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Challenges of Immersion « Zha’s Virtual Musings Challenges of Immersion A major part of Second Life’s value is immersion. Second Life is at its most compelling when users fully enter the virtual world as participants engaging the space, not observers visiting it. Immersion consists of several facets. Traditional web experiences The traditional web experience is different from the experience of visiting a virtual world. Singular Reading a web page, including most social media web pages is a singular experience. Asynchronous Facebook, Twitter, blog comments. Interstitial Experiences The singular, asynchronous nature of many web interactions makes them perfect interstitial activities. Most web pages and applications require little context, little planning and little time. Click and Type The most common things one does on the web is click or type. The Challenges of Immersion Contrast the web page based experience with a virtual world interaction. The challenge of Synchrony The challenge of contiguous time Non Interstitial Use Food for thought.

Uncanny valley An empirically estimated uncanny valley for static robot face images[1] In aesthetics, the uncanny valley is a hypothesized relationship between the degree of an object's resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to such an object. The concept of the uncanny valley suggests that humanoid objects which appear almost, but not exactly, like real human beings elicit uncanny, or strangely familiar, feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers.[2] Valley denotes a dip in the human observer's affinity for the replica, a relation that otherwise increases with the replica's human likeness.[3] Examples can be found in robotics, 3D computer animations, and lifelike dolls among others. Etymology[edit] Hypothesis[edit] In an experiment involving the human lookalike robot Repliee Q2 (pictured above), the uncovered robotic structure underneath Repliee, and the actual human who was the model for Repliee, the human lookalike triggered the highest level of mirror neuron activity.[12] Ho, C.

The Teachable Agents Group @ Vanderbilt University Twinity – Powered by Real Life Healthcare › CAE Caesar™ Preparing Nurses for Today’s Healthcare Environment Learn how nursing students and professionals are using healthcare simulation to master the fundamentals, retrain for new units and practice interdisciplinary communication. Featured: The University of Huddersfield in Huddersfield, United Kingdom Immersive Training for Lifesaving Heroes Learn how emergency medical services responders are using healthcare simulation in their training. Featured: WakeMed Center for Innovative Learning in North Carolina, USA Modeled Physiology and Challenging Scenarios for Medicine Learn how residents and physicians are using healthcare simulation to practice anesthesia, critical care, ultrasound assessment and surgical procedures. Featured: Leiden University in The Netherlands Advancing Clinical Competency and Patient Safety Learn how hospitals are using healthcare simulation to onboard and retrain staff, reduce errors and improve patient safety. Featured: Madeira Clinical Simulation Center in Madeira, Portugal

Twinity: cracks in the mirror One fascinating aspect of Twinity has always been it's mirror philosophy: "Twinity is a 3D mirror world based on real cities and real people." Second Life used to have the tag line "Your world, your imagination"; Twinity has "Powered by Real Life", which nicely captures the difference between the two. There are, however, small cracks in the mirror, situations where the real world and the virtual mirror do not match. For instance, most people do not use their real identity in Twinity; they own places they don't have in the real world. These differences do not matter that much to me: the cities and buildings that make up the real world are mirrored, the inhabitants not necessarily. But this becomes more of an issue with Twinity's latest addition: the idyllical island of Palmadora which has opened recently. I have mixed feelings about Palmador. But - there should not be a Palmador: the mirror is conjuring up a picture that doesn't exist in reality.

EMBOTS: Embodied Agents Research Group VirtualConstructor (COHIBIT) At Volkwagen's Autostadt in Wolfsburg, two virtual characters, Jara and Taron, invite visitors to build model cars with real car pieces. Using camera and RFID technology for input, the two characters seamlessly interact with the real world. They are controlled using statecharts, modelled in our Scenemaker tool. A cooperation with Augsburg University, Charamel and Autostadt. Researchers: Alassane Ndiaye, Patrick Gebhard, Michael Kipp, Martin Rumpler, Michael Schneider, Gernot Gebhard. DFKI project website Autostadt exhibit website Publications: Kipp, M., Kipp, K.H., Ndiaye, A. and Gebhard, P. (2006) Evaluating the Tangible Interface and Virtual Characters in the Interactive COHIBIT Exhibit In: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2006), Springer, pp. 434-444.

La crédibilité de l'avatar tient à son regard Doter les personnages virtuels de mouvements oculaires similaires à ceux d'un être humain renforce le sentiment de confiance. Un sentiment primordial dans les univers dédiés à la collaboration. La collaboration dans les mondes virtuels suppose une relation de confiance entre les interlocuteurs. Celle-ci est renforcée si les avatars reproduisent des comportements non-verbaux proprement humains, explique une équipe des universités de UCL et de Roehampton. Dans une étude, les chercheurs démontrent ainsi qu’en dotant les avatars d’un regard humain, la confiance entre les interlocuteurs s’en trouve accrue.

A New Window to the Face The human face is a complicated thing—powered by 52 muscles; contoured by the nose, eyebrows, and other features; and capable of an almost infinite range of expressions, from joy to anger to sorrow to puzzlement. Perhaps that is why realistic animation of the human face has been what Microsoft Research Asia scientist Xin Tong calls a “holy grail” of computer graphics. Decades of research in computer graphics have developed a number of techniques for capturing three-dimensional moving images of the human face. But all have flaws, capturing insufficient detail or failing to depict accurately a changing expression. Xin Tong Now, researchers at Microsoft Research Asia, led by Tong and working with Jinxiang Chai, a Texas A&M University professor, have developed a new approach to creating high-fidelity, 3-D images of the human face, one that depicts not only large-scale features and expressions, but also the subtle wrinkling and movement of human skin. That’s a big challenge, Tong says.

Metaverse Roadmap: Pathways to the 3D Web Chatbots.org - Chatbots, virtual agents, virtual assistant, chat bots, conversational agents, chatterbots list. Directory Virtual Worlds Timeline: Origins & Evolution of Social Virtual W Modeller: 3D Face Generator 3D face modelling software for Windows. Create faces from one or more photographs, or at random. Edit faces in over 150 ways, including race, age and gender. Overview Features Resources Evaluation Purchasing Licensing Legal Overview With our unique statistics-based technology, you can: Create highly realistic or caricatured faces at random from any race, gender and adult age group: Easily create a face from one or more photographs: ... goes to ... Edit faces by just clicking and dragging: Edit faces with over 150 powerful parametric controls, from race morphing the whole face to tweaking the nose shape: ... Apply one of over 50 skin 'detail' textures to the face you've created: Select the mesh and UV layout of your choice (or use your own with the Customizer): Instantly apply animation morphs and accessory models: Export your texture maps to JPEG, BMP, TGA or TIFF. Choose a default scale, rotation and translation for all your exports. FaceGen Modeller 3.5 runs on Windows XP, Vista and 7. Resources

Wiki RepRap is humanity's first general-purpose self-replicating manufacturing machine. RepRap takes the form of a free desktop 3D printer capable of printing plastic objects. Since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap prints those parts, RepRap self-replicates by making a kit of itself - a kit that anyone can assemble given time and materials. It also means that - if you've got a RepRap - you can print lots of useful stuff, and you can print another RepRap for a friend... RepRap is about making self-replicating machines, and making them freely available for the benefit of everyone. Reprap.org is a community project, which means you are welcome to edit most pages on this site, or better yet, create new pages of your own. RepRap was the first of the low-cost 3D printers, and the RepRap Project started the open-source 3D printer revolution. RepRap was voted the most significant 3D-printed object in 2017. About | Development | Community | RepRap Machines | Resources | Policy