Abstract:

Dr. Harrington will cover the design of a novel and innovative immersive-embodied application that is a virtual experience of wild Central Florida, The Virtual UCF Arboretum. Using ESRI data, Epic Games Unreal Engine 5, and a HTC VR headset combined with an Infinadeck Omnidirectional treadmill, virtual nature has been realized. Showing high presence, emotional reactions, exploration, inquiry, and learning outcomes, a review of experimental mixed-methods research study results on emotional and learning outcomes, support this design solution when semantic geospatial configurations are needed for transfer of learning in the virtual to the real use-cases. Also, you never run into a wall, so unlike a CAVE, VR headsets, or Desktops, this solution supports user activity that requires movement through very large outdoor environments.  

Bio:

Dr. Maria C. R. Harrington is an American Information Scientist and Artist. She is an Associate Professor of Digital Media at the University of Central Florida. She has an undergraduate degree from Carnegie Mellon in Economics and Art, with a Ph.D. in Information Sciences from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focus is on Virtual Nature, as a new type of immersive interactive semantic geo-spatial representation of the natural world. By applying information science theory in novel ways to understand foundational questions at the boundaries of aesthetics, perception, emotions, cognition, behavior, attitudes, and communication on topics related to the natural world, she uses extended reality (XR) tools and technology to investigate human-centered application design research, and applies mixed-methods to evaluate impacts in experimental research studies.

Abstract:

Many technologies from XR R&D labs of the past are now being released as features of present-day XR products.  This talk highlights the progression of now-shipping technologies such as hand tracking, gaze tracking, foveated rendering, and scene geometry acquisition as well as continuing development in emerging technologies related to haptics, display, tracking, intelligent NPCs, and AI-accelerated authoring.  I will draw on examples from my 19 years of XR experience at PlayStation and 5 years of ambient computing R&D at Google, along with current related work from several leading XR R&D labs.  I will share my research incorporating context and generative AI into XR, along with an educated guess as to the future of XR gaming technologies from both a development and end-user experience viewpoint.

Bio:

Richard Marks is a new professor at UNC in the School of Data Science and Society with a joint appointment in the department of computer science.  Currently, he is exploring the combination of generative AI and XR and last semester, he taught Introduction to VR and 3D Graphics.  Previously, Richard was a director and technical project lead for Google ATAP, exploring new interaction approaches for ambient computing environments.  Before that, for 19 years he was at PlayStation R&D where he founded the PlayStation Magic Lab and helped create the EyeToy, PlayStation Eye, PlayStation Move, and PlayStation VR.  Richard received a BS  (1990) in avionics from MIT and a MS (1991) and PhD (1996) from Stanford exploring visual sensing for underwater robots.