The Practical Research of Mixed Reality for Photographic Darkroom Education

Abstract

With the continuous development and progress of science and technology, the field of mixed reality applications has involved scientific research, medicine, entertainment, education, information dissemination, and people's daily lives; This paper will focus on the application of mixed reality in the field of education and teaching, relying on the characteristics of mixed reality technology. This article will use the combination of mixed reality and smart glasses to fully consider the characteristics of photography darkroom teaching, design and produce a mixed reality photography darkroom teaching software, and explore the feasibility of the application of mixed reality in teaching. This paper will use literature research methods, practical research methods, and survey methods as the main methods of research topics to determine the importance, feasibility, and necessity of the relevant theories studied in this paper. The application of mixed reality technology in photography darkroom teaching can not only solve many problems in the existing darkroom teaching methods, but also develop and expand students' Independent learning ability. It is concluded from this that mixed reality teaching software has the feasibility of sustainable development, which brings particular application value to the development and research of other education and art discipline software.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research background

The mature development of virtual reality technology has spawned augmented reality, and the continuous improvement of technology and hardware has created mixed reality. No matter how these three types of technology develop and blend, the core principle is based on the simulation, interaction, and fusion of the digital world to the real world.

Before the advent of digital cameras, darkrooms were the most important technical support for the film to photos, as well as compulsory courses for photography majors. The popularity of digital cameras has led to the decline of darkroom technology, but its importance as a photography major cannot be ignored. The use of new media technology to darkroom The inheritance of technology is worthy of in-depth study.

The gradual development of computer hardware and software technology and the maturity of mixed reality technology have brought diversified changes to many existing fields, and the technical characteristics can be better applied to teach innovation, which significantly enriches the interactive way of teaching content and stimulates Students' interest and enthusiasm improve learning efficiency

1.2 Research purposes and methods

The purpose of this thesis is to use mixed reality technology and wearable devices to develop traditional photography darkroom technology teaching software (Fig. 1), break the limitations of traditional photography darkroom learning (Fig. 2), and stimulate students' interest and enthusiasm for learning. use technology to enrich the form of education and teaching, and give full play to the practicality and creativity of mixed reality.

Fig. 1. Learning assumption.

Fig. 2. Traditional photography darkroom.

The thesis will use literature research methods, practical research methods, and survey methods. (Fig. 3). Firstly, it analyzes the technical theory knowledge of mixed reality and the current situation and problems of photography darkroom teaching. Next, study the relationship between mixed reality and photography darkroom teaching and design and produce mixed reality application software. Finally, use SPSS analysis to determine the importance, feasibility, and necessity of the relevant theories studied in this thesis.

Fig. 3. Research process.

2. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATION

2.1 Scope of research

With the popularization of digital photography, many college photography majors have reduced or even cancelled darkroom technology courses, but as professional photography, traditional photography and darkroom printing technology are extremely important learning content; at the same time, mixed reality technology has also been maturely applied to various In the field, how to use new technology to inherit the development of traditional technology is the main purpose of this thesis. Based on this goal, the research scope mainly involves: 1) the characteristics and problems of traditional darkroom photography teaching; 2) the development of mixed reality teaching software.

2.2 The concept of mixed reality

Mixed reality is to carry out all-round detection and scanning of the real scene through the camera with the spatial depth analysis function, and the real-time three-dimensional model information is established in the kernel to build a digital model of the full scene to determine the fixed position of the superimposed digital information, reaching almost absolute The position stabilization effect can be seen through the head-mounted display device with a semi-transparent refraction screen. Digital virtual information such as interface windows, 3D models, animation images, etc. can be suspended in the air and closely connected with real objects, even blocked by real objects. The physical reality environment coexists and interacts in real-time to achieve the visual experience of holographic images.

“Mixed reality is the result of mixing the physical world with the digital world. Mixed reality is the next evolution in the interaction of humans, computers, and the environment, and it unlocks the possibilities previously limited by our imagination[1]”.

2.3 Key technologies of mixed reality

Since mixed reality is also built on the basis of natural human perception, it is essentially a WYSIWYG interface. This interface liberates human beings from the complicated and esoteric computer user interface. It crosses the tedious parameter selection and returns to the original human sensory channels so that people can intuitively understand the world[2].

