Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai Cluj-Napoca
Facultatea de Matematică şi Informatică
Ciclul de studii: Masterat
Domeniul: Informatica
Programul de studii: Metode formale în programare - în limba engleză
Limba de predare: Engleză

SYLLABUS

I. General data
Code	Subject	
MID1018	Advanced Techniques in Distributed Virtual Environments	

Semester	Hours: C+S+L	Category	Status	
3	2+0+2	speciality	optional	

II. Full status faculty members
Name and	Scientific	Didactic	Chair	Type of activity	
surname	title	title		C	S	L	
BOIAN Rares Florin	Ph.D.	Lect.	Computer Systems	*			

Associated faculty members
Name and	Scientific	Institution	Type of	Type of activity	
surname	title		position	C	S	L	

III. Course objectives
Study distributed architectures for collaborative virtual environments. Present distributed approaches to virtual environment rendering. Study methods of implementing force-feedback across the network and present solutions for addressing latency. 	

IV. Course contents
&#8226;	Lecture 1: Distributed VEs introduction and examples [1 chapter  9] [10 chapters 43, 44 ]
&#8226;	Lecture 2: Introduction to OpenGL and the OpenSceneGraph library [8]
&#8226;	Lecture 3: Present base distributed VE architecture to be used during the course [1 chapter 9]
&#8226;	Lecture 4: Collaborative virtual environments. Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS). Dead reckoning. [4 chapter 7]
&#8226;	Lecture 5: Distributed games. P2P network architectures [1 chapter 9] [5 chapter 1]
&#8226;	Lecture 6: Real-time network communication. Concepts of delay and jitter. Protocol comparison: UDP vs TCP.  [4][11]
&#8226;	Lecture 7: Multicasting concepts and algorithms [9]
&#8226;	Lecture 8: Introduction to the Real-Time Protocol (RTP) [11]
&#8226;	Lecture 9: Force feedback rendering [2]
&#8226;	Lecture 10: Distributed force rendering. Stability aspects. [4]
&#8226;	Lecture 11: Volume graphics concepts and ray casting algorithm [6]
&#8226;	Lecture 12: Parallel and distributed ray casting [3 chapter 3]
&#8226;	Lecture 13: Coherent distributed ray casting [3 chapter 5]
&#8226;	Lecture 14: Concepts of physical based modeling [7 chapter 2]

V. Bibliography
1.	BOIAN R.F. Robotic Mobility Rehabilitation System Using Virtual Reality. ProQuest, 2005
2.	BURDEA G.C. Force and Touch Feedback for Virtual Reality, Wiley-Interscience, 1996
3.	CHALMERS A., DAVIS T.A., REINHARD E. Practical Parallel Rendering. AK Peters, 2002
4.	FUJIMOTO R., Parallel and Distributed Simulation Systems. Wiley-Interscience, 2001
5.	GRADECKI J.D., Mastering JXTA: Building Java Peer-to-Peer Applications, 2001
6.	HADWIGER M., KNISS J.M., REZK-SALAMA C., WEISKOPF D., ENGEL K. Real-time Volume Graphics. A K Peters, 2006
7.	HUEBNER K.H., DEWHIRST D.L., SMITH D.E., BYROM T.G., The Finite Element Method for Engineers. Wiley-Interscience, 2001
8.	OPENGL ARCHITECTURE REVIEW BOARD, SHREINER D., WOO M., NEIDER J., DAVIS T. OpenGL Programming Guide, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2005
9.	PAUL S. Multicasting on the Internet and its Applications. Springer, 2003
10.	STANNEY K. Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design, Implementation, and Applications. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 2002 
11.	STEVENS W.R., FENNER B., RUDOFF A.M. UNIX Network Programming. The Sockets Networking API. Addison-Wesley, 2004

VI. Thematic of didactic activities per weeks

VII. Didactic methods used

VIII. Assessment
The activity ends with a written final exam. During the semester, the students will have to implement several software projects in the topic. 
Final grade consists of:
&#8226;	Final written exam:                                      50%
&#8226;	Projects                                                        50%	

IX. Additional references

	Dean,							Chair head,

	Date,							Course responsible,
								Lect. BOIAN Rares Florin, Ph.D.