Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai Cluj-Napoca
Facultatea de Matematică şi Informatică
Ciclul de studii: Masterat
Domeniul: Informatica
Programul de studii: Baze de date
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
1.	Distributed and collaborative virtual environments concepts and basic architectures
2.	P2P architectures
3.	Real-time network communication. Communication protocols for real-time systems.
4.	Multicasting algorithms
5.	Force-feedback rendering
6.	Distributed force feedback
7.	Volume graphics and virtual environments
8.	Parallel and distributed approaches for rendering	

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

VII. Didactic methods used
Expositions: description, explanation, class lectures, dialog-based lectures, introductive lectures, current lectures, synthesis lectures. 
Conversations: debate, dialog, introductive conversations, conversations for knowledge consolidation, conversations to systematize and synthesize knowledge 
Use of problems: use of problem questions, problems and problem situations. 
Discovery: directed and independent rediscovery, creative discovery, inductive discovery, deductive discovery, experimental discovery. 
Other methods: case study; cooperation, brainstorming, individual study, exercise, homework study	

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:
•	Final written exam:                                      50%
•	Projects                                                        50%	

IX. Additional references

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