Take the HoloLens glasses produced by Microsoft as an example. "HoloLens is the most advanced and first mixed reality glasses. It is a helmet-type glasses using the windwos10 system[3]". This product is currently the most mixed reality technology One of the iconic products, the holographic image is mixed with the real environment through a translucent screen so that the holographic digital image exists like a real object in a relatively fixed position in the real-time scene, and the visually perceived holographic image is like It is part of a real scene, presenting the illusion of a physically clear three-dimensional image, and can be viewed unrestricted from different angles. (Fig. 4) It can reproduce the unreachable scene in front of you, it can also simulate the interior that cannot be obtained or displayed, and can combine these with the real scene to demonstrate intuitively, and people also You can participate in the interaction, which can stimulate the interest of the viewer and convey the appearance of things more intuitively, providing users with opportunities for natural and familiar forms of interaction. Mixed Reality, The relationship between humans and machines through physical computing. It can be classified from an interaction perspective[4].

Fig. 4. HoloLens glasses structure diagram.

2.3 Problems in darkroom education

The advent of digital cameras has made photography more accessible. However, traditional photography and darkroom technology can provide a comprehensive and systematic theoretical foundation for digital photography knowledge. The operation process of photography darkroom is more complicated, and the amount of technical experience increases the film's quality. Plays a critical role. There is a famous saying, "three-point shooting, seven-point darkroom", which shows that darkroom technology plays a vital role in photography.

However, the popularity of digital photography has made traditional photography techniques fade away. As a darkroom technology from film to photos, fewer and fewer people can understand and learn. Many college photography majors have reduced or even eliminated darkroom technology courses. The difficulty of implementing darkroom courses is the main reason for the decrease in the number of hours in relevant institutions year by year. Mainly reflected in the following aspects:

(1) Considerable investment in the early stage: The darkroom laboratory that can accommodate a class of students at the same time needs a large area, and exceptional facilities and equipment need to be installed. (2) High operating costs: long-term maintenance of equipment hardware, the extensive use of consumables such as photo paper and flushing potions, and hydropower require continuous investment. (3) There are many risk factors: the developing and fixing potions used in the process of printing are all chemical preparations, and some courses even require the use of highly toxic agents. The entire practice process has certain risks. (4) Heavy responsibility for environmental protection: The accidental discharge of waste potions after the completion of each course printing will cause dangerous pollution to the environment. (5) Less practical opportunities: Most of the teaching methods in the darkroom are for teachers to demonstrate the operation. Students observe and learn by the side, and have fewer opportunities to participate in the hands-on operation, which lacks independent thinking and independent exploration, and the learning effect is significantly reduced.

3. EMPIRICAL STUDY

3.1 Case study and design framework

The technical characteristics of mixed reality include not only various elements such as traditional information media such as text, animation, audio and video, but more importantly, the combination of real and virtual science fiction scenarios. This form can expand the teaching model and knowledge structure. It can intuitively obtain the manifestation of explicit knowledge, and also cultivate the tacit knowledge of students.

This case will use the advanced technology of mixed reality in the assumption of traditional darkroom teaching, so that the learning process can be more intuitive and vivid, and the abstract theory will be brought into the simulation operation, and the acquisition and understanding of tacit knowledge will be changed. It has to be imperceptible to make the teaching content more productive and more exciting.

Through the research and analysis of the traditional photography darkroom teaching, combined with the visual intuitionistic characteristics of mixed reality, the preliminary design framework is as follows (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. Software design framework.

3.2 Software production and development process

3.2.1 Development platform and environment construction

The thesis takes mixed reality photography darkroom teaching software as a practical case, and will use Microsoft's Hololens glasses as the hardware support for practical research. The mixed reality platform system is actually a particular version of Windows 10, so the entire process needs to be carried out in the Windows development environment (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6. Development environment and platform.

(1) Construction of development environment: Hololens smart glasses run on Windows 10, the application is built together with the universal UWP development platform, and the latest version of Windows 10 system needs to enable developer mode.

(2) Installation tools and SDK: Visual Studio 2015 and above, used to write code, debug, test and deploy; Windows 10 SDK provides the latest headers, libraries, metadata and tools for building applications.

(3) Production tool software: 3D MAX2016 is used to produce the three-dimensional basic model, Unity3D 5.6 is used for scene dynamics and program interaction, and the HoloToolkit-Unity package mixed reality toolkit provided by Microsoft is installed in the software to facilitate the development process. (4) Design process (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7. Software design process.

3.2.2 Interface design

The interface design content mainly includes the first interface, the main page, and the interactive interface. The objects used for interaction design different visual feedbacks for three input states, namely: (1) the default idle state of the object; (2) staring cursor state; (3) gesture click and press state.

In the layout design of the main interface, because the gesture operation of the Hololens device is not as flexible as the mouse, try to reduce multiple clicks like pop-up windows, and directly present the various parts of the software main interface. You can enter the learning link with one click. The layout of the main interface uses hexagons of different sizes to understand the structure of the software intuitively. The main color of the interface uses fresh mint green and the same color system, and the guide arrow uses bright orange to form a striking contrast (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8. Three-dimensional basic model.

