Structuring the European Research Area in VR – Intuition Network

2013

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 13241 “Virtual Realities”. The main goal of the five day seminar was to bring together leading experts and promising young researchers to discuss current challenges and future directions in the field of virtual and augmented reality. The seminar was organized as series of individual presentations and seven working groups. Abstracts of the presentations and working group reports are collected in this report. Seminar 09.–14. June, 2013 – www.dagstuhl.de/13241 1998 ACM Subject Classification I.3.7 [ThreeDimensional Graphics and Realism]: Virtual Reality, I.3.1 [Hardware Architecture]: Three-Dimensional Displays, H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces – Interaction Styles; Graphical user interfaces

2008

The motivation for this workshop was to create shared understanding between the Virtual Reality (VR) and Web3D communities. While the two fields of Web-based 3D graphics and VR 3D graphics have tended to view their technology as different beasts, they have many of the same requirements regarding virtual world content: modeling, lighting, animation, interaction, and direct manipulation. This workshop focused on common interests regarding the seamless access and delivery of interactive, network-based VR content and resources. Presentations and discussions looked at the philosophies and feature sets of various scene graph tools, including ISO-based scene-graph standards such as X3D/VRML in immersive contexts. The principal thematic question examined was: what are common requirements for a data archive format that provides expressive run-time application behavior? Through multiple tool and application examples, contributors examined commonalities and differences between these two important communities, and developed a workable roadmap of cross-community education and common effort.

International Journal of Virtual Realit, 2020

As collaborative VR for learning is coming to the general market, its evaluation in situ becomes more pregnant. Our purpose is: 1) implement collaborative VR for learning in situ in various conditions, 2) propose a questionnaire-based method to evaluate Quality of Experience (QoE) and 3) identify potential parameters influencing QoE. 88 participants divided into 4 groups completed questionnaires after participating to different VR activities. Our results show that QoE is influenced by the technical specificities of the Head Mounted Display as well as by the learning instructions and materials but not by the relative locations of the users (distant or sharing the same physical space). We suggest that trainers should take advantage of Collaborative VR in the design of the training activities to support interactive and trainee-centered approach. Presence, Flow, Visual Discomfort, and User eXperience can be considered as a minimum way to proof base the quality of deployment.

Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2010

This paper presents results and experiences coming from 10 years of development and use of XVR, a flexible, general-purpose framework for virtual reality (VR) development. The resulting architecture, that comes under the form of a self-sufficient integrated development environment (IDE) organized around a dedicated scripting language and a virtual machine, is able to accommodate a wide range of applications needs, ranging from simple Web3D applications to motion-based simulators or complex cluster-based immersive visualization systems. Within the framework a common, archetypical structure is used for any application, showing how inhomogeneous needs and technologies can be effectively covered by using a single, rather simple, system organization. We also show how the framework flexibility allows for innovative development techniques such as multiple frameworks coexisting within a single, tightly integrated, VR application.

Virtual Reality (VR) is not a niche but key of a larger trend in next generation Reality Based Interfaces (RBI) according to Robert J. K. Jacob from Tufts University in his keynote address at this year's 3D User Interfaces (3DUI) Symposium, which took place in conjunction with the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality. "Use reality wherever you can, for the rest, use something different." Jacob (figure 1) encouraged researchers to continue and broaden their work towards the development of interfaces which in his opinion should be based on natural users' skills and incorporate new technologies whenever what we gain by the computers' capabilities is more than we lose by giving up familiarity in handling objects and information.

