Virtual Reality Essay
Laboratory Work: Literary Survey

The purpose of the literary survey is to go deeper into some specific subject related to VR by using scientific articles, patents, and books. The autostereoscopic display work is the easier one! Choose your subject from the list below, or propose your own subject, and negotiate it with Ismo Rakkolainen. If he approves it, find information on the subject and write a 10 page paper according to ACM paper formatting. Add the references that you used. 

No plagiarism or copy-paste is allowed!

For more information on plagiarism, see www.plagiarism.org

Most useful scientific papers and patents are available from the net. 

Publications and links in the web
Citeseer
The ACM Digital Library
IEEE publications
HCI-bibliography
3D User Interface Bibliography
Patenttiopas (in Finnish)
US patents
WIPO patents

Subjects 
Computer vision on human, body, or finger tracking
Intel, Microsoft, Java, other computer vision libraries
Registration for augmented reality
Outdoor augmented reality
The 3D features of MPEG-4
X3D (the web3D format)
The control mechanisms for networked virtual environments
Mobile 3D graphics (PDAs, cell phones, etc.)
The haptic applications in medical virtual reality
VR in rehabilitation
Immersive video
Fidelity Metrics for Virtual Environment Simulations based on Human Judgements of Spatial Memory Awareness States
The technical properties of magnetic tracking devices
The technical properties of optical tracking devices
The technical properties of ZZZZ devices
Your own subject

Grading 
The grading is pass / rejected. Passing the lab work is obligatory to pass the course.

The survey can also be a patent application excercise:
Invent a patentable idea of a new VR device or such. (The new patentable ideas are not that difficult as you first might think). Keep the idea secret (this is primarily an individual work, unless you want to try it with your friend). Propose the idea to Ismo Rakkolainen and discuss about it (absolutely confidential!). If he accpets the subject, then dig information about related earlier work and the field of related technology, and find out if it is really new or not.
Write around 10 page patent application, in which you tell related earlier work and innovations and their basic ideas, what problems they have related to your innovation, what new you propose, what are the good points of it compared to earlier work, and how you might implement it.
If you find out that your innovation has already been invented, as it often happens, it is no problem. Just write the 10 page report anyway. The "prior art" parts of published patents are excellent sources of the level of a certain technology. Use them also! 
If you have really invented something new, then it might be possible to really patent it. Do not publish or talk about it anywhere. You might even be eligible to get help from the University!