Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
Visor-less XR in museums. A Content Management System for Immersive Installations

The increasingly widespread XR technologies enable highly engaging immersive experiences, but they run the risk of isolating the user in an information bubble. Experiments in museum settings produce contradictory results: on the one hand, XR makes learning easier, but on the other hand, it can cause cognitive difficulties in visitors who are not used to it. At the same time, the issues that the staff in cultural institutions face in engaging with this kind of technology are often overlooked. The ongoing research project aims, on one side, at developing a technological framework capable of offering immersive environments through a smart MR-based system of projections only based on the user's position (thus deviceless). On the other side, the objective is the experimental development of a CMS (Content Management System) that is accessible to museum staff without IT expertise, and applicable to multiple situations of use.
Introducing Shopper Avatars in a Virtual Reality Store

Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) is rapidly altering the world we live in. Studies have shown that people exhibit similar behaviours and reactions in virtual retail scenarios, thus making iVR a promising tool for researchers to study in-store shopper behaviour. This paper investigates whether virtual avatars can affect users' perceived telepresence and shopping behavior. We recruited 54 participants to experience the virtual store and our findings showed the mere presence of virtual avatars in the store had no significant effect on participants' sense of telepresence and shopping behaviour. We believe this research highlighted the need for further study and contributed to the development of fully-fledged virtual simulated shopping experiences.
Power, Performance, and Image Quality Tradeoffs in Foveated Rendering

Extended reality (XR) devices, including augmented, virtual, and mixed reality, provide a deeply immersive experience. However, practical limitations like weight, heat, and comfort put extreme constraints on the performance, power consumption, and image quality of such systems. In this paper, we study how these constraints form the tradeoff between Fixed Foveated Rendering (FFR), Gaze-Tracked Foveated Rendering (TFR), and conventional, non-foveated rendering. While existing papers have often studied these methods, we provide the first comprehensive study of their relative feasibility in practical systems with limited battery life and computational budget. We show that TFR with the added cost of the gaze-tracker can often be more expensive than FFR. Thus, we co-design a gaze-tracked foveated renderer considering its benefits in computation, power efficiency, and tradeoffs in image quality. We describe principled approximations for eye tracking which provide up to a 9x speedup in runtime performance with approximately a 20x improvement in energy efficiency when run on a mobile GPU. In isolation, these approximations appear to significantly degrade the gaze quality, but appropriate compensation in the visual pipeline can mitigate the loss. Overall, we show that with a highly optimized gaze-tracker, TFR is feasible compared to FFR, resulting in up to 1.25x faster frame times while also reducing total energy consumption by over 40%.
Exploring Enhancements towards Gaze Oriented Parallel Views in Immersive Tasks

Parallel view is a technique that allows a VR user to see multiple locations at a time. It enables the user to control several remote or virtual body parts while seeing parallel views to solve synchronous tasks. However, these techniques only explored the benefits and drawbacks of a user performing different tasks. In this paper, we explored enhancements on a singular or asynchronous task by utilizing information obtained in parallel views. We developed three prototypes where parallel views are fixed, moving in symmetric order, or following the user's eye gaze. We conducted a user study to compare each prototype against traditional VR (without parallel views) in three types of tasks: object search and interaction tasks in a 1) simple environment and 2) complex environment, and 3) object distances estimation task. We found parallel views improved multi-embodiment while each technique helped different tasks. No parallel view provided a clean interface, thus improving spatial presence, mental effort, and user performance. However, participants' feedback highlighted potential usefulness and a lower physical effort by using parallel views to solve complicated tasks.
Toward Intuitive Acquisition of Occluded VR Objects Through an Interactive Disocclusion Mini-map

Standard selection techniques such as ray casting fail when virtual objects are partially or fully occluded. In this paper, we present two novel approaches that combine cone-casting, world-in-miniature, and grasping metaphors to disocclude objects in the representation local to the user. Through a within-subject study where we compared 4 selection techniques across 3 levels of object occlusion, we found that our techniques outperformed an alternative one that also focuses on maintaining the spatial relationships between objects. We discuss application scenarios and future research directions for these types of selection techniques.
Feasibility and Expert Acceptance of a Virtual Reality Gait Rehabilitation Tool

We present LocomotiVR, a Virtual Reality tool designed with physiotherapists to improve the gait rehabilitation in clinical practice. The tool features two interfaces: a VR environment to immerse the patient in the therapy activity; and a desktop tool operated by a physiotherapist to customize exercises and follow the patient's performance. Results revealed that LocomotiVR presented promising acceptability, usage, and engagement scores. These results were supported by qualitative data collected from participating experts, which discussed high levels of satisfaction, motivation, and acceptance to incorporate the LocomotiVR in daily therapy practices. Concerns were related to patient safety and lack of legal regulation.
See Through the Inside and Outside: Human Body and Anatomical Skeleton Prediction Network

