Workshop on Emerging Novel Input Devices and Interaction Techniques. Workshop hosted by IEEE VR 2021, March 27, 2021, Lisbon, Portugal (Virtual)

Virtual reality has finally become a mainstream technology. Recent advances in commercial VR hardware have led to high-resolution, ergonomic, – and critically – low cost head-mounted displays. Advances in commercial input devices and interaction techniques have arguably not kept pace with advances in displays. For instance, most HMDs include a tracked input device: “wands” that are not dissimilar to the earliest examples of 3D controllers used in the VR systems of the 1980s. Interaction in commercial VR systems has similarly lagged; despite many advances in 3D interaction in the past three decades of VR research, interaction in commercial systems largely relies on classical techniques like the virtual hand, or ray-casting.

This half-day workshop will bring together researchers and industry practitioners to discuss and experience the future of input devices for VR, AR, and 3D User Interfaces, and help chart a course for the future of 3D interaction techniques. We invite authors to submit 4-6 page papers on any of the following topics:

• Form factors and ergonomics of input devices

• Hardware design and prototyping

• Mapping of input to display degrees of freedom

• Haptic/tactile feedback

• Novel input devices

• Repurposing of existing devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets) in VR contexts

• Tracked passive or custom props

• Novel Interaction techniques supported by custom devices

• User studies evaluating the above topics

• Related but unlisted topics are also welcome. In addition to a presentation at the workshop, authors of all accepted submissions will be strongly encouraged to demonstrate their novel input device and interaction techniques in an interactive demo format following presentations.

Important Dates:

• Submission Deadline: January 18, 2021 AoE January 22, 2021 (If you are submitting a paper from the VR conference track, please include review and changes)

• Notification Deadline: January 31, 2021 AoE

• Camera-Ready: February 12, 2021 AoE

Submission Information:

Papers should be submitted via PCS: https://new.precisionconference.com

Submissions must be anonymized and in PDF format, in the VGTC format: http://junctionpublishing.org/vgtc/Tasks/camera.html

All submissions will be reviewed by experts in the areas listed above. At least one author of each accepted submission must register for the workshop and IEEE VR 2021 conference. Authors of accepted papers will be expected to give a 10 minute at the workshop, and encouraged to give a demonstration of their research as a video. Proceedings will be submitted for inclusion in the IEEE Xplore Library. We will also host the papers in this site.

Organizers:

Robert J. Teather, rob.teather@carleton.ca

Adalberto L. Simeone, adalberto.simeone@kuleuven.be

Francisco R. Ortega, fortega@colostate.edu

Anil Ufuk Batmaz, abatmaz@sfu.ca

Wolfgang Stuerzlinger, w.s@sfu.ca

Benjamin Weyers, weyers@uni-trier.de

Contact: Please send any questions to NIDIT.workshop@gmail.com or fortega@colostate.edu