Date: tbc
Time: 2 x 90 minutes

There is a good history in this symposium of using standard scenegraphs with alternate input devices (Althoff et al, 2001) and for immersive use (Stiles et al, 1997; Behr et al, 2004; Soares et al, 2004). Past and current standards maintain the goal for interactive 3D media that is network-aware and platform-independent. Although the desktop is still implicit in many applications, it is an open challenge to standardize robust support for a wide range of platforms including immersive systems.

With the X3D Amendment 2 process underway and its focus on improving X3D user interface support, this workshop will provide a point of traction for the community to enable:

• Authors to 'roll their own' 3D Interaction techniques (e.g. for navigation, selection, manipulation)
• Adapting interfaces and content for various input devices, trackers, and displays

Through a toolkit survey and reflections on recent implementations (Xj3D, DIVERSE, JINX), we will highlight the various strategies and tradeoffs in the definition and deployment of multi-platform user interfaces. We will discuss the development and use of various user interface techniques with X3D and VRML, exploring questions such as:

• What are the scenegraph requirements for immersive 3D user interfaces?
• What are the system I/O requirements for immersive 3D user interfaces?
• How can the varying degrees of freedom of different input devices be mapped or bound to the same world?
• Are there guidelines and lessons learned from recent implementations?
• Can and should future X3D components and nodes address this need? How?

Through this workshop, attendees are encouraged to participate in charting the future of 3DUI support. The workshop involves a presentation aspect and group activity where participants will attempt to express a common 3D interaction technique under the various approaches and then present a set of tradeoffs that follow from the given specification strategy. The results of this workshop will help guide future specification decisions

Authors:

The material in this tutorial has been developed by all four authors. Three of the four (Polys, Hudson, & Zuffo) will present the workshop.

Nicholas F. Polys has worked in the creation and management of digital assets for virtual environments for more than 6 years. From 1999-2002, Mr. Polys served on the Web3D Consortium Board of Directors and produced the Consortium's semi-annual Software Development Kit. As a key contributor to the X3D specification, Nicholas has conducted courses including: Introducing X3D (SIGGRAPH 2002 and local chapters: Boston, San Francisco), and Graphics Publishing with X3D (Web3D 2002). Mr. Polys has published on cutting-edge techniques for design and publication of real-time networked 3D in the ACM, IEEE, SPIE venues and a recent book chapter. His current research at Virginia Tech and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute concerns Human-Computer Interaction and 3D user interfaces for Information-Rich Virtual Environments.

Alan Hudson has been involved in virtual reality systems for the past 7 years. He is the working chair for the source task group at the Web3D Consortium and a frequent participant in 3D standards work. He has been also on the Board of Directors for the Web3D Consortium for three years and is the current Vice President of the Consortium. His previous projects include the development of immersive training environments, an online library publishing and automation system, and software for collaborative manufacturing design. Mr. Alan Hudson has proven ability to lead both development and content teams. He has in-depth knowledge of both the technical and political aspects of 3D graphics, as well as a solid base in computer science and industry experience in many aspects of Internet development.

Doug A. Bowman is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Virginia Tech. His research interests are in the intersection between human-computer interaction and computer graphics. Specifically, he is studying interaction and user interfaces in immersive virtual environments, and focusing on the design, evaluation, and application of 3D interaction techniques for complex VEs. He recently received a prestigious CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to pursue this research. His work has appeared in journals such as Presence and IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications, and he has presented research at conferences including ACM SIGGRAPH, the ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, and IEEE Virtual Reality. Doug is the co-founder of the Virginia Tech Center for Virtual Environments and Visualization (CVEV) and the 3D UI mailing list. He is a member of ACM and the IEEE Computer Society. Doug received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Marcelo Knörich Zuffo is an associate professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. His doctorate was in electrical engineering from the University of São Paulo and has since been working with high performance computing for graphics, VR and imaging. He was responsible for the design and implementation of the first Multiprojection Immersive Environment in Latin America based on the CAVE paradigm, In 2000 Marcelo Zuffo was the SIGGRAPH International Chair.

Date: tbc
Time: tbc

Educational Virtual Environments (EVEs) provide students with experiences that can help them in understanding concepts as well as learning to perform specific tasks, where the task can be repeated as often as required and in a safe environment.

However, developing and delivering applications with traditional and/or proprietary VR technologies can be very expensive, and thus not accessible to many learners. Web3D technologies, instead, allow the delivery of interactive EVEs through the Internet, reaching potentially large numbers of learners worldwide, at any time.

This workshop will discuss the issues involved in building educational and training applications with Web3D technologies. Workshop topics include (but are not limited to):

• Applications of Web3D technologies to learning, education and training
• User Interfaces for learning, education and training in Web3D virtual environments
• Student Modeling for Web3D virtual environments
• Assessment of Learning in Web3D virtual environments
• Tools and techniques to build Web3D applications for learning, education and training
• Implementation Issues
• Future scenarios for Web3D in learning, education and training

Paper submission

Submit papers of length 4-6 pages in PDF format NO LATER THAN February 28th 2005. Send the pdf file by email to ranon@dimi.uniud.it (you will receive an acknowledgement of reception in one working day).

Papers should be formatted according to the ACM SIG style. You can download templates and instructions from http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html

Authors:

Luca Chittaro and Roberto Ranon, HCI Lab, University of Udine, Italy