Staff and students from the HIT Lab NZ at University of Canterbury, Empathic Computing Lab at University of Auckland,  and HCI Group  at Victoria University of Wellington are organizing the Third International XR Workshop in Christchurch, New Zealand from  7-10 February 2023 at the University of Canterbury.

The XR Workshop will combine taught lectures with hands-on project work with XR technology and HMDs (e.g., HTC Vive, Meta Quest, Magic Leap, Hololens) and a variety of physiological sensors and input devices. Attendees will work in small groups to each complete an example project by the end of the week. This is a unique opportunity to learn how to develop XR applications from world leading experts in the field.

The XR workshop Theme for 2023 is:

Designing XR for Immersive Games

What will you learn?

• An introduction to Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality and XR technology

• How to design good XR experiences

• How to use the Unity game engine

• How to program for different XR HMDs using Unity

• Evaluating of XR experiences

• XR research directions

Registration

Deadline:  27 January  2023 (closed)

Form:  http://tinyurl.com/xrworkshop2023

Cost: 

• Free for students. There is some funding available for travel and accommodation for students. 

• $300 NZD for non-students

Remote:

Unfortunately, we will not be able to support remote participation this year.

• Prof Ed Swan (Mississippi State, USA)

• Prof Joaquim Jorge (Técnico Lisboa, Portugal)

• A/Prof Heide Lukosch (HIT Lab NZ)

• Prof Rob Lindeman (HIT Lab NZ)

Invited Speakers

• Prof Mark Billinghurst (U of Auckland/UniSA)

• Ryan McKee (HIT Lab NZ, U of Canterbury)

• Adrian Clark (S. of Product Design, U of Canterbury)

• Tham Piumsomboon (S. of Product Design, U of Canterbury)

• Chris Chitty (Massey U)

• Prof Stephan Lukosch (HIT Lab NZ, U of Canterbury)

• James Hayes (Virtual Medical Coaching)

• Sakthi Ranganathan (JIX Reality)

Programme

• XR Public  Open House - Friday 10 February 1600-1900 (please register)

What to Bring

• Your laptop that can run Unity, Figma, and ShapesXR

• VR headset (Meta Quest 2) if you have one

Extended reality (XR) is a term referring to all real-and-virtual combined environments and human-machine interactions generated by computer technology and wearables. It includes representative forms such as augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR) and the areas overlapping. XR is a superset which includes the entire spectrum from "the complete real" to "the complete virtual" in the concept of reality–virtuality continuum.

Organizers

• Rob Lindeman - University of Canterbury (Contact)

• Mark Billinghurst - University of Auckland

• Craig Anslow - Victoria University of Wellington

• Joaquim Jorge - University of Lisbon

Workshop Series

• 2021 - Auckland

• 2020 - Wellington

• 2019 - Auckland (Magic Leap Workshop)

Research Labs

• Human Interface Technology Lab (HIT Lab NZ), Canterbury

• Empathic Computing Lab, Auckland

• Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Group, VUW 

Other Links

• Australasian Researchers in Interactive Virtual Environments (ARIVE)

• 2020 - XR Summit  (Auckland)