3.2.3 Making 3D basic model

Prepare material textures according to the shooting data pictures, and make 3D models and interface icons in the scene, to prepare for the next Unity scene construction. Among them, in order to ensure the stability of the screen refresh during operation, the official recommendation is the number of models in the scene. It is controlled within 100,000 planes, so the models use simple models (Fig 9).

Fig. 9. Interface design.

It should be noted that the initial unit of the scene, according to the official software development requirements, is metering. The animation of the demo part also needs to be made in 3Dmax, and the model file is exported to the FBX file format. This format can contain the model's texture, material, animation keyframes, and other information.

3.2.4 Unity interactive program production

Import materials such as 3D models and interface pictures into Unity to start scene construction and interactive settings, import HoloToolkit-Unity package development kit, and add core script components, respectively GazeManager.cs, Gesture Manager.cs, HandsManager.cs and KeywordManager. cs. This integrates the three core features of gaze, gestures, and voice commands. In addition, the setting of the space mapping component is to initialize a Surface Observer object, so that the model completely matches the coordinate position of the real environment during the software operation. The camera coordinates in the scene need to be set to (X:0,Y:0,Z:0), so that the position of the user's head starts from the origin of the Unity world coordinates, and the background color is set to the solid color pure black (RGBA: 0, 0, 0, 0) (Fig 10(a)(b)), because when running on Hololens device, the black background is regarded as transparent, so that it can be well mixed with the real environment and set the cut The plane distance of 0.8 meters is the effective shortest distance. Afterward, continue to set up click interaction, animation demo playback control, positive answer feedback, and wrong answer feedback in the operation drill for each model file (as shown in Fig. 11(a)(b)). World AnchorStore is the key to creating a holographic experience, and the hologram maintains a specific real-world position in the application. The interface graphics or working area can be fixed at any position, and can be found and called at any time during the running of the program.

Fig. 10(a)(b). Scene construction.

Fig. 11(a)(b). Interactive settings.

3.2.5 Export and build VS solution

After the above process and repeated debugging, before exporting, you need to set the frame rate to 60Hz and the quality to "fastest" in the settings in Unity. Add the completed scene to the build settings. The platform chooses the universal Windows platform and SDK. Select Unicersal10, UWP build type is D3D, enable mixed reality support settings, so that the software can be rendered as a three-dimensional application when the headset device is running, and a vs. project file is generated.

Run Visual Studio to open the project file output in the previous step and make the final release settings. The key parameters are the configuration option Release, the platform selection x86, and the target is a remote computer. Before that, you need to enable Developer Mode on the Hololens device and use dedicated data. The cable will be linked to the computer, and then it can be deployed to the device after it starts executing (Fig. 12).

Fig. 12. VS solution.

3.3 Software operation demonstration instructions

(1) Click on the main interface to start learning (Fig. 13(a)), the selection interface appears, containing eight learning modules. To facilitate fast switching operations, this interface will always remain in the present state (Fig. 13(b)), If it interferes with the animation display, you can also drag the up, down, left, right, front and back, etc. different positions through gestures at any time.

Fig. 13. (a)~(f). Software operation demonstration.

(2) If you choose to wash the 135 film module (Fig. 13(c)), the materials and objects required for this session will be presented, and two options will appear at the same time. One is to watch the demonstration animation (Fig. 13(d)), and Voice explanation, the second is a hands-on operation, (Fig. 13(e)) There is no voice explanation in this link, but there will be dynamic arrows to prompt the operation, as shown in the yellow arrow in follow picture. (Fig. 13(f)).

(3) Selecting the printing and placing module will display the corresponding equipment and items (Fig. 14(a)), and each detail and process of the operation will be shown in detail in the animation demonstration link, including the link that needs to work under the "safety light" It will simulate the light and shadow effect of the red light in the darkroom (Fig. 14(b)).

Fig. 14. (a),(b),(C). Gesture presentation.

(4) For hands-on operation, students need to repeat the demonstration process just now, and they can have a certain degree of freedom in the details of the operation, such as raising or lowering the amplifier, and enlarging the size (Fig. 14(c)) and (Fig. 14(d)). Selection, etc., and screen recording of the operation process, so as to evaluate the learning effect later.

