Contact D.Romano
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VR Reflex Lab
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Virtual Reality and Serious Games Research
Current Projects:
- An Integrated 3D-Visualization Design and Planning Tool
Completed:
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Current Projects Other Research Prj Past Research Prj MSc Prj (2010) MSc Prj (2009) MSc Prj (2008) MSc Prj (2007) MSc Prj (2006) MSc Prj (2005) MSc Prj (2004) 3rd Year Prj (2010-11) 3rd Year Prj (2009-10) 3rd Year Prj (2008-09) 3rd Year Prj (2007-08) 3rd Year Prj (2006-07) 3rd Year Prj (2005-06) 3rd Year Prj (2004-05) Darwin 2007 Darwin 2005 VR Resources |
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SPICE - Simulation & Prediction In Crowded Environments MoD COI Funding start date: January 2008, 36 months (Dec 2010) Partners: Dr Daniela M. Romano, University of Sheffield, Prof Robert (Bob) Stones, University of Birmigham. The project aims to provide a virtual environment for decision making training in emergency situations in crowded environments. See SPICE web site. |
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URSULA: Urban River Corridors and Sustainable Living Agendas 
EPSRC Funding start date: January 2008, 48 months (Dec 2011) Partners: Prof David Learner (), Dr Joby Boxall, Dr Stephen Connelly, Dr John Davison, Prof John Michael Henneberry, Prof Eckart Lange (Landscape), Prof L Maltby, Prof S Sharples, Dr Virginia Stovin, Dr Philip Warren, Prof Stuart Lane, Dr E Sharp, Dr Susan Molyneux-Hodgson, Mr P Bibby, Prof Kevin Gaston, Dr Daniela Romano (Computer Science), Dr Paul Armsworth. The project aims to identify the social, economic and environmental gains to be made from innovative interventions in urban river corridors, using the River Don and its tributaries as a case study. It is supported by Sheffield City Council and the Environment Agency and many non-governmental organisations. It draws expertise from multiple academic departments at Sheffield, incorporating a real mix of disciplines from engineering through to ecology, planning and the social sciences. See .avi produced by Eckart Lange, and the URSULA web site. See also here |
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BASIC: Believable Adaptable Socially Intelligent Character 
Drawing inspiration from social science and psychology, a computational model of a personality model for a Believable, Adaptable, Socially Intelligent Character (BASIC) has been designed, implemented and tested to drive chimpanzees in a multi-agents scenario. The BASIC model can be customized to create different personalities that are able to trigger empathic responses in human spectators, otherwise known as social presence. A multi-room event driven scenario, where queues propagate the social interactions amongst the characters, demonstrates the social interaction capabilities of the model embodied within the graphic visual representations. The system is efficient and can run on any mid-spec PC with over ten personalities being fully simulated. see also Darwin project 2007. Related publications here. |
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My Exhibition - Designing for Affective Communication, Personalisation and Social Experience 
AHRC Funding start date: October 2006, 24 months (Oct 2008) Partners: Prof. Chris Rust (Sheffield Hallam-Art and Design), Dr Peter Wright (Sheffield Hallam-Human Centred Design), Dr Alison McKay (Leeds-Computer Science), Prof Sharon MacDonald (Sheffield-Sociological studies), Dr Tom Fisher (Sheffield Hallam-Art and Design), Dr Daniela Romano (Sheffield-Computer Science), Dr Serge Sharoff (Leeds-Moder Language & Culture), Dr Daniela Petrelli (Sheffield-Information Studies), Mr Jeff Baggott (Sheffield Hallam-Art, Design, Communication & Media). The project aims to develop and evaluate principles for designing for personalisation using "ambient" techniques and affective communication in a large scale interdisciplinary design and research exercise for a museum exhibition in 2008. wikispaces.com |
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Serious Games - Engaging Training Solutions DTI Funding start date: July 2005, 48 months (June 2009) Partners: 
The projects aims to apply skills and technology used in video games to create serious training applications. This will lower the existing barriers to investment and lead to exploitation in the UK and abroad. It will be achieved by: 1) Researching the factors that make games successful and identifying which are relevant to training. 2) Identifying key factors for exploitation with end-users. 3) Researching and developing additional technologies needed for implementation and processes needed to define the requirement. 4) Building three or more different 'proof of concept' serious game solutions to specified training needs with sector experts and potential clients. For more details on the project, and some videos, see TruSim 
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DICE - Domain Independent Collaborative Environment Dubai Police Funding 
Started: Oct 2003 - viva held on 30 Janaury 2008, external: Prof. Terrence Fendando PhD Student: Ahmed Binsubaih SUPERVISORS: Dr Steve Maddock - Computer Graphic Department of Computer Science, Dr. Daniela M. Romano - Computer Graphic Department of Computer Science, Sheffield. Many of the currently developed training simulations are inflexible and support only a limited number of scenarios, often limited to a single domain. This work aims to investigate the challenges of separating the domain logic from the system using it. A game-based learning environment has been built using a bespoke game engine and such sytsem has been evaluated with Dubai policemen. More info here. Related publications here. |
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Spoken Language Generation for Teaching Politeness in English as a Second Language with an ECA 
