INTUITION WG2.8

From EuroVR Knowledge Base

Contents

Mission and Scope

The Evaluation and Testing Working group is rather a horizontal one in the Network. This means that it is needed from and needs of other WGs, especially the application oriented ones. The rationality behind this is obvious, as evaluation and testing is a stage in the product/service design or development process that follows the conceptualization and prototyping phase and is essential for a successful product delivery.

The core area addressed within this WG is the use of VR in the evaluation and testing processes of products and services. The technology itself is now being used as an actual working tool going quite further than its early use as a simple visualisation scheme. As technology has matured its use in the early evaluation of prototypes and systems is becoming quite appealing. Proving its robustness and providing the fact that it can decrease the need for physical prototypes while on the same time bringing the user early enough in the design and development process the ground for using VR as a standard tool within evaluation approaches is very good.

Service Areas offered by the Evaluation and Testing Working Group

The services offered by this WG to the VR community fall within four different categories:

AREA 1: Use of VR as a tool in production and service, in the evaluation and testing of products, processes and services

  • habitability of environments,
  • evaluation of procedures for feasibility, optimization, …
  • product conception,
  • design inspections,
  • product ergonomics,
  • etc.

AREA 2: Human factors in the use of VR systems

It is worthwhile assessing the user’s experience of VR as user acceptance of new technologies is important, not only for take-up of this technology but also for ensuring worker productivity.

Long-term use of the technology and being engaged in a VE for a large part of a day may have far-reaching consequences socially as well as psychologically.

Topics of interest include:

  • usability,
  • ergonomics
  • presence: We consider that it is necessary to study and carry out more research about Presence in aspects like:
    • Validity of methods for measuring Presence.
    • Relationship between several determinant factors and Presence.
    • Relationship between Presence and the effectiveness of applications
  • side-effects,
  • acceptance,
  • etc.

For more detailed information about Evaluation Methods see Methods_and_Guidelines

AREA 3: Technical evaluation and testing of VR systems

We envision a future in which VR/VE systems can be developed mainly by the assembly of an appropriate set of pre-existing elements, taken from a library of reusable components, minimizing the need to develop from scratch. In order for this to be possible, a standardized architecture for VR/VE systems with clear interfaces among components should be established.

Starting from this architecture, there will be the need to define specific evaluation methods and tools for the evaluation of every VR/VE system component, with respect to: internal functionalities, external services, satisfaction of the application requirements, flexibility, etc.

Once we are able to evaluate a component, the next step would be the definition of methods for the comparison of existing reusable VR/VE system components and the selection of the most appropriate ones according to the needs of a new system to be developed.

Topics of interest are:

  • evaluation of VR components and subsystems,
  • VR architectures,
  • VR development platforms and tools,
  • Evaluation of 3D models
  • Evaluation of interaction devices (haptics, tracking…)
  • Evaluation of virtual humans: including the evaluation of
    • the realism of its appearance,
    • the believability of its behavior,
    • the range of cognitive capabilities that it encompasses,
    • its perceptual abilities,
    • etc.
  • Integration testing
    • etc.

AREA 4: Evaluation of the results of using VR systems

  • benefits and effectiveness of using VR,
  • effectiveness in education and training,
  • organizational impact,
  • etc.

Additionally, the WG is committed to conduct basic research on evaluation and testing. Some of the research goals that can be identified are:

  • General framework for the evaluation of VR/VE systems
  • General framework and/or benchmark for the comparison of evaluation results
  • Guides for the selection of evaluation and testing methods, techniques and tools
  • New evaluation and testing methods, techniques and tools
  • General theory of Presence, its determinant factors, measurement methods, impact on VR effectiveness
  • Short- and Long-term consequences of VR use
  • Instrumentation of VR systems
  • Etc.

Activities

The following information is a summary of the results of our activities.

Results

A major part of the Working Group's activity has been the production of the following documents:

  • The Term of Reference (ToR), which is now integrated into the Methods_and_Guidelines section
  • The Research Roadmap, which you can find here