(5) In the operation instruction module, the essentials of gesture operation will be demonstrated in the form of video playback. 1) Lift the index finger and then drop it, that is, click and drag, as shown in (Fig. 15(a)). 2)The five fingers are first tightened and then opened. Exit and return to the main interface (Fig. 15(b)), 3) Put the index fingers of both hands together and then do the dragging state to zoom in or out the screen (Fig. 15(c))

4. PRACTICE ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH

4.1 Research questions

The question of this research is whether the mixed reality teaching software has a significant impact on photography darkroom teaching, and whether it is obviously helpful for darkroom teaching.

4.2 Research procedure

This research program selects objects to verify the research question. Secondly, based on empirical investigation, the questionnaire is designed and then the questionnaire survey is implemented. Through the collected questionnaires, the factors affecting the mixed reality teaching software on photography darkroom teaching were extracted, and the main factors were analyzed. In order to prove the rationality of the extracted factors, a credibility analysis was implemented. Based on the result analysis, a correlation analysis between the mixed reality teaching software and the photography darkroom teaching was carried out to verify the significant relationship between the two.

4.3 Questionnaire design

The survey method of the questionnaire is to fill out the questionnaire (Table 1). online after 5-10 minutes. A total of 150 questionnaires were put in, and 147 questionnaires were effectively collected. Except for personal basic information, other items are in the form of a Likert five-level scale, through the ease of operation of the software, interface design, understanding of photography courses, and help for learning.

Table 1. Questionnaire.

5. RESULT ANALYSIS

5.1 Descriptive analysis

This experiment selects college students from different schools, mainly for art students. There were 47 male students participating in the questionnaire survey, accounting for 35%, and 100 female students, accounting for 68%. Among them, there are 40 first-year students, accounting for 27.2%, the second-year students are 43, accounting for 29.3%, the three major students are 29, accounting for 19.7%, and the seniors are 22, accounting for 15%. There are 13 graduate students, accounting for 8.8%. There are 98 students majoring in art, accounting for 66.7%, and a total of 49 students majoring in arts, history and science, accounting for 33.6%.

5.2 Factor analysis and validity analysis

In order to extract the influencing factors for the purpose of this research, factor analysis and reliability analysis were carried out (Table 2). The data compiled by SPSS analysis and EXCEL showed that the KMO and BLrtlet verification results of the influence factors of mixed reality on photography darkroom teaching showed that the KOM value was 0.805 , Greater than 0.5, P value <0.05, indicating that it is suitable for factor analysis.

Table 2. Results of factor analysis and reliability analysis.

The factor analysis extracted three factors. It can be seen from the table below that the accumulation based on the feature value greater than 1 is 61.280%, which is greater than 60%, indicating that the three dimensions currently explored can better represent the entire data. Taking into account the questionnaire items, the extracted three factors are named: (Factor 1) usefulness, the degree of familiarity with the photography darkroom course after using the software, which fully represents the software's effectiveness and practicality, (factor 2) easy to see The design of the software interface can allow users to fully understand the information and layout, (factor 3) easy to learn, the software is easy to use, and the operation is simple.

5.3 Correlation analysis

In order to understand the influence of mixed reality software on photography darkroom teaching, relevant analysis was carried out. From the results of correlation analysis, Table 3. usefulness and visibility are closely related in the influence relationship (r=0.458**), and there is also a close relationship between visibility and ease of use (r= 0.324**). Although the relationship between usefulness and late usability is (r=0.263**), there is a correlation between the two to a certain extent. At the same time, the corresponding P values are all less than 0.05, so the null hypothesis is rejected and the conclusion is drawn that there is a positive correlation between the independent variable and the dependent variable.

Table 3. Results of correlation analysis.

6. CONCLUSION

In this paper, through empirical research, design and production of mixed reality software in photography darkroom teaching, questionnaire surveys are conducted after using the software, and verification questions are raised. First, factor analysis and validity analysis are performed. The analysis results show that the extracted factors can be better The land represents the questionnaire items and has good credibility. Then, a factor correlation analysis was carried out, and the analysis results showed that the ease of use and visibility of the software are closely related to the usefulness of the software. It also verifies the problems raised. Mixed reality teaching software has an impact on photography darkroom teaching, and the interface design layout and software operability of the teaching software affect photography knowledge and Teaching has obvious relevance.

7. FUTURE RESEARCH

Through practice and empirical analysis, it has fully demonstrated the feasibility of the application of mixed reality technology in teaching. Although this research is limited to photography darkroom teaching, it broadens the application field of mixed reality technology and also shows that mixed reality technology is useful for teaching. Substantial help. There are many shortcomings in this research. Due to the limitation of equipment, the teaching mode involved is a single-player mode. In the later period, we will continue to study the multi-person learning mode, and will continue to conduct research on mixed reality technology in teaching and other fields.