School of Science and Technology 科技學院
Computing Programmes 電腦學系

A Virtual Reality Application for Visual Art Education

LAM Wing Hong, WONG Sze Wai, CHEUNG Lot Hymn

  
ProgrammeBachelor of Computing with Honours in Internet Technology
SupervisorDr. Vanessa Ng
AreasVirtual Reality Applications
Year of Completion2017
Paper PublishedLot-Hymn Cheung, Wing-Hong Lam, Sze-Wai Wong, S. C. Ng, and Andrew Lui, “VISUAL SPACE: A Virtual Reality Application for Visual Art Education”, Proc. of International Conference on Open and Innovative Education (ICOIE 2017), Hong Kong, 12-14 July 2017, pp. 30-41.

Objectives

The aim of the project is to develop a VR application to enhance Hong Kong secondary school students' interest of western artwork appreciation. The application focuses on helping users to deepen their impressions and memories of western artworks.

The application will be divided into three parts: Artwork Tutorial, Art Gallery and Gameplay. The artwork tutorial is an interactive experience between artworks and users. The visual elements of the artwork will become dynamic and response with user actions to attract users' attention. The virtual gallery is a free space for users to explore around and discover the artworks. It provides a well-designed environment for artwork appreciation and the details of each artwork will also be provided. For selected artworks, there will be some related games for users to play in order to discover more. Users will have a deeper understanding of western artworks with the VR experience.

In order to achieve the aim, the project has defined the following objectives:

  • To build 3D models such as gallery and some western artworks with different styles.
  • To design and develop the game of those western artworks for users to have a deeply understanding of the artwork.
  • To select and create the learning materials such as different painting elements, styles, meanings for the tutorial section.
  • To develop a quiz section that users can test what they learned in the tutorial section.

Video Demonstration

Background and Methodology

We selected VR as our main technology to present the context of western artworks to users. All the concepts, elements and styles of western artworks will be expressed to users with our VR experience. Moreover, unity3D will be used as development tool for the implementation. The VR application will be three sections: Tutorial, Gallery, and Game. Upon the solution, Hong Kong students would have an in-deep comprehension with western artworks.

According to the user interface of Menu, users use the VR technology for the interaction in choosing the door to enter Gallery or Tutorial.

Figure 1: The User Interface of the Menu

Figure 2: The User Interface of the Tutorial

Conclusion and Future Development

From the evaluation of the prototype, we conclude that our work can increase Hong Kong students' interest of western artwork appreciation by using Virtual Reality technology, using head movement travel gallery to appreciate the famous paintings in virtual art gallery gives them a different experiences of learning visual art, tutorial room and games able to help users to deepen their impressions and memories of western artworks.

The limitations of our solution are, if the application decided to use in school, the school needs to equip a VR headset for students to use, and school needs to provide a compatible electronic device for VR application on each VR headset. After user put on the VR headset, only he or she can view on the screen. If they encounter problems from the application, they need to describe the contents what they seen or put down the VR headset to look for help. Although this issue can be solved by projecting the device screen on the computer monitor, it needs more equipment to support. Owing to the cost of using VR is high, it may affect the popularity of using our application.

VR technology is changing the way of traditional education, since this technology is still an innovation technology at present, it believes that whether students or teachers are not familiar with this technology, so more practices of using VR is needed, such as how to insert the supported electronic device into the headset, how to adjust the focus, etc.

It may affect user health if using VR for a long time, it probably damages eyes, easily to have dizziness and motion sickness.

For future works, we are going to support the VR remote controller in iOS version because the control stick is not supported in iOS, only the function keys of a VR remote controller are supported in iOS now. Nevertheless, they can use virtual controller for walkthrough our application, and interact with it in those rooms. For the user interface, we will improve hover state for all the buttons which can let user more easily to see what he/she is selected. Also, we will improve the performance of game 1, that is “The Persistence of Memory”, because it compared to the other two games, the running speed of game 1 is relatively slow.

Jonathan Chiu
Marketing Director
3DP Technology Limited

Jonathan handles all external affairs include business development, patents write up and public relations. He is frequently interviewed by media and is considered a pioneer in 3D printing products.

Krutz Cheuk
Biomedical Engineer
Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital

After graduating from OUHK, Krutz obtained an M.Sc. in Engineering Management from CityU. He is now completing his second master degree, M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering, at CUHK. Krutz has a wide range of working experience. He has been with Siemens, VTech, and PCCW.

Hugo Leung
Software and Hardware Engineer
Innovation Team Company Limited

Hugo Leung Wai-yin, who graduated from his four-year programme in 2015, won the Best Paper Award for his ‘intelligent pill-dispenser’ design at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering’s International Conference on Consumer Electronics – China 2015.

The pill-dispenser alerts patients via sound and LED flashes to pre-set dosage and time intervals. Unlike units currently on the market, Hugo’s design connects to any mobile phone globally. In explaining how it works, he said: ‘There are three layers in the portable pillbox. The lowest level is a controller with various devices which can be connected to mobile phones in remote locations. Patients are alerted by a sound alarm and flashes. Should they fail to follow their prescribed regime, data can be sent via SMS to relatives and friends for follow up.’ The pill-dispenser has four medicine slots, plus a back-up with a LED alert, topped by a 500ml water bottle. It took Hugo three months of research and coding to complete his design, but he feels it was worth all his time and effort.

Hugo’s public examination results were disappointing and he was at a loss about his future before enrolling at the OUHK, which he now realizes was a major turning point in his life. He is grateful for the OUHK’s learning environment, its industry links and the positive guidance and encouragement from his teachers. The University is now exploring the commercial potential of his design with a pharmaceutical company. He hopes that this will benefit the elderly and chronically ill, as well as the society at large.

Soon after completing his studies, Hugo joined an automation technology company as an assistant engineer. He is responsible for the design and development of automation devices. The target is to minimize human labor and increase the quality of products. He is developing products which are used in various sections, including healthcare, manufacturing and consumer electronics.

Course Code Title Credits
  COMP S321F Advanced Database and Data Warehousing 5
  COMP S333F Advanced Programming and AI Algorithms 5
  COMP S351F Software Project Management 5
  COMP S362F Concurrent and Network Programming 5
  COMP S363F Distributed Systems and Parallel Computing 5
  COMP S382F Data Mining and Analytics 5
  COMP S390F Creative Programming for Games 5
  COMP S492F Machine Learning 5
  ELEC S305F Computer Networking 5
  ELEC S348F IOT Security 5
  ELEC S371F Digital Forensics 5
  ELEC S431F Blockchain Technologies 5
  ELEC S425F Computer and Network Security 5
 Course CodeTitleCredits
 ELEC S201FBasic Electronics5
 IT S290FHuman Computer Interaction & User Experience Design5
 STAT S251FStatistical Data Analysis5
 Course CodeTitleCredits
 COMPS333FAdvanced Programming and AI Algorithms5
 COMPS362FConcurrent and Network Programming5
 COMPS363FDistributed Systems and Parallel Computing5
 COMPS380FWeb Applications: Design and Development5
 COMPS381FServer-side Technologies and Cloud Computing5
 COMPS382FData Mining and Analytics5
 COMPS390FCreative Programming for Games5
 COMPS413FApplication Design and Development for Mobile Devices5
 COMPS492FMachine Learning5
 ELECS305FComputer Networking5
 ELECS363FAdvanced Computer Design5
 ELECS425FComputer and Network Security5