Dissemination

  • Tideman, M., M.C. van der Voort & F.J.A.M. van Houten (2007). Using Virtual reality for scenario based product design. In: Coutellier Fischer, X. (Ed.), Research in Interactive Design. Berlin, Germany: Springer Verlag.
  • D. Reidsma, Z. Ruttkay, & A. Nijholt. Challenges for virtual humans in human computing. In: AI for Human Computing. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 4451. M. Pantic, S. Pentland, A. Nijholt, & T. Huang (Eds.), ISBN 978-3-540-72346-2, Springer Verlag, Berlin, 2007, 316-338.
  • Westerink, J. H. D. M., Broek, E. L. van den, Schut, M. H., Herk, J. van, and Tuinenbreijer, K. (2007). Computing emotion awareness through galvanic skin response and facial electromyography. J. H. D. M. Westerink, M. Ouwerkerk, T. overbeek, W. F. Pasveer, and B. de Ruyter (Eds.) Probing Experiences: From Academic Research to Commercial Propositions (Part II: Probing in order to feed back, Chapter 14; p. 137-150). Springer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands. [Invited contribution; in press] ISBN-13: 978-1-4020-6592-7 (HB) / ISBN-13: 978-1-4020-6593-4 (e-book)
  • Konstantinos Loupos, Dimitrios Christopoulos, Luca Vezzadini, Wytze Hoekstra, Waleed Salem, Paul Chung, - APPLICATION OF VR AND HF TECHNOLOGIES FOR IMPROVING INDUSTRIAL SAFETY, NHIBE 2007 Conference proceedings, Rhodes, August 2007.
  • Konstantinos Loupos, Luca Vezzadini, Wytze Hoekstra, Waleed Salem, Paul Chung, - VR, HF AND RULE-BASED TECHNOLOGIES APPLIED AND COMBINED FOR IMPROVING INDUSTRIAL SAFETY. HCI 2007 Conference Proceedings volume 6, LNCS_4555, ISBN: 978-3-540-73280-9.
  • Dr. Angelos Amditis, Dr. Guiseppe Varalda, Dr. Dennis Saluäär, Irene Mantzouranis, Konstantinos Loupos, Dr. Angelos Bekiaris - HOW VR SUPPORTS THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADAS -IVIS AND INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, ITS2007 - China
  • Konstantinos Loupos, Luca Vezzadini, Wytze Hoekstra, Waleed Salem, Paul Chung, Matthaios Bimpas: VR, HF and Rule-Based Technologies Applied and Combined for Improving Industrial Safety. HCI (6) 2007: 676-680
  • Activity Plan Structure and Processing in Virtual Environments for Training Supported by Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Leticia Sánchez, Ricardo Imbert, Jaime Ramírez. ICALT'2007. 7th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies. J.M. Spector, D.G. Sampson, T. Okamoto, Kinshuk, S.A. Cerri, M. Ueno, A. Kashihara (eds.). Pp. 162-164. Niigata, Japan. 2007.
  • Effective Student Assistance in Virtual Reality Based Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Leticia Sánchez, Ricardo Imbert. ICALT'2007. 7th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies. J.M. Spector, D.G. Sampson, T. Okamoto, Kinshuk, S.A. Cerri, M. Ueno, A. Kashihara (eds.). Pp. 424-426. Niigata, Japan. 2007.

Conferences and Special Sessions

  • BUW, Co-chair at IPT/EGVE Symposium in Weimar, July 15-18th
  • UPM, UMA (and other Spanish partners), Organizers of the First Spanish Conference on Virtual Reality (JoReVir'2007) as part of the Spanish National Conference on Informatics (CEDI'2007)

Research Proposals

  • Collaborative immersive environments (C-IT). Submitted to the EU FP6. Status: Rejected
  • Combination of sensOri-motor Renderings for the immerSive AnalysIs of laRge and complex databases (CORSAIR). Submitted to the EU FP6. Status: Rejected
  • Multimodal and Adaptive Interfaces for managing anxiety, workload and fatigue in Virtual Environments (MARVIN). Submitted to the EU FP6. Status: Rejected
  • ROBOTUTOR (Self-conscious robot trained for human robot collaboration). Submitted to the EU FP7 ICT-2007.2.2 Cognitive Systems, Interaction, Robotics. INTUITION partners - ICCS, TAS-I, UNott, UPM. Status: Rejected
  • EU FP7: The STREP IMVIS is invited for negotiations and will probably start January 1st.

Meetings

For minutes of previous meetings please register for WG2.8 on the INTUITION forum from the INTUITION website

Internal Projects

  • Feasability study for a common user interface for casual VR users. DC, ICCS, FhG, VTEC (in progress)
  • Integration of Hyper-Redundant Haptic Display ViSHaRD10 and I-TOUCH Software. TUM
  • Evaluation of an Architecture for Intelligent virtual environments for education and training. UPM, UMA and Tecnatom (under evaluation)

Mobility Schemes

  • UNOTT, AAS-I, VTEC. Harshada Patel. Finished.
  • ICCS, DC, FhG. Nikos Frangakis. Finished.
  • UPM and UNott “impact on trainees of a proposed intelligent virtual agent” (under evaluation)
  • UPM and USal “evaluation of non-verbal cues as indicators of collaboration in CVEs” (in preparation)

Members

There are currently 12 members of this working group as follows:

Private Work Area

WG2.8 Private Work Area

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