Interacting with Virtual and Augmented Worlds

by Prof. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann

MIRALab-University of Geneva, Switzerland

Overview

For more than three decades, the main focus was to be able to model realistic decors, lights and living beings, particularly humans that should look realistic. Actually, we are aiming for interacting with these worlds in a sensitive and meanful way. In this talk, I will present the research that we are developping on many aspects at MIRALab : interactive modelling of virtual humans, interactive clothes modelling and animation, touching textiles, haptic interaction with hair, gaze interaction with Virtual Humans in Augmented Reality, talking and being recognized by virtual humans with memory and personality models. We will describe what are the problems, what are the solutions now and what is the next step to come. We will show plenty of examples we have developed in our several European Projects in which we are participating.

Short CV
Prof. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann has pioneered research into Virtual Humans over the last 25 years. She obtained several Bachelor's and Master's degrees in various disciplines (Psychology, Biology and Chemistry) and a PhD in Quantum Physics from the University of Geneva in 1977. From 1977 to 1988, she was a Professor at the University of Montreal where she founded the research lab MIRALab. She was elected WOMAN OF THE YEAR in 1987 in Montreal for her pioneering work on Virtual Marilyn, work that has been shown in the MODERN ART MUSEUM in New York in 1988.

She moved to the University of Geneva in 1989, where she founded the Swiss MIRALab, an Internationally interdisciplinary lab composed of about 25 researchers. She has received several scientific and artistic awards for the films she has directed. More recently, she has been elected to the SWISS ACADEMY OF TECHNICAL SCIENCES, selected as a pioneer of Information Technology at the HEINZ NIXDORF MUSEUM'S Electronic Wall of Fame in Germany (www.hnf.de) and has received the CGI'2007 award and the Space'2007 award in Sofia for the film HIGH FASHION IN EQUATIONS , film also selected at the electronic theater at SIGGRAPH'2007.

She is presently taking part in more than a dozen of European and National Swiss research projects and is the coordinator of the Network of Excellence (NoE) INTERMEDIA, the coordinator of the European Research Project HAPTEX and the coordinator of the Marie Curie European Research training network, 3D ANATOMICAL HUMAN. She is editor-in-chief of the VISUAL COMPUTER JOURNAL published by Springer Verlag and co-editor-in-chief of the COMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS journal published by Wiley.

Overview of the European Commission Research Lines in the Creative and Cultural Sectors in support of Media Content

by Dr. Roberto Cencioni

Head of Unit INFSO.E2 Content and Knowledge, European Commission

Overview

Over the last ten years the European Commission has provided sustained support for the creative and cultural sectors through a number of programmes designed to promote creativity, stimulate innovation and develop new technology in support of media content.

The purpose of this session is to present a broad overview of the main research lines pursued in the last few years, highlighting the most significant developments and outlining future directions and priorities in the coming years.

Short CV
Roberto Cencioni is a 1974 graduate from the University of Rome with a degree in statistics and mathematics. Project leader in charge of software development and computer operations within a major telecommunications company, he joined the European Commission in 1977 and worked initially on a large-scale machine translation project. He then managed several teams developing distributed office and communication systems until the early 1990s, when he was entrusted with the co-ordination of R&D programmes in the area of language and speech technologies. Mr. Cencioni's responsibilities included non-research programmes such as eContent and MLIS until 2001, when he was appointed as the head of the DG INFSO unit managing the Safer Internet Action Plan and European projects in the field of information access and multimedia content management. Mr. Cencioni heads the unit entrusted with R&D activities in the area of online content, interactive media and knowledge technologies since January 2003.

