Tutorials Program

1. Controlling Your World: Scripting in Second Life (Hands On)
2. Developing VR applications with the inVRs framework
3. Walking through Virtual Worlds: One Virtual Step for Man, one
   Giant Leap for VR? (Hands On)
4. Designing immersive VR systems: from bits to bolts
5. Building your own projection-based VR display system

-------------------------------------------------------------

1. Title: Controlling Your World: Scripting in Second Life (Hands On Tutorial)

Duration: Full Day

Date: Saturday March 20th (all day)

URL: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcmn97sr_51z42dmbdc

Organizer:

• Kent Quirk - Linden Lab

Lecturers:

• John Lester - Linden Lab
• Jeremy Franklin - Linden Lab
• Kent Quirk - Linden Lab

Target Audience: People with basic knowledge of programming and an
interest in Second Life

Abstract:
Everything you see in Second Life -- each object, building, bit of
clothing, or avatar -- is created by its residents. What makes it all
come to life? Scripting. Second Life has a scripting language called
LSL along with a rich set of functions (API) for sensing and
manipulating the virtual world. This tutorial will include:

• A demonstration of a variety of scripted objects to motivate the discussion.
• A look at scripting in Second Life -- tools, terminology, techniques. We'll talk about the design of LSL and compare it to other languages.
• An overview of the functions supported by the API.
• A detailed walkthrough of at least one scripted object.
• Plenty of hands-on time to build and test your own.

Attendees who want to try for themselves should bring a 3D-capable
laptop (Mac, PC, or Linux).

-------------------------------------------------------------

2. Title: Developing VR applications with the inVRs framework

Duration: Half Day

Date: Saturday March 20th (morning)

URL: http://trac.invrs.org/wiki/tutorials/inVRsVR10

Organizer:

• Christoph Anthes - JKU Linz

Lecturers:

• Christoph Anthes - JKU Linz
• Roland Landertshamer - RISC Software GmbH

Target Audience: Advanced applications developers

Abstract:
To improve the development process of Virtual Environments and
Networked Virtual Environments the inVRs (interactive networked
Virtual Reality system) application framework provides a clearly
structured approach for the design of highly interactive and
responsive NVEs. It consists of three independent modules, one for
interaction, one for navigation, and one for network communication,
two interface layers to support a variety of output and input devices,
and a system core which stores and manages the state of the VE. This
half-day tutorial will present the concepts of the framework, basic
application development of an interactive NVE and advanced features
like the inclusion of own input devices, the support of multi-display
systems, and the use of articulated avatars in combination with
tracking systems. Finally, an outlook on additional available inVRs
and OpenSG tools is given

-------------------------------------------------------------

3. Title: Walking through Virtual Worlds: One Virtual Step for Man, one
Giant Leap for VR? (Hands On Tutorial)

Duration: Half Day

Date: Saturday March 20th (afternoon)

URL: http://locui.uni-muenster.de/VR2010Tutorial/

Organizer:

• Frank Steinicke - University of Münster, Germany

Speaker:

• Frank Steinicke - University of Münster, Germany
• Anatole Lécuyer - INRIA Rennes, France
• Marc O. Ernst - MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Germany

Target Audience: Novice to experienced designers, researchers and end-users

Abstract:
Active exploration enables to construct a rich and coherent percept of
our environment. The most natural way to move through the real world
for us humans is walking. Keeping such a dynamic ability to navigate
through large-scale immersive virtual environments (VEs) is of great
interest for many 3D applications. However, today it is still mostly
impossible to freely walk through VEs in order to actively explore
them. The primary reason for this is the scientific and technological
underdevelopment in this sector. VEs were initially restricted to
visual displays, combined with joystick or mouse, for providing
unnatural inputs and outputs associated with self-motion. More and
more research groups are investigating more natural, multimodal
methods of generating such self-motion capabilities in VEs.
In this tutorial we will present an overview about the development of
walking interfaces for VEs ranging from desktop-based camera
manipulations simulating walking, and different walking metaphors to
state-of-the-art hardware-based solutions that enable better
simulations of ground or floor properties and omni-directional and
unlimited real walking through virtual worlds.

-------------------------------------------------------------

4. Title: Designing immersive VR systems: from bits to bolts

Duration: Half Day

Date: Sunday March 21st (morning)

URL: http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/~lpsoares/BitsAndBolts/

Organizers:

• Luciano P. Soares – Tecgraf / Pontifical Catholic University of Rio
• Joaquim A. Jorge – Instituto Superior Técnico

Lecturers:

• Luciano P. Soares – Tecgraf / Pontifical Catholic University of Rio
• Joaquim A. Jorge – Instituto Superior Técnico
• José Miguel Salles Dias – Microsoft Language Development Center
• Ming Lin – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Alberto Raposo – Tecgraf / Pontifical Catholic University of Rio
• Bruno R. de Araújo – Instituto Superior Técnico

Target Audience: Novice to experienced technical people

Abstract: Immersive environments have become affordable for many research
centers. However, a complete solution needs several integration steps
to be fully operational. Some of these steps are difficult to
accomplish and require an uncommon combination of different skills.
This tutorial presents the most recent techniques developed from
display to software tools. The hardware in a typical VR installations
combines projectors, screens, speakers, computers, tracking and I/O
devices. The tutorial will discuss hardware options, explaining their
advantages and disadvantages. We will cover design decisions from
basic software and hardware design, through user interfaces and
acoustical rendering to how to administrate the whole solution.
Additionally we provide an introduction to tracking systems,
explaining how the most common devices work. Finally we briefly cover
integration software and middleware developed for most settings.

-------------------------------------------------------------

5. Title: Building your own projection-based VR display system

Duration: Half Day

Date: Sunday March 21st (afternoon)

URL: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~majumder/VRcourse.htm

Organizer:

• Aditi Majumder - Department of Computer Science, University of California, Irvine.

Lecturers:

• Aditi Majumder - Department of Computer Science, University of California, Irvine.
• Behzad Sajadi - Department of Computer Science, University of California, Irvine.

Target Audience: Novice to technical experts, people who are
interested in building tiled projection based displays easily

Abstract:
Recent advances on auto-calibration of multi-projector displays on
non-planar surfaces common in VR applications -- like cylinders and
piecewise planar caves – have made it possible for non-experts to
think of building their own immersive VR displays. We believe
immersive VR displays can be released from their quarantined state in
large labs/universities being maintained by a set of trained
professional crew.
This tutorial will presents an overview of automated geometric and
color registration techniques to build multi-projector displays with
special emphasis on techniques that allow shapes common to immersive
VR displays (like cylinders or CAVEs), inexpensive commodity devices,
stereo setups, moving user(s) and dynamic scenes. The goal of this
tutorial is to impart sufficient information that the audience can
build their own immersive VR displays, and expose the audience to
potential research topics in such display design.