From diderot@hitl.washington.edu Mon Jan 23 09:37:50 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mx4.u.washington.edu by stein2.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW94.10/UW-NDC Revision: 2.32 ) id AA28681; Mon, 23 Jan 95 09:37:50 -0800 Received: from hitl-new.hitl.washington.edu by mx4.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW94.10/UW-NDC Revision: 2.31 ) id AA16018; Mon, 23 Jan 95 09:37:49 -0800 Received: by hitl.hitl.washington.edu; id AA01689; Mon, 23 Jan 1995 09:33:54 -0800 Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 09:33:54 -0800 X-Sender: diderot@hitl.washington.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: scivw@hitl.washington.edu From: Blake Hannaford (by way of diderot@hitl.washington.edu (Toni Emerson)) Subject: ASCII version of VRAIS '95 advance program Status: OR Reservations: (919) 941-5050 ext. 2500, Fax: (919) 941-5156 Arrival Date: _________ Arrival Time: _________ Departure Time: _________ Hotel Level Concierge Level Room Type __Single - $95 __Single - $123 __King __Double - $95 __Double - $133 __Double/Double Name:______________________________________________________________ Company: __________________________________________________________ Address: __________________________________________________________ City/State/Zip/Country: ___________________________________________ Telephone: ________________________________________________________ Sharing Room with: ________________________________________________ Check if Handicapped Accommodations required: ______ Name on Credit Card: ______________________________________________ Credit Card Number: _______________________________________________ American Express_______ Visa________ MasterCard________ Discover_______ Diners Club_______ Authorized Signature: ______________________ Expiration Date:_____________ One night's deposit enclosed $_________ Make check payable and mail to The Sheraton Imperial Hotel & Convention Center. Reservations subject to cancellation after 4PM unless held by one night's deposit or credit card guarantee. Sheraton check-in time is 3:00PM. Check-out time is 12:00 noon. Reservations must include a first night's deposit, plus 11% tax or guarantee with accepted credit card. ==== TUTORIAL DESCRIPTIONS ==== Tutorial 1A: An Introduction to Virtual Reality (half-day) Organizer: Henry Sowizral This tutorial provides an introduction to virtual reality and its associated technologies. It begins with an overview of how a VR system operates, a brief history of VR, and videos showing a collection of VR applications in operation. It continues with a survey discussing the component parts of a VR system, both hardware and software, including information on how those components operate and pointers to suppliers of various products. The hardware section focuses mainly on display devices and trackers but includes other modalities such as sound and touch. The software section discusses the process of "world creation", products for constructing world models, the structure of a VR runtime environment, and existing VR runtime environments. The tutorial concludes with an review of outstanding issues in VR. Tutorial 1B: Merging Supercomputers with Virtual Reality (half-day) Organizers: Trina M. Roy & Carolina Cruz-Neira Recent developments in technology have allowed real-time communication between graphics workstations and supercomputers. This tutorial shows how these advances can be applied to the use of virtual reality to interactively visualize data from HPCC applications. The tutorial surveys models of virtual environments and discusses how their software design affects the overall performance of a HPCC-VR environment. Techniques for the real-time steering of simulations running on remote supercomputers, including successive refinement, are presented. Also covered are several working HPCC applications in VR along with discussions of their design processes. Tutorial 1C: Multimedia Systems & Applications (full-day) Organizer: Borko Furht The objective of this tutorial is to provide an in-depth survey of the state-of-the-art in multimedia system design and applications. We will begin with basic definitions and requirements for multimedia systems, and continue with an overview of multimedia compression techniques and standards (such as JPEG, MPEG, and H.261). We will then discuss multimedia networks and protocols, including traditional networks (Ethernet, Token ring) and some new networks, such as ATM. Basic concepts and techniques of media synchronization (audio and video) will be presented. Techniques for multimedia storage and retrieval, as well as video partitioning methods will be introduced. An overview of multimedia systems, tools, and applications will be presented. Case study of the video-on-demand application including interactive TV will be analyzed in detail. This tutorial assumes little or no familiarity with multimedia systems. Tutorial 1D: Advanced Issues in Virtual Reality Systems Design (half-day) Organizer: Henry Sowizral This tutorial delves into the many topics involved in making the VR experience more "real" such as correcting for errors introduced by the display's optical pathway, correcting for tracker errors and lag, understanding how to use the graphics hardware most effectively, handling scene complexity, and inserting an ego-centric human model (avatar) into the scene. The tutorial concludes with a description of augmented environments and their operation. Tutorial 1E: Human Factors in Virtual Reality Development (half-day) Organizers: Dennis R. Proffitt & Mary K. Kaiser This half-day tutorial will provide an overview of basic perceptual functioning as it relates to the design of virtual environment systems. The tutorial consists of three parts. First, basic issues in visual perception will be presented, including discussions of the visual sensations of brightness and color, and of the visual perception of depth relationships in three dimensional space (with a special emphasis on motion-specified depth). The second section will discuss the importance of conducting human factors user studies and evaluations. Examples