THE FUTURE OF VR AND AR INTERFACES

            Multi-modal, Humanoid, Adaptive and Intelligent ?

                      Workshop at the IEEE VR2001

                             14 March 2001
                            Yokohama, Japan
                         http://www.vr2001.org/

                         CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

DESCRIPTION

Virtual worlds have become more and more visually elaborated and
emotive. They aim at an environment nearly indistinguishable from the
real world. However, in spite of all technological and artistic
advances, simulated worlds are still far from perfect in their realism.
It is at the interface between the human and the computer environment,
where this lack of realism becomes most apparent. Transferring natural
interaction and communication principles from the real world to
cyberspace in a seamless fashion is a very challenging task. Can we
improve interface technology to the point where people will communicate
with a synthetic environment in a natural way, in a style similar to
their day-to-day interaction with the real world? Or should we turn away
from or go beyond realism to reach the full potential of virtual worlds?

With the goal of deep immersion and perfect integration of real and
virtual environments in mind, we are reviewing interface technologies
that may be particularly apt to overcome some of the limitations we are
still facing today: Multi-modality addresses all human senses and
enables a wide variety of human articulation to be part of the
interface. Additionally, future interfaces will likely display adaptive
and intelligent behavior. Humanoid persona can add an interpersonal
touch to the immersive experience.

This workshop aims to bring together researchers from the area of AR/VR
technology, human computer interaction, AI, as well as psychologists, SF
authors, and other people with a vision of what the interface between
humans and computer generated environments should look, sound, feel, and
be like. The goal of this workshop is to showcase, develop, and discuss
concepts for better AR/VR  interfaces and to evolve ideas towards the
realization of interfaces enabling deep-immersive, elaborated virtual
environments.


TOPICS

Topics addressed in this workshop include, but are not restricted to:

     Intuitive Interaction:
       - natural human interaction vs. new paradigms
       - multimodal interfaces
       - 3D interaction techniques
       - technological barriers of intuitive AR/VR interfaces
       - heterogeneous and hybrid user interfaces
       - deep immersion and how to achieve it

     Innovative AR/VR Interfaces:
       - from retinal displays to implants: sensory technology
       - adaptive and intelligent interfaces
       - collaborative AR/VR, teleimmersion,
       - mobile and wearable computing interfaces
       - AR and ubiquitous computing
       - AR/VR applications of the future

     Synthetic characters:
       - human modeling and simulation
       - conversational agents
       - storytelling
       - interface issues
       - social implications


PARTICIPATION & PAPER SUBMISSION

Workshop attendance will be limited. Attendees to the workshop will each
submit a short paper, one to two pages in length. The paper can either
be a summary or extended abstract of the attendee's own work, addressing
one of the workshop's topics, or their vision on one of the workshop
themes. The top of the first page should include title, authors' names,
affiliations, address, and email address.

Submissions will be reviewed by the members of the organizing committee.

Please mail your paper (MS-WORD, PDF, Postscript) to vr_workshop@gmd.de


CRITICAL DATES

Papers due:    January 31th 2001
Notification of acceptance:    February 9th 2001


WORKSHOP ORGANIZATION & PUBLICATION

We will start the workshop with a key note followed by a panel
discussion of the workshop organizers to foster a lively discussion on
the different topics. Attendees will be split into 3 to 5 working groups
based on their submission to the workshop. Each working group will be
moderated by one or two workshop organizers. Workshop attendees will
give a short introduction of their work and expertise within their
working group (5 minutes each). Each working group will create a report
on the results of their discussion. These reports (15 minutes each) will
be presented to all workshop members. The workshop organizers will
create a workshop summary (2 pages) from these reports for publication
(CG&A). Workshop proceedings containing the submissions of the attendees
and the workshop summary will be published after the workshop by GMD.


TIME SCHEDULE

March 14, 9:00 am - 17:00 pm

   9:00               Opening
   9:15 - 10:00  Key Note
 10:00 - 11:00  Panel (Workshop Organizers)
 11:00 - 11:15  Coffee Break
 11:15 - 13:00  Working Groups (Introduction and Discussion)
 13:00 - 14:00  Lunch Break
 14:00 - 16:00  Working Groups (Discussion and Report Preparation)
 16:00 - 16:15  Coffee Break
 16:15 - 17:00  Working Group Reports (depends on number of working
groups)


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

The organizing committee of the workshop consists of experts in
different disciplines. VR and AR Technology will be an emphasis as well
as synthetic characters, digital storytelling and social aspects of
human-computer interaction. Members of the organizing committee are:

Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces - Doug Bowman (Virginia Tech,
USA)
Collaborative virtual and augmented environments - Wolfgang Broll (GMD,
Germany)
Mobile Augmented Reality - Tobias Höllerer (Columbia University, USA)
Synthetic characters - Leonie Schäfer (GMD, Germany)


CONTACT

Leonie Schäfer
Institute for Applied Information Technology
German National Research Center for Information Technology
Schloss Birlinghoven
D-53754 Sankt Augustin
Germany
 
Phone:    +49-2241-14 2699
Fax:        +49-2241-14 2084
Email:    leonie.schaefer@gmd.de