2009

This paper introduces the activities of World8, an international working group on virtual reality, and demonstrates the group's developed VR applications in architecture. Group members come from eight universities around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Chile, Canada, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. The main objective is to develop a research framework for collaboration between architectural schools and a software developing company. Specifically, the group is looking to create new applications for VR visualizations of urban settings with dynamic agents such as human and vehicular traffic. Models developed by these members are explained, and the project is reviewed based on survey results. keywords: Virtual reality, 3D city modeling, agent-based simulations, international project, education résumé : Cet article présente les activités de World8, un groupe de travail international sur la réalité virtuelle, et présente les applications VR en architecture développées par le groupe. Les membres du groupe proviennent de huit universités à travers le monde, comprenant les États-Unis, le Royaume-Uni, le Japon, le Chili, le Canada, l'Égypte, et les Émirats arabes unis. L'objectif est de développer un cadre de recherche pour la collaboration entre les écoles d'architecture et une entreprise de développement de logiciel. Le groupe cherche à créer de nouvelles applications pour la visualisation VR des zones urbaines avec des agents dynamiques, tels que l'humain et la circulation des véhicules. Les modèles développés sont expliqués, et le projet est examiné sur la base des résultats. mots-clés : Réalité virtuelle, modélisation 3D de la ville, simulations basées sur des agents, projets internationaux, éducation T. Tidafi and T. Dorta (eds) Joining Languages, Cultures and Visions: CAADFutures 2009 © puM, 2009 548 Y. KabaYasHi • r. HaWKer • K. terzidis • t. naraHara • W. abdeLHaMeed et al.

2), Heimo Sandtner (2), Jutta Pauschenwein (2), Andreas Behmel (2), Gunter Vasold (2), Alexander Nischel-witzer (3) FH JOANNEUM University of Applied Sciences (1) Department of Information Design (2) Centre for Multimedia and Learning (3) Department of Information Management all: Alte Poststrasse 152 A-8020 Graz, Austria T. Abstract FH Joanneum (FHJ) is the largest Austrian provider of application-oriented study programs in mostly technical disciplines. It currently offers 16 degree programs and moves to the European bachelor-master system within the next few years. In 2003 three departments of FHJ initiated a project called VisionSpace to build a percep-tion laboratory in order to increase their potential to offer consulting to local industry. In this lab Virtual Reality (VR) plays a key role. The lab is equipped with a 6.5 by 2.7 m large display with a stereo-enabled rear projection system. In addition to that a standard magnetic tracking device, data gloves, and a wearable comput...

Procedia Computer Science, 2013

In order to have a better and global knowledge of the possibilities for implementing applications based on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, a state of the art is presented in this paper. Its purpose is making easier for new researchers or developers knowing the situation and capabilities of these technologies. From the definition of the Virtuality Continuum concept, applications are grouped in those using VR and others applying AR techniques. The ones based on a MR are explained too. Relating to the situation of these technologies nowadays, sectors of application, professional profiles, training offers and standards developed are presented with a prediction of future research lines.

Virtual Reality, 1996

The aims of this paper are twofold. First, it identifies the general requirements of future large-scale distributed virtual reality (VR) systems based on an analysis of current VR systems, of more general distributed systems platforms and a consideration of the key issues of scale and heterogeneity. These requirements subsequently reform the development of a general VR reference architecture; and a framework which identifies the key software components which will comprise future distributed VR systems. Second, it uses this reference architecture as a vehicle tbr conducting a broad review of current distributed VR products and research prototypes. The review covers twelve well known VR systems and is intended as a general resource for researchers entering the field. These systems are: AVIARY, BrickNet, DIVE, dVS, MASSIVE, the MR Toolkit, NPSNET, Superscape, VEOS, VUE, WAVES and WorldToolkit. The review also identifies relevant standards in the areas of computer graphics and distributed systems. The paper finishes by drawing out a number of more general conclusions from the review including the urgent need to conduct research into the subjects of security and resource discovery for distributed VR systems. 1 9 Cooperation -VR offers great potential as a communication tool. Systems to support cooperative work, especially over wide-area networks, necessarily require distribution. There is also the need to make virtual worlds and their associated resources (e.g. libraries of objects) shareable over wide-area networks. Hence, we see a growing interest in VR systems which are publicly accessible using personal computing platforms (e.g. the use of the emerging VRML standard to enable public access to 3-D scene descriptions stored on the World Wide Web).

IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 2001