The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) systems are evolving due to the emergence of a new generation of displays, smart devices and wearables. In addition to research, the trend toward content building continues and practitioners find that technologies and disciplines must be tailored and integrated for specific visualization and interactive applications. This conference provides an interdisciplinary platform for sharing innovations, insights, and practical guidance across both creative and scientific domains. Participants can present research findings and showcase applications spanning the full extended reality (XR) spectrum including VR, AR, mixed reality (MR), and spatial computing (SC).

Conference Topics

Advances in Virtual Reality (VR): The papers should describe advances in theories and methods in VR and 3DUI, such as ethical issues, theories, presence, or human factors. Topics include 3D user interaction, accessibility of immersive interfaces, crowd simulations, virtual humans, embodied agents, immersive analytics, as well as immersive design engineering, input devices, training, education, tutoring, and mediated and diminished reality.

Advances in Augmented Reality (AR): Augmented reality is on the verge of becoming a significant emergent technology platform, which is being developed, tested, and discussed throughout the media landscape. Is the current interest in AR sustainable and substantial or is AR destined to be a novelty? Topics include papers that look at the hardware, software, content, and cultural context behind cutting-edge AR are sought for the conference. Topics might include AR UI and UX, AR in education/learning, AR gaming, art in AR, and the future of AR.

Immersive Experiences and Storytelling: A compelling immersive experience transports the user to a place that is viscerally felt, not easily forgotten, yet completely synthetic. Moreover, immersive storytelling comes with very specific requirements and needs to take the role of the avatar(s) as well as interacting non-player characters into account. This requires subtle interplay between the technological and creative arts. Topics include papers that present working systems or ongoing research into the delicate balance between these disciplines.

Interactions and Applications in VR, AR, MR, XR, and SC: The papers should describe interaction, tracking, lag, rendering speed, field of view, resolution, etc. Papers presenting work improving the state-of-the-art in these areas are encouraged. In addition, the conference is specifically seeking work that explores aesthetics and interaction in 3D environments. Topics include collaborative interaction, multimodal interaction, human-robot interaction, teleoperation, telepresence, locomotion, orientation, navigation, consumer products, entertainment, gaming, healthcare, medicine, simulation, as well as search and rescue.

Issues in the Development and Use of XR: Papers should describe advancements in algorithms critical to XR (incl. VR/AR/MR, as well as SC) development such as tracking, input, display and user interaction. Topics include the use of artificial intelligence, distributed environments, situational awareness, performance measurements, human factors, ethical issues, simulation sickness, perception and cognition.

Track

ERVR is part of the track Stereoscopic Displays & Virtual Reality together with the conference Stereoscopic Displays & Applications.

Conference Chairs

Sharad Sharma, University of North Texas (US) • Bjorn Sommer, Royal College of Art (UK)

Program Committee

Andrew Woods, Curtin University (Australia) • Sergiu Dascalu, University of Nevada, Reno (US) • Tyler Bell, University of Iowa (US) • Xun Ge, University of North Texas (US) • Regina Kaplan-Rakowski, University of North Texas (US) • Fred McMahan, University of North Texas (US) • Yoshihiro Banchi, Waseda University (Japan)

IS&T, the Society for Imaging Science and Technology, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit (charity) that provides an international forum for business advancement, sharing of expertise, and education to those engaged in the science, technology, and engineering of Imaging.