In this work, it is the first time to use a monocular image with an arbitrary human pose to predict the human body and anatomical skeleton simultaneously. The framework, called STIO (See Through the Inside and Outside), considering the human anatomical con-straints, consists of a two-way reconstruction network that forms a strong collaboration between skeleton and skin.
ElboVR: Iterative Development of a VR Application for Post-Surgery Elbow Rehabilitation

Virtual Reality (VR) may help motivate at-home patients to perform the repetitive exercises necessary to regain mobility after orthopedic elbow surgery. This paper details the first three iterations in the development of ElboVR-a VR application developed together with therapists that allow patients to perform elbow exercises and provide physiotherapists with a new way of monitoring patients' Range of Motion (ROM).
Projector Illuminated Precise Stencils on Surgical Sites

We propose a system that provides realtime guidance to surgeons by illuminating salient markings on the physical surgical site using a projector. In addition to the projector, the system uses a RGB-D camera for feedback. This unit is called the projector-depth-camera or PDC unit. Using the PDC, we perform structured light scanning and generate a high resolution mesh of the surgical site. During planning or execution of the surgery, this digital model is marked by appropriate incision markings through a GUI. These markings are then illuminated at high precision via the PDC unit on the surgical site in realtime. If the surgical site moves during the process, the movement is tracked by the system and updated quickly on the moved surgical site.
Measuring Collision Anxiety in XR Exergames

Extended Reality (XR) applications have become increasingly relevant due to technical advances, but also have their own challenges regarding the user's real-world orientation. We propose a novel definition and a not yet validated questionnaire for the feeling of disorientation and fear of colliding with real objects in XR, called Collision Anxiety (CA). Participants (N = 37) played an AR and VR version of a game with results suggesting that while an AR game can provide a similar player experience compared to its VR equivalent, differences regarding CA exist.
Secure Authentication with 3D Manipulation in Dynamic Layout for Virtual Reality

Since Virtual Reality (VR) applications are applied with many traditional fields (e.g., education, game, shopping), the user authentication is necessary to protect privacy and security (e.g., Shoulder Surfing attacks). In this work, we design and implement an interactive sphere-like input layout for user authentication. To enhance the security, the layout of password keeps rotated dynamically, which asks users to enter different characters with slight hand movement changes. Furthermore, the layout can be rotated horizontally via touchpad of the VR controller, which can provide usability while maintaining high security. This research can enrich the knowledge-based authentication in VR.
AnnHoloTator: A Mixed Reality Collaborative Platform for Manufacturing Work Instruction Interaction

Admittedly, eXtend Reality (XR) technologies may play a key role in the digital transformation sparked by the Industry 4.0 initiative. Within the virtuality continuum, Augmented and Mixed Reality (AR, MR) emerge as disruptive technologies as they can improve industrial processes while maximizing worker efficiency and mobility by providing virtual elements in real-world scenarios where and when necessary. In particular, such technologies can foster the adoption of Lean Manufacturing (LM) paradigms supporting on-site assembly processes to improve productivity. We here describe how such an approach has been implemented in a real use case, with the development of AnnHoloTator, a collaborative mixed-reality platform for Microsoft Hololens 2 that allows users to visualize and manipulate digital documents directly in AR. Unlike existing systems, AnnHoloTator lets its users explore and modify the content of the digital documents stored in the cloud by interacting with their holograms. The system provides a data-flexible approach, considering that documents reside on a remote server, where also the majority of computation is performed. This provides an advantage: on-site professionals can directly annotate a virtual document and share it with other workers.
Cinematography in the Metaverse: Exploring the Lighting Education on a Soundstage

Lighting education is a foundational component of cinematography education. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on the design of a VR system for teaching cinematography. In this work, we present our VR soundstage system for instructors and learners to emulate cinematography lighting in virtual scenarios and then evaluate it from five aspects in the user study. Qualitative and quantitative feedback in our user study shows promising results. We further discuss the benefits of the approach and opportunities for future research.
Investigating Noticeable Hand Redirection in Virtual Reality using Physiological and Interaction Data