EPSRC Studentship Started: Oct 2004 - viva 15th December 2009. PhD Student: Swati Gupta SUPERVISORS: Prof. Marilyn Walker - Natural Language Processing, Department of Computer Science,Sheffield Dr. Daniela M. Romano - Computer Graphic, Department of Computer Science, Sheffield The project aims to develop a system for teaching English as a second language while explaining and demonstrating the intricacies of politeness in British English. A Spoken Dialogue System facilitate the user's conversation with an Embodied Conversational Agent acting as a language tutor. The coreresearch lies in the Language Generation component of the Dialogue System. Related publications here. |
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Dealing with Dealers: A drug market simulation 
Project funded by EPSRC and DAT Lincolnshire Started: Sept 2006 - viva December 2009 PhD Student: Paul Richmond SUPERVISORS: Dr. Daniela M. Romano - Computer Graphic, Department of Computer Science, Sheffield Industrial Supervisor: Rankin Barr - DAT Coordinatopr The project aim is to deliver a "Virtual Reality" Training Module which can be used by Treatment Services and Enforcement Agencies to train staff on the implications of Community Interventions - both by enforcement agencies and treatment services, and inform on the relative merits of using physical and "virtual" tools whilst training staff. To date the project has tackle two problem related with the development of the training environment: RELATED ARTICLE (here). Related publications here. |
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Visualizing Bacteria Quorum Sensing 
Started: September 2008, Completed January 2009 Student: Maria Schwarz SUPERVISORS: Dr. Daniela Romano, Computer Graphic, Cosupervisor: Marian Gheorge, VT/CompBio,Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield Large populations of bacteria communicate by sending into the environment some specific signalling molecules. A bacterium will sense the population density by the concentration of the signalling molecule. This process, known as “quorum sensing”, is used in this project to show interactively in 3D the emergent behaviour of a bacterium colony in various circumstances. | |
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Physiological signals in real-time: from emotion recognition to interface personalization 
CONACT funding Started: October 2005 PhD Student: Jorge Arroyo Palacios SUPERVISOR: Dr. Daniela M. Romano - Computer Graphic, Department of Computer Science, Sheffield This research focuses on the real-time use of users' physiological signals. In partcular for real-time emotion recognition and real-time personalization of third-party computer applications |
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Gesture to Speech 
CONACT funding Started: October 2005 PhD Student: Arturo Arroyo Palacios SUPERVISOR: Dr. Daniela M. Romano - Computer Graphic, Department of Computer Science, Sheffield The aim of this project is to propose an interaction environment that allows people with communication impairments to communicate with hearing people. The solution presented proposes a novel interaction method between human and machines trough the use of gesture. The hardware used for this solution can be worn and the software implemented uses colour-based vision recognition techniques only to identify words spelled with British Sign Language (BSL) finger-spelling. The environment presented can be used for both communications and teaching BSL finger-spelling. |
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Virtual Characters Emotional Gesture Expression 
Research sposored by Kolej Universiti Teknikal Kebangsaan Malaysia (KUTKM) Started: October 2005 PhD Student: Ahmad S. Shaarani SUPERVISOR: Dr. Daniela M. Romano - Computer Graphic, Department of Computer Science, Sheffield Body movements help a person to cope with experiencing an emotion. It is possible to recognise the underlying emotion through the observation of the associated body movement. This project is concerned with the creation of expressive believable characters. Characters able to express emotions recognisable to humans. Related publications here. |
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An Integrated 3D-Visualization Design and Planning Tool 
EPSRC Studentship connected with the URSULA project Started: 29th September 2008 PhD Student: Lewis Gill SUPERVISOR: Dr. Daniela M. Romano, Computer Graphic, Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield Cosupervisors: Prof Eckart Lange, Landscape Department, University of Sheffield A 3D planning integrative tool, within the URSULA research project, has been conceived as a platform that will allow different users and stakeholders, possibly with different backgrounds, to work together and communicate design ideas, interacting together on a shared representation of the planned solution. The project will investigate how to build a shared virtual environment for the stakeholder to meet and manipulate 3D representations of the Sheffield river corridors in order to explore together different design alternatives. | |
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MIVO: Modelling interactions in a Virtual Oviduct 
EPSRC Studentship Started: October 2008 PhD Student: Mark Burkitt SUPERVISORS: Dr. Dawn Walker, ComBio, and Daniela Romano, Computer Graphic, Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield Project in collaboration with Dr Alireza Fazeli, Obsetrics & Gynecology, The medical school, University of Sheffield The oviduct, or fallopian tube, connects the ovary to the womb and is the site of fertilisation in mammals, leading to growth of an embryo. However, the oviduct is not a simple tube, but has a complex 3D structure, with internal tissue folding which changes along the length of the organ. The interaction of sperm with this complex structure is thought to be critical in determining whether fertilisation takes place. |
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