Tai Chi Learning Systems Based On CAVE Virtual Reality Environments

Tai Chi culture is a very representative Chinese traditional culture,it has a very good effect on strengthening the body,and has been proven to be very effective in alleviating depression,preventing Parkinson’s disease,etc.Therefore,the public aspires to learn and enjoy it.but the spread of Tai Chi culture relies heavily on an instructor with strong professional abilities.The popularity of the sport is somewhat limited due to the scarcity of such instructors and the fact that Tai Chi learning is highly specialised and cannot be done without the guidance of an instructor.Although many Tai Chi instructional videos exist on the internet,viewers learn less effectively by following along with imitation on their TVs or mobile phones.Because they can provide an immersive and immersive learning environment and can observe the instructor’s teaching demonstrations from multiple angles,some Tai Chi learning systems developed using virtual reality(VR)technology have emerged in recent years,which have had a better learning effect.However,these systems mainly use head-mounted VR helmets as the display device.These devices are relatively heavy and not convenient for learners to learn and are not conducive to following the instructor as their eyes are blocked.Although there are also some Tai Chi learning systems based on CAVE virtual reality environments,they are mostly based on 3D human modelling,with a sense of realism and presence still to be improved.The work in this thesis is based on the requirements of the National Key Research and Development Program "Research and Development of VR Training Equipment and System for Psychological Correction of Prisoners(2018YFC0831003)",which is designed to develop a physical movement learning system based on CAVE virtual reality environment for Tai Chi and yoga to provide active psychological relaxation means for prisoners and reduce the incidence of extreme behaviors.According to the characteristics of prisoner education and the lack of professional Tai Chi coaches,the system adopts the mode of Directing Console+CAVE,the devices can be located in two different rooms,and some of the operations that need to be interacted are integrated into the guidance console equipment,which is operated by a guidance person to assist teaching.The CAVE system presents an immersive virtual environment composed of three-dimensional projection images through rendering,bringing users a highresolution,highly immersive virtual reality system experience.The CAVE environment in the system is projected on three walls and the ground by projectors,where the wall projects the video of the instructor’s movements from three angles and the ground projects the specially designed ground video to construct a virtual environment for Tai Chi learning with a stronger sense of immersion and presence.When users are learning Tai Chi in this environment,the system captures the user’s movements in real time and compares them with the existing coach’s movements.The guidance end is used by trained correctional staff for user management,realtime scene monitoring and virtual scene monitoring of learners,content selection and adjustment according to the learner’s situation.This model allows learners to focus on learning in a more immersive manner.Since college students were enclosed on campus during the epidemic and were under high mental stress,the system arranged in the laboratory provided Tai Chi learning services for college students,which had a very good effect.In this thesis,under the guidance of professional instructors,we compiled and recorded the explanatory text for teaching the eight methods of Yang’s Tai Chi,drew illustrations of each movement,recorded teaching videos of professional instructors from different angles,designed teaching modes such as immersion teaching,following practice and free practice,built a virtual reality environment based on CAVE,and developed a Tai Chi learning system based on the CAVE virtual reality environment.This thesis presents the requirements analysis,outline design,detailed design and implementation of a Tai Chi learning system based on the CAVE virtual reality environment.In the requirements analysis section,the requirements of the Tai Chi teaching system are analysed,the functional and non-functional requirements of the system are described,and an overview of the system is given;in the outline design section,the overall architecture of the system,the building process,the functional architecture and the database design are described;in the detailed design section,the logic design of the functional modules of the system,and the functions of each module are described.Finally,based on the above analysis and design,the system implementation was carried out.The system consists of two parts:the guidance side and the CAVE training side.Guidance side includes modules such as user management,training guidance,movement comparison,real-time monitoring,etc.The main modules of CAVE training side include:immersion learning,following practice and free practice.The system is developed with Unity3D,the main development language is C#,and some functions are implemented with Python.The system uses Kinect V2.0 devices to collect human movement data,surveillance video(RGB images)and voice.Face recognition is performed using Baidu Face AI platform to realize user registration and login.