Several Members of the PRESENCE consortium have presented the current status and visions of the PRESENCE project, in particular, WP4 at the 32nd IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR). IEEE VR is the premier international event for the presentation of research results in the broad areas of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR/AR/MR). Since 1993, IEEE VR has presented groundbreaking research and accomplishments by virtual reality pioneers: scientists, engineers, designers, and artists, paving the way for the future. Soon, IEEE VR expanded its scope to also include augmented, mixed, and other forms of mediated reality.
On Saturday, March 8th, PRESENCE’s Technical Manager Frank Steinicke (UHAM) gave two keynotes at two different workshops. His first keynote was entitled “Human-AI Synergy – Combining Generative AI and XR” at the Generative Artificial Intelligence meets Extended Reality (GenAI-XR) workshop. He gave his second keynote entitled “Blending AI and XR for the Next Generation of Smart Avatars and Intelligent Virtual Agents” at the Next Generation Avatars (NGA) workshop. In his presentations, he highlighted the innovative integration of Generative AI with XR technologies. This was showcased by the work of the PRESENCE’s project, in particular, in WP4 Intelligent Virtual Humans. Later in the panel discussion in which he also participated, the challenges for the future of avatars and agents were discussed.
On Sunday, March 9th, Fariba Mostajeran presented the latest efforts made within WP4 in the 9th Workshop on Virtual Humans and Crowds in Immersive Environments (VHCIE). The presentation was entitled “A Toolkit for Creating Intelligent Virtual Humans in Extended Reality”. The talk started with an introduction to Intelligent Virtual humans which refer to both (smart) avatars that are virtual characters controlled by real users and used for self-representation in virtual worlds as well as intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) which are autonomous characters designed to interact with humans in virtual environments. After giving an overview of all five tasks/modules of the WP4, each of these modules was presented in more detail using the latest videos and images produced by WP4 partners. At last, the results of a preliminary evaluation of WP4 were presented. The presentation drew a lot of attention and interest in our work. Also, later during the demo session, the attendees of the conference tried our WP4 demo and learned about the PRESENCE project as a whole and WP4 in more detail.
In his last keynote at the conference entitled “Bridging between Artificial Intelligence and Extended Reality in the Spatial Computing Era” at the 1st International Workshop on Virtual Reality for Human and Spatial Augmentation (VR-HSA). VR-HSA aims to unite experts and researchers in virtual reality, human augmentation, and spatial augmentation to explore cutting-edge innovations and address critical challenges and seeks to stimulate partnerships across academia, industry, and other sectors, driving forward the future of these transformative technologies.
On Monday to Wednesday, Fariba and Ke Li presented a live demo of the intelligent virtual human SDK developed at UHAM. Over 40 end users tested the applications. On Saturday morning, Ke Li co-organized the tutorial “A Practical Guide to Radiance Fields for XR Research and Application” together with Shohei Mori from the University of Stuttgart and Mana Masuda from Keio University.
On the final day of the conference, for the first time, IEEE VR featured a mixed reality panel entitled “Where will extended reality and AI take us?” occurring simultaneously in VR and displayed live on the screen of the plenary room. It showcases the potential of the PRESENCE project. The panelists were equipped with a VR headset. Each panelist was represented by a virtual body that resembled their appearance. As well as the human panelists there will be a virtual agent of the very well-known historical researcher Dr. Alan Turing, who was critical to the topic of the discussion, based on a Large Language Model (LLM) and also represented by a virtual human. This special guest observed the panel discussion and occasionally commented through GPT-based speech generation. The panel was performed in two stages. First, there was a discussion where the panelists were in VR in the same shared environment. Second, they came together physically on stage to discuss the experience including with the audience.
The panel was moderated by Prof. Dr. Sylvia Pan from Goldsmiths, University of London. Two members of the PRESENCE project participated in the panel: Prof Dr. Frank Steinicke from the University of Hamburg as well as Prof. Dr. Mel Slater from the University of Barcelona participated in the panel. Furthermore, Masahiko Inami, from the University of Tokyo, Prof. Dr. Rachel McDonnell from Trinity College Dublin, and Prof. Dr. Victoria Interrante from the University of Minnesota participated in the panel.