Hand redirection is effective so long as the introduced offsets are not noticeably disruptive to users. In this work we investigate the use of physiological and interaction data to detect movement discrepancies between a user's real and virtual hand, pushing towards a novel approach to identify discrepancies which are too large and therefore can be noticed. We ran a study with 22 participants, collecting EEG, ECG, EDA, RSP, and interaction data. Our results suggest that EEG and interaction data can be reliably used to detect visuo-motor discrepancies, whereas ECG and RSP seem to suffer from inconsistencies. Our findings also show that participants quickly adapt to large discrepancies, and that they constantly attempt to establish a stable mental model of their environment. Together, these findings suggest that there is no absolute threshold for possible non-detectable discrepancies; instead, it depends primarily on participants' most recent experience with this kind of interaction.
Application of XR technology in stomatology education: Theoretical basis, application scenarios and future prospects

Extended Reality (XR) technology is a new immersive technology based on Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mix Reality (MR). With the continuous development of science and technology, people are increasingly realizing that XR technology has practical significance in various fields, such as agriculture, medicine, education and other industries. We list some of the XR technologies currently in use in these areas and explain their role in promoting this area. At the same time, with people's attention on oral health, oral medicine is also getting more and more attention. We focus on the application of XR technology in stomatology education, analyze the theoretical basis of stomatology education and the application scenarios in the field of stomatology education, and put forward the prospect of the application of XR technology in the field of stomatology education.
Engaging Novice VR Users to VR for Education: Enhancing User Comfort, Health and Safety in VR and AR

Despite virtual reality's capacity to impact student engagement learning, and transfer to the physical world, adoption into education has been slow. Our team conducted two one-week summer camps in which students engaged with multiple educational XR tools, completed usability surveys, and engaged in focus groups about the tools. The learner experience design of these camps was done with a focus on safely engaging underrepresented middle school girls with XR experiences they could share with teachers and family members in the future. Camp design choices included safety and selection of experience <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">b</inf> .
Level-of-Detail AR: Dynamically Adjusting Augmented Reality Level of Detail Based on Visual Angle

Dynamically adjusting the content of augmented reality (AR) applications to efficiently display information best fitting the available screen estate may be important for user performance and satisfaction. Currently, there is not a common practice for dynamically adjusting the content of AR applications based on their apparent size in the user's view of the surround environment. We present a Level-of-Detail AR mechanism to improve the usability of AR applications at any relative size. Our mechanism dynamically renders textual and interactable content based on its legibility, interactability, and viewability respectively. When tested, Level-of-Detail AR functioned as intended out-of-the-box on 44 of the 45 standard user interface Unity prefabs in Microsoft's Mixed Reality Tool Kit. We additionally evaluated impact on task performance, user distance, and subjective satisfaction through a mixed-design user study with 45 participants. Statistical analysis of our results revealed significant task-dependent differences in user performance between the modes. User satisfaction was consistently higher for the Level-of-Detail AR condition.
Towards an Understanding of Distributed Asymmetric Collaborative Visualization on Problem-solving

This paper provided empirical knowledge of the user experience for using collaborative visualization in a distributed asymmetrical setting through controlled user studies. With the ability to access various computing devices, such as Virtual Reality (VR) head-mounted displays, scenarios emerge when collaborators have to or prefer to use different computing environments in different places. However, we still lack an understanding of using VR in an asymmetric setting for collaborative visualization. To get an initial understanding and better inform the designs for asymmetric systems, we first conducted a formative study with 12 pairs of participants. All participants collaborated in asymmetric (PC-VR) and symmetric settings (PC-PC and VR-VR). We then improved our asymmetric design based on the key findings and observations from the first study. Another ten pairs of participants collaborated with enhanced PC-VR and PC-PC conditions in a follow-up study. We found that a well-designed asymmetric collaboration system could be as effective as a symmetric system. Surprisingly, participants using PC perceived less mental demand and effort in the asymmetric setting (PC-VR) compared to the symmetric setting (PC-PC). We provided fine-grained discussions about the trade-offs between different collaboration settings.
Projection Mapping in the Light: A Preliminary Attempt to Substitute Projectors for Room Lights

Projection mapping (PM) in a bright room creates the problem of reducing the contrast of the projected texture because ambient lighting elevates the black level of the projection target. In this paper, we developed a pseudo-ambient lighting technique that turns off the original ambient lighting and reproduces its illumination from the projectors on surfaces other than the target. We confirmed that the proposed technique could reproduce a bright room while suppressing the contrast reduction of the projected texture on the target, which helped to improve the viewing experience.
Developing a Cyclist 3D GameObject for a Mixed Reality Interaction Framework

