The goal of this study is to determine how a self-avatar in virtual reality, experienced from different viewpoints on the body (at eye- or chest-height), might influence body part localization, as well as self-localization within the body. Previous literature shows that people do not locate themselves in only one location, but rather primarily in the face and the upper torso. Therefore, we aimed to determine if manipulating the viewpoint to either the height of the eyes or to the height of the chest would influence self-location estimates towards these commonly identified locations of self. In a virtual reality (VR) headset, participants were asked to point at several of their body parts (body part localization) as well as ”directly at you” (self-localization) with a virtual pointer. Both pointing tasks were performed before and after a self-avatar adaptation phase where participants explored a co-located, scaled, gender-matched, and animated self-avatar. We hypothesized that experiencing a self-avatar might reduce inaccuracies in body part localization, and that viewpoint would influence pointing responses for both body part and self-localization. Participants overall pointed relatively accurately to some of their body parts (shoulders, chin, and eyes), but very inaccurately to others, with large undershooting for the hips, knees, and feet, and large overshooting for the top of the head. Self-localization was spread across the body (as well as above the head) with the following distribution: the upper face (25%), the upper torso (25%), above the head (15%) and below the torso (12%). We only found an influence of viewpoint (eye- vs chest-height) during the self-avatar adaptation phase for body part localization and not for self-localization. The overall change in error distance for body part localization for the viewpoint at eye-height was small (M = –2.8 cm), while the overall change in error distance for the viewpoint at chest-height was significantly larger, and in the upwards direction relative to the body parts (M = 21.1 cm). In a post-questionnaire, there was no significant difference in embodiment scores between the viewpoint conditions. Most interestingly, having a self-avatar did not change the results on the self-localization pointing task, even with a novel viewpoint (chest-height). Possibly, body-based cues, or memory, ground the self when in VR. However, the present results caution the use of altered viewpoints in applications where veridical position sense of body parts is required.

In this work we present a collaborative virtual reality application for distributed engineering tasks, including a simple avatar calibration method. Use cases for the application include CAD review, ergonomics analyses or virtual training. Full-body avatars with approximately natural motion characteristics are used to improve collaboration in terms of co-presence and embodiment. Through a calibration process, scaled avatars based on body measurements can be generated by users from within the VR application. For motion tracking, only the tracking capabilities of the VR devices used (head mounted display and hand controllers) are required, in order to achieve a low initialization effort for usage of the application. We demonstrate a simple, yet effective method for measuring the human body which requires these VR devices only. Tracking only the user's head and hands, we require inverse kinematics (IK) for avatar motion reconstruction. On the other hand, this requires a calibrated avatar, otherwise body postures and gestures will be misrepresented. In the first step of the demo, two users can create their calibrated avatar at the same time and then carry out a collaborative CAD review in the second step.

Virtual Reality supports collaboration among partners across departments and fields, independent of physical boundaries. Virtual reality applications can solve the time and cost consuming logistic problem that companies encounter when sending experts to remote locations. However, it is not yet clear how effective partners collaborate when in remote locations. In one experiment, we examined whether partners who are physically in the same room and interact with each other before they start collaborating affects performance compared to collaborators who meet and interact only within the virtual space. Participants had to solve a Rubik's cube type three-dimensional puzzle by arranging cubes that varied in color within a solution space in such a way, so that each side of the solution space showed a single color. Participants were immersed within a virtual environment and in one condition participants were collocated in the same room (local condition), while in the other one they were located in different rooms (remote condition). Results showed that collaborators in both conditions successfully completed the task but performance was better during the local compared to the remote condition.

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the 25th IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR), the premiere international conference focused on research in these domains! This year the name of the conference changed since the highly successful 12-year IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces is brought back into the main VR conference. It is a tremendous honor to host the conference in Reutlingen on its first return to Germany since 2005. Reutlingen is situated nicely with respect to our research institutes, the city has the charm of a southern German town, and the recently built (2013) Stadthalle and concert venue has a professional team that is experienced in conferences highlighting innovation in technology. This venue has enabled us to create a large program both in scientific content and in terms of demonstration and exhibit space.

We describe ProDesk, an ubiquitous, projection-based touch surface system that extends the screen space of today's desktop computer workplaces to the whole surface of an ordinary office desk, along with highly accurate multi-touch interaction. The objective of this system is to offer users more flexibility on tasks in which lots of complex information have to be handled. We propose a novel user interface concept that extends normal WIMP functionality and a software architecture that implements this UI concept. We present evaluation results of the system in technical benchmarks and a user study.

Our vision is that regardless of future variations in the interior of airplane cabins, we can utilize ever-advancing state-of-the-art virtual and mixed reality technologies with the latest research in neuroscience and psychology to achieve high levels of comfort for passengers. Current surveys on passenger's experience during air travel reveal that they are least satisfied with the amount and effectiveness of their personal space, and their ability to work, sleep or rest. Moreover, considering current trends it is likely that the amount of available space is likely to decrease and therefore the passenger's physical comfort during a flight is likely to worsen significantly. Therefore, the main challenge is to enable the passengers to maintain a high level of comfort and satisfaction while being placed in a restricted physical space.