08231 Abstracts Collection -- Virtual Realities

From 1st to 6th June 2008, the Dagstuhl Seminar 08231 ``Virtual Realities\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. Virtual Reality (VR) is a multidisciplinary area of research aimed at interactive human-computer mediated simulations of artificial environments. Typical applications include simulation, training, scientific visualization, and entertainment. An important aspect of VR-based systems is the stimulation of the human senses -- typically sight, sound, and touch -- such that a user feels a sense of presence (or immersion) in the virtual environment. Different applications require different levels of presence, with corresponding levels of realism, sensory immersion, and spatiotemporal interactive fidelity. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

Dagstuhl News January - December 2008

"Dagstuhl News" is a publication edited especially for the members of the Foundation "Informatikzentrum Schloss Dagstuhl" to thank them for their support. The News give a summary of the scientific work being done in Dagstuhl. Each Dagstuhl Seminar is presented by a small abstract describing the contents and scientific highlights of the seminar as well as the perspectives or challenges of the research topic

A Survey of Interaction Techniques and Devices for Large High Resolution Displays

Innovations in large high-resolution wall-sized displays have been yielding benefits to visualizations in industry and academia, leading to a rapidly growing increase of their implementations. In scenarios such as these, the displayed visual information tends to be larger than the users field of view, hence the necessity to move away from traditional interaction methods towards more suitable interaction devices and techniques. This paper aspires to explore the state-of-the-art with respect to such technologies for large high-resolution displays

Artificial and Computational Intelligence in Games (Dagstuhl Seminar 12191)

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 12191 "Artificial and Computational Intelligence in Games". The aim for the seminar was to bring together creative experts in an intensive meeting with the common goals of gaining a deeper understanding of various aspects of artificial and computational intelligence in games, to help identify the main challenges in game AI research and the most promising venues to deal with them. This was accomplished mainly by means of workgroups on 14 different topics (ranging from search, learning, and modeling to architectures, narratives, and evaluation), and plenary discussions on the results of the workgroups. This report presents the conclusions that each of the workgroups reached. We also added short descriptions of the few talks that were unrelated to any of the workgroups

Modular 3D Interface Design for Accessible VR Applications

Designed with an accessible first design approach, the presented paper describes how exploiting humans proprioception ability in 3D space can result in a more natural interaction experience when using a 3D graphical user interface in a virtual environment. The modularity of the designed interface empowers the user to decide where they want to place interface elements in 3D space allowing for a highly customizable experience, both in the context of the player and the virtual space. Drawing inspiration from todays tangible interfaces used, such as those in aircraft cockpits, a modular interface is presented taking advantage of our natural understanding of interacting with 3D objects and exploiting capabilities that otherwise have not been used in 2D interaction. Additionally, the designed interface supports multimodal input mechanisms which also demonstrates the opportunity for the design to cross over to augmented reality applications. A focus group study was completed to better understand the usability and constraints of the designed 3D GUI.Comment: This preprint has not undergone peer review or any post-submission corrections. The Version of Record of this contribution will be published in Springer Nature Computer Science book series in Volume HCI International 202

Virtual Enhancement to Physical Spaces: A QR Code Based Orientation Game

University orientations are typically passive events for students, with activities that include sitting and listening to speakers and perhaps talking to others seated nearby. In this project, the authors sought to provide a more active and collaborative component to a university orientation via a team-based game that incorporated content included in a typical orientation and modeled appropriate instructional technology use. This mobile orientation game used QR codes and videos to augment the physical environment of an academic building. This paper describes the design and development process for this game, and presents the results of an evaluation conducted at the end. The game, which lasted an hour, both helped players learn more about the people and key locations within the new program they were joining and, most importantly, helped participants meet and interact with their new peers prior to the beginning of classes

On the Validity of Immersive Virtual Reality as tool for multisensory evaluation of urban spaces

The Europe2020 document indicates a new strategy to turn EU into a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy. At local level urban planning policies may help to reach these aims. Several research works proposed the Immersive Virtual Reality as tool to evaluate the effectiveness of these interventions. Nevertheless people's perception within virtual environments still needs to be verified. In this study, two groups of participants had to provide subjective measures related to the global, acoustic and visual quality of a real environment or of a multisensory reproduced version in Immersive Virtual Reality. Outcomes highlight the ecological effectiveness of this multisensory tool