Aer( )sculpture, Art made out off threatened sky

by Ioannis MICHALOU(di)S, Ph.D

Visual Artist

Overview

Between mountains and clouds meeting each other, nearby a lake changing colors every day, this is the place visual artist Ioannis MICHALOU(di)S has chosen to have his atelier/lab. This first cloud-hunter follows Centaurs’ and Nymphs’ footprints, lies in wait of air streams, grapping pieces of sky… shaping them, molding them, creating “images of forms” and baptizing them as aer( )sculptures .
99,9% air and 0,1% glass is the composition of every aer( )sculpture. In Space Technology, this same composition is named silica aerogel. This immaterial material is the lightest solid on planet Earth – with three Guinness Prizes - and is used also by NASA as an excellent heat insulator for spacecrafts and for stardust collection, http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/stardust/photo/aerogel.html
MICHALOU(di)S is the first visual artist worldwide bringing this ethereal material in Art, choosing to hunt with it skies and dreams.
Despite the fact that the space technology required for the creation of the aer( )sculptures costs inevitably a lot in time and money, the results are always amazing: weightless sculptures having the ability to hover or float opening, this way, new paths towards a Space Art era where the light and immaterial opens a dialog or replace the heavy and voluminous.
Each aer( )sculpture is - at the same time - a “ready made” but also a masterpiece. And that because the inner world of every aer( )sculpture is different thanks to the microcosmos seen throughout the sculpture: airy clouds, fragments of gold, orbits of planets creating “spaces in between”. Light and shadow is one more dialogue opened when a light beam transpierces each blue aer( )sculpture projecting their transparent goldhue shadow in orbit.
If humans are (organic) carbon based representations then every aer( )sculpture is an (inorganic) silica based representation. We know that silica -the natural glass, other than the chemical silicone- is a basic component for the industrial fabrication of data storage devices for computers, cf. Silicon Valley, CA. If we accept now the hypothesis that one day silica will be the Bank of all human memory then we can surely say that every aer( )sculpture travels also as a Memory Ark .
Past, Present and Future are melted together into an unknown infinity where Space and Time become Logos.
Into an endless beginning…

Short CV

Dr. Ioannis MICHALOU(di)S had received his Ph.D in Visual Arts at the University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne in 1998. His artistic work till then was caracterized by the use of elastic fabric in site specific installations (in situ), envirommental art and public art projects. With his work he had participaterd in a lot of exhibitions and conferences around the world. In 2001 had received the Fulbright Award in order to achieve a post-doc research titled ‘’(IM)material Sculpture’’ at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The aer( )sculpture project is an Art&Science research concerning the creation of sculptures using silica aerogel, a material used by NASA in space exploration, an immaterial material having the appearance of a fragment of sky. The aer( )sculpture project had been presented:

We will mention three articles on the project:
I) “Aer( )sculpture: the enigmatic beauty of aerogel’s non-entity in a pilot art & science project”, Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, Volume 350, 15 December 2004, Pages 61-66
II) "BT" Japanese Art Magazine 9/2003, Vol 55, No 839, pp. 200-201, special section "ScienceHead", article by Ms. Fumio Iwamoto,
III) Aer()sculpture:Using a space material as a sculptural medium, http://www.olats.org/space/13avril/2005/te_iMichaloudis.html

Computer Games-based Learning: Research and Initiatives

by Prof. Michael Meimaris

New Technologies Laboratory, Department of Communication and Media Studies
University of Athens, Greece

Overview

Besides the long-ago established importance of gameplay as a privileged framework for learning and socialization, which promotes equality alongside with acceptance of differences, motivation through challenge and absence of punishment in the case or errors, modern digital games enjoy a number of additional features such as their enhanced capability to simulate real-world and everyday-life situations in a straightforward fashion, as well as their ability to attract player’s engagement through augmented playability mechanisms and balanced game feedback. All these features make digital games a most promising learning tool, in both formal and informal settings and for general and special education alike.

This keynote talk will revolve around research practices and initiatives in the area of computer-based learning, conducted by the New Technologies Laboratory in Communication, Education and the Mass Media of the University of Athens. Major emphasis will be placed on the defined learning framework for a specialized formation program for primary, secondary and special education teachers supporting students with mild mental retardation (MMR) and on the research and development, along the lines of this framework, of digital games-based learning (DGBL) material for MMR students deployed and tested within the special classroom, as part of practical seminars and hands-on activities. This work is conducted in the context of the EPINOISI R&D project (http://www.media.uoa.gr/epinoisi).

The digital games-based material for MMR students currently under development within the EPINOISI project is based on game applications already available as well as developed from scratch, covering subject matter relevant to language and mathematics skills for everyday life, interpersonal relations and communication, acquaintance with adult life, selected topics from the curriculum of secondary special education, as well as digital creative activities.

Short CV

Professor Michael Meimaris is the founder and director of the New Technologies Laboratory in Communication, Education and the Mass Media of the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies of the University of Athens. He is currently the Director of the University Research Institute of Applied Communication. He has studied Mathematics in the University of Athens and Statistics and computer based Data Analysis in Paris (University Paris VI Pierre et Marie Curie).