SimCrane 3D+: A crane simulator with kinesthetic and stereoscopic vision

Crane operation training using virtual crane simulators has been introduced in the last decade. It can reduce the costs associated with renting actual cranes and enables operator training for a range of tasks in virtual environment. However, a critical drawback common to most existing simulators is a lack of realistic simulation for the depth perception, which usually relies on stereoscopic vision and head motion to increase the precision of depth perception. This research aimed at adopting kinesthetic vision and stereoscopic vision into a virtual crane simulator to increase its training effectiveness. Kinesthetic vision generates corrected perspective images based on the head position of the viewer. Stereoscopic vision is to generate separated images for left and right eyes respectively. A crane simulator known as SimCrane 3D+ was developed and implemented to achieve the goal. We performed user tests to evaluate the proposed system by both subjective and objective factors. The results showed that the system provide better simulation for depth perception. Operators increase their confidences in the tests. They also reported using SimCrane 3D+ is more intuitive than the simulator without stereoscopic or kinesthetic visions.