Special track papers should be submitted through the online submission management system and will go through the review process.

Full papers (10–20 pages), and short papers (6-10 pages) not previously published will be accepted.

Please visit the paper submission page for further information.

 

ST1: Augmented Visualization in Surgery

Organizers:
Lucio Tommaso De Paolis, University of Salento, Italy
Vincenzo Ferrari, EndoCAS, Italy
Fabrizio Cutolo, EndoCAS, Italy

The use of Augmented Reality in surgery has the potential to bring the advantages of the open-surgery visualization also in minimally invasive surgery providing systems that help surgeons in the intra-operative phase. This technology can “augment” surgeon’s visualization by means of the overlapping of virtual information of the organs on the real patient and allows the surgeon to have a sort of “X-ray vision” of the patient’s internal anatomy and can produce a reduction in the duration of the surgical procedure and perform the tasks reducing the risks for the patient. In order to obtain a correct alignment of virtual and real organs, a  correct registration procedure based on fiducial points is carried out.
The aim of this special track is to bring together researchers in order to share points of views, impressions, and experiences on the benefits and limitations of the use of the augmented reality in surgery and to collect high quality full and short papers addressing this research area.

 

 

ST2: Cloud Computing for Augmented Reality, Computer Graphics and Visualization

Organizers:
Italo Epicoco, University of Salento, Italy
Massimo Cafaro, University of Salento, Italy

Augmented Reality has found promising applications in various segments such as commerce, art, architecture and education. With the growing of smart features and sensors in the mobiles and tablets, these portable devices are becoming the emperors of digital world of today resulting in a new platform to be opened for AR in the day-to-day life of common people. However, the limited capabilities in terms of computing processing and data storage of such portable devices represents strong bound for efficient and powerful AR applications. The cloud computing technologies would provide the enabling solution to overcome the computing limiting factors of mobile devices providing a powerful environment to demand the heavy processing and data storage repository required by an AR applications.
The track aims at discussing the state-of-the-art research in cloud computing applied as enabling technologies for augmented reality, computer graphics and visualization for smart devices applications. Emphasis will be on novel advanced frameworks, solutions and technologies, as well as the related issues for computational environments and infrastructures.

 

 

ST3: Mobile Augmented Reality for Digital Cultural Heritage

Organizers:
Roberto Pierdicca, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy
Emanuele Frontoni, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy

Latest improvement on mobile device capabilities definitively changed the way people experience their surroundings. Devices are able to sense the environment thanks to the growing enhancement of built in sensors. Augmented Reality has benefit of this trend, so that Mobile AR (MAR) has become a de-facto discipline. Among others, for Cultural Heritage purposes we witnessed to an incredible growth of applications in three main areas of interest: archaeology, museums and tourism. However, the lack of interoperability and data standardization still prevents MAR from becoming a mass consuming technology for the fruition and exploitation of cultural goods.
The track aims to discuss the state-of-the-art researches in MAR technology applied to Cultural Heritage in terms of both location-based and vision-based solutions. A special focus will be dedicated on novel advances in terms of data standardization and description to discuss over the necessity of a common standard for an interoperable development of AR applications and on semantic web approaches for AR browsers.

 

 

ST4: Industrial Applications of Augmented and Virtual Reality

Organizers:
Antonio Emmanuele Uva, Politecnico di Bari, Italy
Patrick Bourdot, CNRS/LIMSI, University Paris-Sud, France

After thirty years of research, Mixed Reality (MR) is still used mainly in gaming, virtual tourism and navigation. However, MR has a huge potential not yet expressed in CAD design, engineering support, production and maintenance. MR can bring significant benefits in the product lifecycle of the factory of the future. One of the key advantages is that it can provide engineers and operators with real time technical documentation and data: digitized text documents, 2D drifting, CAD models, multimedia, animations, etc. Another key element is the registration in space, which reduces the time to retrieve the right information at the right place.
The aim of this special track is to identify challenges, opportunities, and new applications of MR in the industrial and engineering context, disseminate recent insights and findings by the CAD/CAM communities, demonstrate the integration between different disciplines such as engineering, computer science and human factors, and define and discuss theoretical usability, computational issues and cutting edge techniques across multiple and diversified fields.

Researchers and experts from academia and industry are invited to share their original work by submitting research and application papers on the following topics:
– methods for industrial MR solutions;
– studies on Usability & Validation of MR in CAD\E;
– collaborative industrial MR systems;
– methods and workflow from CAD\E to MR;
– visualization of complex CAD\E data in MR;
– innovative metaphors to access to interactive product data;
– simplification of CAD\E workflow in service and maintenance procedures;
– MR in safety‐critical systems;
– CAD\E data on mobile systems;
– cognitive models for understanding the impact of MR on human perception.

