Right-click on the player window to select fullscreen if you like. A decent graphics card is recommended. If it doesn't run on your machine, I can send it to you as an executable or a video recording would be an option as well.

I'd appreciate feedback.
Video tutorials about the creation of this walkthrough will follow.
Enjoy!
You can find the demo here.

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Interacting with virtual 3D Space

5/5/2010

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Walking through virtual space sounds easy enough and simple input devices like a mouse, keyboard, or joystick usually suffice for the average to advanced user. But what if you are not dealing with 25-year-old gamers or computer science students? In 20 years we will laugh about this, because everybody will have grown up with computers and their interfaces. By then we will again struggle to implement the next generation of devices or technologies. For now I'd just be happy to make it possible to have people with no computer experience comfortably walk through virtual space.

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Workflow and Demo Project

5/2/2010

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Hello there!

I've been pretty swamped with my work at the HIT Lab NZ lately. We had an open house event last Friday and instead of presenting my current research project, I worked on a demo to show the visitors. I created a 3D model of the lab as a walkthrough to run in the VisionSpace theater. By not showing my current study I was able to recruit more participants (showing them the assessment environment means exclusion from the study). I'll post some pictures of the open house soon.
I also thought this HIT Lab model might be a good thing to showcase and dissect here on this site. I will throw together a video of how I created the model and imported it into Unity. It will probably take me a few days, so bear with me. I'm still testing plenty of participants right now with around 14 down and 25 to go. In the meanwhile I am starting to plan my next studies which I will conduct in Germany. I'm just finalizing the final project of my PhD with the Asklepios rehab clinic in Germany to run a study and integrate my computer assessments in their day-to-day routine. Fun times ahead.

Stay tuned!
Sebas

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Saving text files in Unity

Thesis Update

Modeling in Google SketchUp, Walkthrough in Unity

HIT Lab NZ Model Walkthrough

Interacting with virtual 3D Space

Workflow and Demo Project

Sebas

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