Program

The program of the International Summer School on eXtended Reality Technology and eXperience is:

ABSTRACTS

The Role of Multisensory Experiences in Extended Reality: Unlocking the Power of Smell

Marianna Obrist

Multisensory experiences, those that engage more than one of our senses, are intrinsic to our everyday lives. We often take them for granted, especially when our senses function normally or are corrected to normal with aids like glasses. A deeper examination of even the most routine activities reveals the astonishing sensory world we inhabit. Traditional tools, experiences, and computing systems have primarily leveraged the human capabilities of hearing and sight—think of signage, communication methods, visual and musical arts, theatre, cinema, and media. However, the potential of touch, taste, and smell as interaction modalities has been largely overlooked. This talk will delve into the transformative power of multisensory experiences within the realm of Extended Reality (XR), focusing specifically on the sense of smell. Recent advancements in olfactory interfaces have made it possible to create highly immersive XR experiences. I will present my vision for the future of multisensory human-computer interfaces, showcasing emerging technologies and devices. Additionally, I will explore the significant impact that olfactory experiences can have on daily life, health, and wellbeing. Through this exploration, I aim to highlight the untapped potential of smell in enhancing XR experiences and enriching our interaction with digital environments.

Toward Human-Centered XR: Bridging Cognition and Computation

Qi Sun

Virtual and Augmented Reality enables unprecedented possibilities for displaying virtual content, sensing physical surroundings, and tracking human behaviors with high fidelity. However, we still haven't created "superhumans" who can outperform what we are in physical reality, nor a "perfect" XR system that delivers infinite battery life or realistic sensation. In this talk, I will discuss some of our recent research on leveraging eye/muscular sensing and learning to model our perception, reaction, and sensation in virtual environments. Based on the knowledge, we create just-in-time visual content that jointly optimizes human (such as reaction speed to events) and system performance (such as reduced display power consumption) in XR.

XR for healthcare: Immersive and interactive technologies for serious games and exergames

Manuela Chessa

In this lecture, the teacher will present and discuss the challenges of exploiting novel XR technologies in the field of healthcare, specifically to develop serious games and exercises for a wide range of cognitive and physical issues, ranging from training to assessment. In such a domain, XR experts must collaborate and work in synergy with doctors, physiotherapists, and healthcare specialists. Though the interest in XR applications in healthcare has recently gained popularity, a big gap between the technological advances in XR and 3D technologies and their effective use in clinical practice still exists. Indeed, XR setups adopted by hospitals and rehabilitation centers seldom exploit the more recent XR solutions. On the other hand, XR researchers still pay little attention to the cognitive, perceptual, and physical specificity of patients and users affected by specific disabilities and impairments. The lecture aims to revise the theoretical backgrounds of XR development, to present and discuss the opportunities and the limits of current technologies and software solutions, and to focus on the existing gaps between XR communities and healthcare ones.
During the lecture, the teacher will share and present practical examples and use cases, also from the FIT4MEDROB (PNRR) "Progetto" Fit4MedRob- Fit for Medical Robotics", Piano Nazionale Complementare (PNC-0000007) - Italy.

Strategies for Designing and Evaluating eXtended Reality Experiences

Anthony Steed

There are many potential standpoints that one might take and thus measures one might use when evaluating extended reality (XR) experiences. In this talk, I will try to bridge between academic research on XR technologies and the guidance needed for practical engineering of effective experiences. I will look at different standpoints of evaluating XR, including as XR a novel HCI, as a tool for use and as a communication medium, and then draw upon different methods we use to advance the scientific and practical understanding of what makes an effective experience. I will draw a lot on our prior experimental work in each area, but also showcase some examples of good design from consumer and professional applications. In doing this I will highlight some areas that are ripe for further study, but also some effective practical designs that challenge assumptions we make in laboratory experiments.

Towards volumetric video conferencing

Pablo César

With Social Extended Reality (XR) emerging as a new medium, where users can remotely experience immersive content with others, the vision of a true feeling of ‘being there together’ has become a realistic goal. This keynote will provide an overview about the challenges to achieve such a goal, based on results from practical case studies like the TRANSMIXR and MediaScape XR projects. We will discuss about different technologies, like point clouds, that can be used as the format for representing highly-realistic digital humans, and about metrics and protocols for quantifying the quality of experience. The final intention of the talk is to shed some light on social XR, as a new group of virtual reality experiences based on social photorealistic immersive content. We will discuss about the challenges regarding production and user-centric processes, and discover the new opportunities open by this new medium.

Improving the user's experience in VR 

Diego Gutiérrez

Virtual Reality experiences require a joint design that takes into account both technological as well as human-centered aspects. In fact, one of its main current problems continue to be content generation, for which understanding the user's behavior becomes a key design aspect. This in turn requires measuring and analyzing such behavior, creating suitable models, and applying them to practical scenarios. In this talk we will focus on the topic of visual attention, and cover examples that include redirected walking or VR movies.

Why XR is important for Nokia 

Gloria Touchard

We will talk about Nokia vision of the potential of immersive communications and extended reality (XR) in future networks to help digitalization. Highlighting Nokia's role in enabling seamless XR experiences through network optimization and innovative features. Closing with some examples of industry Extended reality use cases.