and suggestions on how best to get help with user studies will be provided. Finally, we will discuss how perceptual psychologists and computer engineers can work together as a team -- drawing on their complementary competencies -- to develop optimal VR systems, technologies, and techniques. Tutorial 2A: Virtual Reality in Medical Practice & Training (half-day) Organizer: Kirby Vosburgh VR has been applied to medicine both in the training of physicians and in patient care. The technical basis of this work and commercial and academic developments will be reviewed. In particular, we will discuss the sources of generic and specific anatomical information and its organization and application to the 3D models, including the major efforts to develop "standard" 3D anatomical data bases. Then, the use of 3D models in the training of physicians will be evaluated, with emphasis on incorporation of realistic tactile feedback and perturbation of the model structures. The extension of this approach to "telesurgery" will be described, including the technical challenges in implementing such a system. The use of VR technology in clinical experiments will be covered from various perspectives: 1) Current work in teleradiology, 2) The use of 3D models in surgical planning, 3) The application of video merging techniques to real time surgery, 4) Real time image acquisition and display during surgery. In these areas, emphasis will be placed on the ability of VR techniques to complement and improve the performance of the physician. Tutorial 2B: Fundamentals of Optics in Head-Mounted Displays (half-day) Organizer: Jannick P. Rolland Head-mounted displays have been designed since the 60's, yet we are all awaiting the "ultimate" HMD with high-resolution and very wide field-of-view. Some basic knowledge of what is achievable with today's technology coupled with an analysis of your application may help you make choices that will most benefit the advance of your work. This course will enable you to: * learn the basic principles of optical imaging in head-mounted displays (HMDs) * list the different approaches to HMD design * explain their principal advantages and disadvantages * list available technologies and their trade-offs * become more knowledgeable on image quality criteria such as the effect of different optical aberrations on the images and what one needs to know about display photometry * understand how the optics interface to the graphical software * untangle some of the calibration nightmares you may be facing. An extended bibliography will be included and active participation will be encouraged with enough time for questions/answers. Tutorial 2C: Direct Manipulation in Virtual Reality (half-day) Organizer: Steve Bryson This course will survey the issues that arise in the design and implementation of direct manipulation interfaces in virtual reality. After a statement of the various aspects of the problem, we survey available tracking technologies. Various representations of tracking data, types of tracking error, and overcoming these errors via calibration and predictive tracking will be discussed. We will next discuss the virtual environment from the perspective of sampling: how trackers sample the real world and how the user samples the virtual environment via the frames of a display; the inference of behavior from samples via interpolation and signal reconstruction; minimal sample rates from sampling theory such as the Shannon-Nyquist limit; the impact of truncated samples, jitter, and over-sampling. We next discuss the human factors of direct manipulation: Fitts' Law for pick and place tasks and manual tracking; the impact of lag and frame rate on Fitts' Law and manual tracking. Turning to the design of virtual objects for direct manipulation, we discuss how collision detection is performed, examining the types of feedback that may be missing and how other feedback can be added. We end with a discussion of metaphor to suggest manipulation techniques, both in terms of overall environment design and object-by-object and describe the use of virtual tools for indirect manipulation. Tutorial 2D: Gibsonian Perception for the Design of Virtual Environments (half-day) Organizers: G.J.F. Smets, C.J. Overbeeke, & P.J. Stappers The object of this tutorial is to present an overview of what Gibsonian perception/action research has to offer for the design of virtual environments. Despite the great interest in the human interface with the computer, comparatively little of this research has seeped through into the major development works such as those presented at conferences like CHI, VRST, VRAIS, SIGGRAPH. Nevertheless, principles from Gibsonian perception theory have been shown to be a useful guide to optimizing the interaction with artifacts, be they simple tools or advanced computers. Applications of this approach typically exploit users' everyday perceptual-motor skills instead of relying on their cognitive skills like deductive reasoning and memory. Topics covered are (1) Comparing `Classical' and `Gibsonian' perception theories. (2) The fit between observer and (virtual) environment. (3) Consequences for telepresence. (4) Perceptual meaning (form semantics). (5) Where to find recent perception/action research. Tutorial 2E: Tutorial on the Psychophysics & Technology of Virtual Acoustic Displays (half-day) Organizers: Beth Wenzel & Scott Foster Virtual acoustics, also known as 3-D sound and auralization, is the simulation of the complex acoustic field experienced by a listener within an environment. The tutorial will review the basic psychoacoustical cues that determine human sound localization and the techniques used to measure these cues as Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs) for the purpose of synthesizing virtual acoustic environments. Psychophysical experiments examining the perceptual validity of the synthesis technique will also be reviewed and factors which can enhance perceptual accuracy and realism will be discussed. Of particular interest is the relationship between individual differences in HRTFs and in behavior, the role of reverberant cues in reducing