From: R.S.Aylett@iti.salford.ac.uk Subject: CONF: ECAI wkshp Intelligent Virtual Envs Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:46:35 +0000 Apologies if people receive more than one copy of this CFP which is hopefully of some interest to members of this list. Ruth Aylett ----------- Call for Participation: ECAI-98 Workshop on Intelligent Virtual Environments **************************************************** August 25th, Brighton, UK Work in VEs and in AI/ALIFE has largely been carried out by two different groups of people with different preoccupations and interests. Yet some convergence is now apparent between the two fields. Work in distributed VEs requires interaction between a number of active participants at a much higher level than that between a single participant and passive components of the VE. Applications in which activity independent of the user takes place - involving crowds or other agents - are beginning to be tackled. Synthetic agents, virtual humans and computer pets (such as Creatures) are all areas in which VE and AI/ALife techniques require strong integration. The two communities have much to learn from each other if wheels are not to be reinvented on both sides. This workshop will address the issues arising from combining Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life techniques with those of Virtual Environments to produce Intelligent Virtual Environments (IVEs). IVEs may be thought of in a variety of ways including: an environment which provides knowledge to direct or assist the user rather than relying entirely on the user's knowledge and skills; one in which the user is represented by a partially autonomous avatar; one containing intelligent agents separate from the user; one which adapts to the requirements of the user, and so on. The following questions will be considered (but you are free to raise others!): o Is there any contradiction between the concept of Direct Manipulation and an IVE? o What applications require an IVE? o What aspects of the Virtual Environment require what types of intelligence? o What AI/ALIFE techniques are of particular use to an IVE and how can they be applied? o What are the main real-time constraints on introducing intelligence into VEs? o What tools and platforms are most appropriate to the creation of IVEs? How can VE and AI/ALIFE tools be combined? o What VE technology can be used to tackle issues of 'believability' for agents in an IVE? Submissions ********** In order to promote a workshop (rather than mini-conference) atmosphere, prospective participants are asked to submit a position paper addressing one or more of these questions with reference to an outline IVE, 'Brightown'. This is a townscape in which the user can play a number of roles, of which the following are examples: - as a student, walking to a nearby library to look up some information (and possibly asking a passerby for directions?) - as an electrician, trying to synchronise two pairs of traffic lights - as a 'crossing attendant' helping schoolchildren to cross the road at the traffic lights - as a shop assistant - as a shopper taking the bus to go to a department store. - Dogs, cats or birds may be present. - The townscape may also contain natural events: for example weather (e.g. rain), burst water main, building on fire, crowd walking to football match. Note that you need only consider a subset of these suggestions and are free to invent other plausible roles or aspects within the townscape framework. You may of course relate the questions and the Brightown scenario to work of your own. Please submit a detailed abstract (approx. 1500 words) or a full paper (limited to 5000 words) by 23rd of March 1998. Submissions via e-mail are encouraged, in HTML, Postcript, or plain text format to Ruth Aylett (r.s.aylett@iti.salford.ac.uk). If electronic submission is not possible please send hard copy to: Ruth Aylett, CVE, Business House, University of Salford, Salford, M5 4WT, UK, to arrive by 23rd of March 1998. Papers will be reviewed by the programme committee, based on originality, adequacy of method, and significance of findings. Selection will seek to balance perspective and interests of participants. The best submissions will be considered for inclusion in a special issue of the journal Applied Artificial Intelligence. Timetable ******** Submissions due: March 23rd Notification: May 1st Camera-ready copy: June 1st Registration ********** WORKSHOP PARTICIPATION IS NOT POSSIBLE WITHOUT REGISTRATION FOR THE MAIN ECAI-98 CONFERENCE. Programme Committee ******************* Ruth Aylett, R.S.Aylett@iti.salford.ac.uk CVE, Univ. Salford Steve Benford sdb@cs.nott.ac.uk Univ. Nottingham Kerstin Dautenhahn kd@cyber.reading.ac.uk Univ. Reading Stephen Grand steve.grand@cyberlife.co.uk Cyberlife Ltd Richard Hepplewhite rth@signal.dra.hmg.gb DERA, Malvern Mike Luck mikeluck@dcs.warwick.ac.uk Univ. Warwick Divine Nduma ndumudt@info.bt.co.uk BT Labs Nadia Thalmann Nadia.Thalmann@cui.unige.ch Univ. Geneva Daniel Thalmann thalmann@lig.di.epfl.ch EPFL, Lausanne Web information ************** This CFP and further information can be found on the web at: http://www.salford.ac.uk/iti/rsa/ecai-ive.html Details of the ECAI conference and registration can be found at: http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ecai98/index.html Ruth Aylett email: R.S.Aylett@iti.salford.ac.uk phone: 44-161-295-2912 Home page: http://www.salford.ac.uk/iti/rsa/aylett.html fax: 44-161-295-2925 Centre for Virtual Environments, University of Salford, Salford, M5 4WT, UK 'Life is beautiful.'