Mixed Reality could be used as a safe testbed to capture behavioural data of pedestrians when interacting with other road users, such as cyclists, by introducing a virtual cyclist. However for such real to virtual interaction to be more realistic, the cyclist GameObjects in Unity have to look and move similar to a real cyclist. The existing available 3D cyclist are currently not well suited for such interacting scenarios as they are assets based on prerecorded animations. In this work-in-progress paper we discuss our design of a 3D cyclist GameObject for interactions in Unity. We also explain how we exploit a mixed reality visualisation tool (i.e., Microsoft Spectator View) for our setup, allowing a second person view of a Hololens MR application. We further discuss the scenarios that we consider for a pedestrian-cyclist interaction with this work.
Exploring the Usefulness of Visual Indicators for Monitoring Students in a VR-based Teaching Interface

Teaching remotely using immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technol-ogy is becoming more popular as well as imperative with the ever-changing educational delivery methods. However, it is not easy for a teacher to monitor students in VR since only student avatars are visi-ble. We designed and tested two educational VR teaching interfaces to help a teacher monitor students. Our comparative analysis using a preliminary study with 5 participants showed that the teaching interface with centrally-arranged emoticon-like indicators, displaying a summary of student information, performed better than the interface with avatar-located indicators in terms of teaching duration, and classroom management.
Ninja Locker: A Hand-Gesture-Enabled Knowledge-Based VR Authentication Interface

This paper presents Ninja Locker, a hand-gesture-enabled knowledge-based virtual reality (VR) 3D authentication interface, in the context of the 2023 3DUI contest at the IEEE VR conference. Unlike most existing biometric-based gestural authentication systems, Ninja Locker takes advantage of the information asymmetry between a private VR-glass viewport and outsiders' perspective and creates a knowledge-based authentication process enabled by gestural recognition. The novel addition of confounding gestures also increases the security of the system. The proposed work provides a design framework and a prototype example of the 3DUI technique implementation using Unreal Engine Blueprint on Meta Quest 2 VR Headset.
A Communication-Focused Framework for Understanding Immersive Collaboration Experiences

The ability to collaborate with other people across barriers created by time and/or space is one of the greatest features of modern communication. Immersive technologies are positioned to enhance this ability to collaborate even further. However, we do not have a firm understanding of how specific immersive technologies, or components thereof, alter the ability for two or more people to communicate, and hence collaborate. In this work-in-progress position paper, we propose a new framework for immersive collaboration experiences and provide an example of how it could be used to understand a hybrid collaboration among two co-located users and one remote user. We are seeking feedback from the community before conducting a formal evaluation of the framework. We also present some future work that this framework could facilitate.
Bodystorming for VR in the Dark: Using Glow Sticks for Ideation and Rapid Prototyping

Exploration and rapid prototyping of design ideas for VR experiences is challenging for both novice and experienced designers as well as people that are not designers, especially in co-design projects. In this speculative paper, I propose Glowing Bodies, a bodystorming technique that leverages on the intrinsic immersive quality of a dark environment where participants use a simple prop, glow sticks, to create an embodied ideation and rapid prototyping space for VR.
In the Future Metaverse, What Kind of UGC do Users Need?

With the COVID-19 pandemic, people's real-life interactions diminished, and the game-based metaverse platforms such as Minecraft and Roblox are on the rise. The main users of these platforms are teenagers, they generate content in a virtual environment, which can significantly increase the activity of the platform. However, the experience of User-Generated Content in the metaverse is not very good. So what kind of support do users need to improve the efficiency of generating content in the metaverse? To investigate teenage users' preferences and expectations of it, this paper interviewed 72 teenagers aged 12–22 who are familiar with the metaverse game, and distilled 4 suggestions that can help promote metaverse users to generate content.
Immersive Visualization Lab at Idaho National Laboratory

This article introduces the Applied Visualization Laboratory at Idaho National Laboratory, including the lab's success and challenges as an immersive visualization laboratory. Also, it discusses the future direction of the immersive virtual environment and visualization.
CompenHR: Efficient Full Compensation for High-resolution Projector

Full projector compensation is a practical task of projector-camera systems. It aims to find a projector input image, named compensation image, such that when projected it cancels the geometric and photometric distortions due to the physical environment and hardware. State-of-the-art methods use deep learning to address this problem and show promising performance for low-resolution setups. However, directly applying deep learning to high-resolution setups is impractical due to the long training time and high memory cost. To address this issue, this paper proposes a practical full compensation solution. Firstly, we design an attention-based grid refinement network to improve geometric correction quality. Secondly, we integrate a novel sampling scheme into an end-to-end compensation network to alleviate computation and introduce attention blocks to preserve key features. Finally, we construct a benchmark dataset for high-resolution projector full compensation. In experiments, our method demonstrates clear advantages in both efficiency and quality.