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ACTIF - interACTor centric Interaction Framework

ACTIF is an interACTor centric Interaction Framework for usage in immersive Virtual Reality setting. ACTIF differs from traditional interaction  frameworks by explicitly building interactions based on the interactor in the system.  This is manifest in the system as the Virtual Actor (an abstraction of the user and the interactor in the virtual system). The Virtual Actor provides a new way to develop interactions, by providing a structure to the interaction process. The result is three phases of processing: device mapping, interpretation, and consequences.

ACTIF is a C++ framework (though with scripting extensions for compatibility with other projects). The framework is cross platform and is designed to dock onto existing VR software systems. ACTIF currently has connections to various software systems, VR Juggler, OpenSceneGraph, VRPN, AVANGO, SGI Performer. The kernel of ACTIF is reliant only on the GMTL (Generic Math Template Language) open source project (which is used by VR Juggler). ACTIF is extensible to be incorporated into other systems. 

Getting ACTIF

The 0.5.2 version of ACTIF has been released.  This release improves the build system and in particular the installation and usage of the examples. It can be retrieved from the sourceforge.net website following the instructions below.

ACTIF was released as OpenSource (LGPL) Oct. 24, 2008.

Documentation

Installation and Usage instructions
Doxygen generated code documentation (currently a mix of English and German source documentation. Remaining docu still in German).

Release and Revision History

0.5.9
Change to the Core to incorporate a multi-pass (priorities extended) to the IM/Consequence phase of the ACTIF loop. This change means that IM can be prioritized, just as consequences could. The major change is that the IMs and Consequences are processed per priority, such that priority 0 IMs and Consequences all are processed before priority 1 IMs/Consequences. This change was made to make it cleaner and easier to hide interfacing to the SG in the Consequences, due to cases like collision detection that needed testing for collision then reacting. In this way the testing is done in a lower priority and the reacting can be processed in an IM (the resulting reaction then made visible in a even later Consequence).

Papers

ACTIF: An Interactor Centric Interaction Framework

Nicolai Hess, Jan D.S. Wischweh, Kirsten Albrecht, Kristopher J. Blom, Steffi Beckhaus
In Proceedings of the ACM conference on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST) 2008.ACM Press.2008.pp.39-42
File(s): Paper (PDF)
Website(s): DOI link to definitive ACM work