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PAPER INFORMATION
At the crossroads of rapidly evolving wireless technologies and rich 3D
authoring tools, this conference explores the technologies and applications
of Enhanced Environments, with a focus on the specific areas of: Virtual
Heritage, Immersive Art and Creative Technology, and Virtual Design (Industrial,
Architectural and Medical), plus a Special Session on Emerging Virtual Entertainment
Directions.
ENHANCED ENVIRONMENTS
Picking up where virtual reality and technology 'assistants' left off,
enhanced environments are rapidly emerging as a major multidisciplinary
research, development, and deployment area today through the explosion
in wireless technologies (and bluetooth standard), small and easily deployable
sensor technologies, networked off-the-shelf 2 and 3D cameras, pattern
recognition algorithms, smart mobile phones, RFID tags, GPS and location
trackers, etc. Papers which present innovative research in wireless virtual
and augmented environments, including mobile computing, mobile learning,
wireless entertainment / games, and mixed reality are encouraged.
VIRTUAL HERITAGE
This year will showcase the most innovative work in the field, including
new imaging and modeling techniques, large scale terrain modeling, geo-temporal
3D databases, remote sensing and GIS for culture, laser scanning and data
capture, object and image restoration and modeling, virtual reality for
museums, kiosks and site explanations. Papers accepted will cover a range
from technical tools and techniques, to actual site environments that use
new techniques for historical reenactment, storytelling or site reconstruction.
Heritage, museum, and cultural officials working with technology are encouraged
to submit case studies.
SPECIAL VIRTUAL HERITAGE COLLOQUIUM [23-24 October]
sponsored by the Virtual Heritage Network
For 3 consecutive years VSMM has brought together researchers from around
the globe focused on the new field of Virtual Heritage. In response
to user demand, a special Colloquium will be held immediately prior
to the full conference to debate, explore, and begin to address issues
including: international standards and metadata, funding and collaboration,
and application of emerging technology. Due to high demand and the need
to keep the discussion focused, space will be limited to 25 attendees.
To facilitate a productive and fruitful Colloquium, we hope to select
a diverse international cross section of professionals, government officials,
and academics from the spectrum of preservation, heritage, culture,
museum, computing technology and new media.
SPECIAL SESSION ON ECAI: NETWORKED DIGITAL RESEARCH RESOURCES
The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (www.ecai.org) is creating
an infrastructure for data discovery by time and location. The paradigm
of the historical atlas, showing spatial and temporal relationships
among cultural data, and the digital library model of networked distributed
resources, together define within ECAI a new approach to collaborative
scholarly research. Using time-enabled Geographic Information Systems,
ECAI-affiliated research projects are creating interoperable data layers
that can be retrieved from globally distributed servers for display
on a map-based interface. Data layers can be further linked to text,
images, audio, video, or other resources. The ECAI Special Session will
foreground speakers on key issues concerning potential for GIS resources
in the humanities, such as Virtual Reality and Internet GIS. Presentations
by major ECAI-affiliated projects demonstrate the breadth and suppleness
of the ECAI infrastructure. Project walk-through sessions, as well as
demo sessions by ECAI members, demonstrate the basic ECAI IT architecture
and the wide range of technological approaches that individual projects
have adapted to the varied demands of humanities research.
IMMERSIVE ART AND CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY
This session will present the latest work in 3D art and creative technology
with special emphasis on real-time interactive and immersive systems. Paper
topics include museum art and exhibitions, wireless art, networked experiences,
open-ended generative systems, site-specific installations, new media, and
experimental art forms are encouraged to apply.
SPECIAL SESSION ON EMERGING VIRTUAL ENTERTAINMENT
With entertainment/game consoles rivaling the power of flight simulators,
and game engines taking over 3D standards, entertainment is playing an increasingly
strategic role in the Virtual and 3D worlds. And with the increasing crossover
between Military and Entertainment applications traditional lines are blurring
and new alliances being forged. This session will explore and debate both
theoretical and practical issues pertaining to this virtual cross-cultural
area. Technical papers, from processes to applications and tools are encouraged.
Theoretical papers that discuss philosophical, moral or the future issues
of this emerging industry are highly encouraged.
VIRTUAL DESIGN, PROTOTYPING & TRAINING
Virtual Design & Training is the first area of Virtual Reality to yield
commercially viable applications. This session presents the papers for the
following three sub-categories:
- INDUSTRIAL
Papers exploring 3D virtual design, prototyping, and telerobotic applications
in engineering (macro and micro), aerospace, defense, automotive, petrochemical,
manufacturing, and related areas. Case studies and papers presenting
business and human factors benefits will be particularly welcome. Also
welcome are papers presenting practical techniques for assessing human
performance in virtual environments - situational awareness, transfer
of skills, navigational performance and cognitive mapping.
- ARCHITECTURAL
Papers exploring advances in applied 3D design and prototyping in the
architectural field (as distinct from 3D CAD and CAE), from applications
of image-based modeling and rendering, to 3D scanning, applications
of Web3D in architectural design and training, virtual design, and the
issues of virtual 'placemaking'.
- MEDICAL
Topics here include telemedicine and telesurgery, virtual surgery, virtual
patients (and the importance of training delivery using task abstraction
vs. physiological fidelity) VR and micro- and nanotechnology for biomedical
applications, surgical robotics using VR or other advanced human-system
interfaces, virtual hospitals and operating theaters (for training),
case studies (transfer of skills, especially), Web-based surgical training,
and so on.
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