the perceptual errors observed with virtual sound sources, and the importance of developing perceptually-valid methods of simplifying the synthesis technique. Recent implementations of real time systems will also be discussed and an attempt made to interpret their quoted system specifications in terms of perceptual performance. A more detailed explanation of systems developed by Crystal River will be presented as examples of current systems including a discussion of future directions in 3D audio hardware. The Snapshot system recently developed for measuring individualized HRTFs in any type of environment will also be described and demonstrated if time allows. Finally, some critical issues for the future will be outlined with an emphasis on applications in virtual reality. Tutorial 2F: User Interface Issues for Virtual Systems (half-day) Organizer: Chris Esposito This tutorial will present a view of what the User Interface (UI) and Virtual Reality (VR) communities have to offer one another. We will do this by answering the following four questions: 1) What can the VR community learn from the existing body of UI research? 2) What new opportunities and challenges does VR have for the UI community? 3) What has the VR community learned that modifies or extends what we know about interfaces? 4) What aspects of existing UI work are not useful in VR? The tutorial is divided up into 2 broad sections, with the first section devoted to question 1, and section 2 for questions 2-4. Although this tutorial was first given at VRAIS '93, a number of new topics have been added. The first set of topics has to do with the definition, calibration, and interactive control of virtual bodies. The second set of topics is about an empirical framework for matching up devices, interaction techniques, and application tasks, and assessing the usability of the resulting systems. ==== ORGANIZING COMMITTEE ==== General Chair: David Mizell Boeing Computer Services Program Co-Chairs: Press Relations: Steve Bryson Nadine Miner CSC/NASA Ames Research Center Sandia National Laboratories Steve Feiner Local Arrangements Chair: Columbia University Jannick Rolland University of North Carolina Organization Chair: Robert Marks Video Proceedings Chair: University of Washington Blake Hannaford University of Washington Publications Chair: Brenda Thein Tutorials Chair: Army Human Engineering Lab Beth Wenzel NASA Ames Research Center Finance Chair: Judy Qualy-White Exhibits Chair: Boeing Military Airplanes Karen Haines University of New Mexico Publicity Chair: Mary Lou Padgett Far East International Liaison: Auburn University Toshio Fukuda Nagoya University European International Liaison: Mel Slater QMW University of London ==== PROGRAM COMMITTEE ==== Bernard D. Adelstein, Sterling Software/NASA Ames Research Center Joanna Alexander, Zombie Inc. Ron Azuma, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Norman Badler, University of Pennsylvania Woodrow Barfield, University of Washington Stephen Benton, MIT Chuck Blanchard, Talisman Dynamics, Inc. Mark Bolas, Fake Space Labs Kellogg Booth, University of British Columbia Pere Brunet, Polytechnical University of Catalonia Grigore Burdea, Rutgers University Thomas P. Caudell, University of New Mexico Chris Codella, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Carolina Cruz-Neira, University of Illinois at Chicago Michael Deering, Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation Rae Earnshaw, University of Leeds Steve Ellis, NASA Ames Research Center Jose Encarnacao, Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Lennart Fahlen, Swedish Institute of Computer Science Kim Fairchild, National University of Singapore Wolfgang Felger, Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Scott Foster, Crystal River Engineering Henry Fuchs, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Thomas Funkhouser, AT&T Bell Laboratories Michael Gigante, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Martin Go"bel, Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Mark Green, University of Alberta Hideki Hashimoto, University of Tokyo Richard Held, MIT Michitaka Hirose, University of Tokyo Larry Hodges, Georgia Tech John Hollerbach, University of Utah Phil Hubbard, Cornell University Hiroo Iwata, University of Tsukuba Rob Jacob, Tufts University Adam Janin, Boeing Computer Services Mary Kaiser, NASA Ames Research Center Ken-ichi Kameyama, Toshiba R&D Center Arie Kaufman, SUNY, Stony Brook Myron Krueger, Artificial Reality Wolfgang Kru"ger, German National Research Center for Computer Science James Lackner, Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory Andy Liu, Nissan Cambridge Basic Research Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann, University of Geneva Beth Marcus, EXOS, Inc. Michael W. McGreevy, NASA Ames Research Center Margaret Minsky, Interval Junji Nomura, Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd. Shojiro Nagata, Stereo Researcher Randy Pausch, University of Virginia Tom Piantanida, SRI International Steve Pieper, Medical Media Systems Ronald Pose, Monash University Timothy Poston, National University of Singapore Dennis Proffitt, University of Virginia Warren Robinett, Virtual Reality Games, Inc. Jannick Rolland, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Joseph M. Rosen, M.D., Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Larry Rosenblum, Naval Research Laboratory Rick Satava, Advanced Research Projects Agency Luis Serra, National University of Singapore Gurminder Singh, National University of Singapore Mel Slater, QMW University of London Henry Sowizral, Boeing Computer Services Mandayam A. Srinivasan, MIT Sharon Stansfield, Sandia National Labs Lawrence W. Stark, University of California at Berkeley Dave Sturman, Medialab Susumu Tachi, University of Tokyo Daniel Thalmann, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology James Thomas, Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory Andries van Dam, Brown University Elizabeth Wenzel, NASA Ames Research Center Alan Wexelblat, MIT David Zeltzer, MIT Michael J. Zyda, Naval Postgraduate School ----- End Included Message -----