 

 

ST5: Multisensory Augmentation in Virtual Reality

Organizers:
Monica Bordegoni, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Francesco Ferrise, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

The increased capabilities and performances of technology together with the ever increasing expectations of users radically change the way we expect to experience and interact with Virtual Reality. The artificial world we create can be sensed through multiple sensory channels as when living a real experience. Visual, aural, haptic and olfactory augmentations can be used to create new immersive experiences which have never been felt before. We can touch and feel the virtual objects, we see in the scene thanks to haptic technology while the more recent olfactory displays allow us also to sense the odors of the scene.
The virtual environment can elicit only one of our senses, or more than one, in an increasing realism of what we experience. Many are the applications that can benefit of multisensory augmentation, including industrial, medical, gaming, and others.

 

 

ST6: Natural Interfaces for Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Organizers:
Fabrizio Lamberti, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Gianluca Paravati, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Anthony Whitehead, Carleton University, Canada

Recent years have been characterized by enormous developments regarding technology for virtual, augmented and mixed reality, with an ever larger number of big IT players, from Apple, to Google, Microsoft and Samsung, to name a few, entering or strengthening their position in the market. It is not difficult to foresee a further explosion of opportunities for such solutions in the near future, with the creation of ever more powerful devices, sophisticated applications and a greater expansion of related technologies at the consumer level.
Despite such potential, work is still needed to allow users to interact with the myriad of content options in a natural way given all the usage scenarios envisaged for the considered technologies. In fact, although tangible, haptic, tactile, visual as well as gesture-, speech- and biosignal-based interfaces, among others, have been examined already in a number of situations, there is not a technology or method that has emerged yet as the ultimate interaction solution applicable, for instance, in immersive environments, with mobile and wearable devices, in industrial settings, etc. 

The objective of this special track is to collect high quality full and short papers addressing all the research areas pertaining natural Human-Computer Interaction with virtual, augmented and mixed reality contents, with a focus on the following topics:
– input devices and sensor technologies;
– advanced displays;
– immersive and projected environments;
– wearable and mobile devices;
– distributed and collaborative platforms;
– 3D selection, manipulation and interaction;
– locomotion and navigation;
– intelligent and multi-modal interfaces;
– perception, presence and virtual embodiment;
– teleoperation and telepresence;
– entertainment, gaming and cultural heritage;
– education and training;
– industry and workplace-oriented tools;
– health and rehabilitation;
– simulation and scientific visualization;
– user studies and evaluation;
– systems, services and toolkits.

 

 

ST7: Outdoor Augmented Reality Visualization

Organizer:
Silvia Mabel Castro, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina

Augmented Reality applications enrich the real world environment with ideally just enough synthetic information to overcome the limitations of the real world for a specific application. This kind of visualization is a powerful tool for exploring real world structures along with additional contextual information. The visual interaction between virtual and real world imagery is the main advantage of Augmented Reality visualizations compared to traditional ones.
In outdoor Augmented Reality visualization, we focus on the challenges of visualizations situated in the physical world by considering those that are relevant to the physical context in which they are displayed. These should allow the user to move freely in their environment and to see and interact in real-time with geo-referenced data via mobile devices. There are many scientific and non-scientific application areas that can be benefit from techniques that spatially integrate virtual objects within real world environments and constitute a very wide and interesting application field.
The aim of this track is to bring together researchers from different disciplines in order to identify the challenges and the new application areas for Outdoor Augmented Reality Visualization and to collect high quality full and short papers addressing this research area.

 

 

ST8: New Trends in Virtual Reality of Cultural Heritage

Organizer:
Andres Bustillo, University of Burgos, Spain

Virtual reconstructions of Cultural Heritage, whether small artefacts or entire cities, are powerful tools, both for research and educational purposes, as well as for the divulgation of our past. Different techniques have been developed over recent decades to create virtual reconstructions using CAD, photogrammetry, laser scanning and photoscanning, as well as hybrid combinations of these techniques. Special effort has gone into creating low-density 3D Models that allow real time interaction with the final user. Moreover, new ways of presenting these 3D Models have been tested: Internet, 3D caves, mobile devices, etc. The target user who will interact with a 3D Model also determines the best technique for its creation, because a virtual environment aspiring to be a learning process for young students hardly requires the same approach as a museum exhibition open to the general public.

The objective of this special track is to gather experiences from around the world on the following topics:
– improvements in CAD techniques, photoscanning, laser scanning, and hybrid techniques to create virtual reconstructions;
– new ways of interacting with virtual reconstructions (Internet, games, etc);
– applied experiences of virtual reconstructions of Cultural Heritage for different target populations (students, general public, etc.).