The visual representation of human-like entities in virtual worlds is becoming a very important aspect as virtual reality becomes more and more "social". The visual representation of a character's resemblance to a real person and the emotional response to it, as well as the expectations raised, have been a topic of discussion for several decades and have been debated by scientists from different disciplines. But as with any new technology, the findings may need to be reevaluated and adapted to new modalities. In this context, we make two contributions which may have implications for how avatars should be represented in social virtual reality applications. First, we determine how default and customized characters of current social virtual reality platforms appear in terms of human likeness, eeriness, and likability, and whether there is a clear resemblance to a given person. It can be concluded that the investigated platforms vary strongly in their representation of avatars. Common to all is that a clear resemblance does not exist. Second, we show that the uncanny valley effect is also present in head-mounted displays, but-compared to 2D monitors-even more pronounced.

Virtual reality becomes a medium to be explored for itself, to study human factors and human behavior within these worlds, and to infer possible behavior in the real world. Among many advantages, building test routines in virtual environments remains a challenge due to the lack of established procedures and toolkits. To encourage research in this direction and lower the barrier to entry, it is necessary to simplify the process of setting up a research environment in virtual reality by providing appropriate toolkits. This paper discusses what challenges need to be overcome, what features might be relevant, and compares available toolkits.

The uncanny valley describes a relationship between the degree of the emotional response with respect to a character's resemblance to an actual human being. It has been a topic for several decades and has been discussed by scholars of different disciplines and in various aspects such as robotics, 3D computer animations, interactive applications, and even lifelike dolls. With the increasing popularity of photo-realistic computer animation and telepresence applications, we are more and more exposed to characters that might be affected by the uncanny valley effect. Recent research suggests that the output medium, such as a monitor or head-mounted display, can have a significant effect on how we perceive given visualizations. In relation to the uncanny valley, we observe a similar effect in our study: characters appear significantly more eerie as well as humanlike when watched on a head-mounted virtual reality headset instead of a monitor. The amplification we see is similar to the findings that the uncanny valley effect is more pronounced when the respective characters are in motion.

In virtual reality different demands on the user interface have to be addressed than on classic screen applications. That's why established strategies from other digital media cannot be transferred unreflected and at least adaptation is required. So one of the leading questions is: which form of interface is preferable for virtual reality? Are 2D interfaces—that are mostly used in combination with mouse or touch interactions— the means of choice, although they do not use the medium's full capabilities? What about 3D interfaces that can be naturally integrated into the virtual space? And last but not least: are speech interfaces, the fastest and most natural form of human interaction/communication, which have recently established themselves in other areas (e.g. digital assistants), ready to conquer the world of virtual reality? To answer these question this work compares these three approaches based on a quantitative user study and highlights advantages and disadvantages of the respective interfaces for virtual reality applications.

This paper discusses how different physically existing materials can be mapped on virtual textures in mixed reality environments by carrying out an explorative user study (n=101). For physical materials-in form of 3d trackable and moveable cubes-acrylic, wood and aluminum have been used. The virtual textures convey the impression of ceramic, fabric, glass, leather, paper, wood, acrylic, quartz, granite and aluminum. The study reveals which virtual textures match well with the different virtual textures and which do not match at all.

Although digital revolution has pervaded almost every part of daily life, cities remained seemingly analogue and furthermore inhabitants are mostly excluded from the digital layer. By replacing timeworn light bulbs with a projector linked with an intelligent sensor array we expect to increase social interaction within open spaces by creating a more engaging way through the city and reduce the use of distracting and separating mobile devices. We propose several applications to support the weakest traffic participants -- pupils -- having a safe way to school and back, prevent accidents and guide pedestrians through an increasingly complex city. We want to provide a more economical, safer and smarter way to lighten up the way through future cities.