Southern Hemisphere (SoHem) XR Weeks

30 October 2023, by HCI-UHH

Photo: ACM VRST

The SoHem XR weeks from 9th to 20th October 2023 staged a line-up of conferences that navigated the cutting-edge developments in the exciting world of virtual, mixed, and augmented reality. Spread across Christchurch, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia, the event drew in a crowd of academics, industry professionals, and enthusiasts.

The ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST) in Christchurch was the curtain-raiser. It created a vibrant platform for engaging discussions on a variety of topics, with Misha Sra and Hiroo Iwata gracing the event as keynote speakers. Both paper presentations and interactive demos struck a balance between learning and experiencing. We were also invited to visit the HitLab NZ and could try out various fascinating demos.

Two days later, the ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI) in Sydney brought focus to specialized areas like gaze, haptics, and augmented reality, among others. Alongside presentations and demos, we were treated to illuminating talks from keynote speakers Misha Sra, Kiyoshi Kiyokawa, and Tim Dwyer.

Finally, the IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), also hosted in Sydney, cast the spotlight on a wider spectrum of themes. The event hosted insightful keynotes from Gudrun Klinker, Bruce Thomas, and Alvin Wang Graylin. Meanwhile, workshops and tutorials provided a more hands-on exploration of the subject. We are also happy to report, that our entry to the student competition was awarded an honorable mention.

Running throughout these conferences were fascinating student competitions, social events, tutorials, and even excursions like the MARCS Institute Visit. An impressive array of research papers were presented, among which our paper submissions and demos caught everyone's attention. The event also saw the unveiling of some remarkable demos.

The SoHem XR weeks provided a rich, fertile ground for knowledge dissemination, learning, and a celebration of VR, MR, and AR technologies, setting the stage for what's next in this thrilling domain.

Rings, S., Schmidt, S., Schmelter, T., Brosius, M., & Steinicke, F. (2023). Gaze Assistance for Older Adults during Throwing in Virtual Reality and its Effects on Performance and Motivation. In 29th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology. VRST 2023: 29th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3611659.3615706

Gabel, J., Schmidt, S., Ariza, O., & Steinicke, F. (2023). Redirecting Rays: Evaluation of Assistive Raycasting Techniques in Virtual Reality. In 29th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology. VRST 2023: 29th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3611659.3615716

Kruse, L., Mostajeran, F., & Steinicke, F. (2023). The Influence of Virtual Agent Visibility in Virtual Reality Cognitive Training. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction. SUI ’23: ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3607822.3614526

Oberfrank, L., Kruse, L., & Steinicke, F. (2023). Sphere Saber: A Virtual Reality Exergame to Study Age-Related Differences in Selective Visual Attention and Information Processing. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction. SUI ’23: ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction. ACM.

Kruse, L., Hertel, J., Mostajeran, F., Schmidt, S., & Steinicke, F. (2023). Would You Go to a Virtual Doctor? A Systematic Literature Review on User Preferences for Embodied Virtual Agents in Healthcare. ISMAR 23.

Rolff, T., Schmidt, S., Li, K., Steinicke, F., & Frintrop, S. (2023). VRS-NeRF: Accelerating Neural Radiance Field Rendering with Variable Rate Shading. In ISMAR 23.

Hertel, J., Schmidt, S., Briede, M., Anders, O., Thies, T., & Steinicke, F. (2023). Welcome AboARd! Evaluating Augmented Reality as a Skipper’s Navigator. In ISMAR 23.

Gabel, J., Rings, S., & Steinicke, F. (2023). Ancient Theatre of Miletus: A Virtual Reality Research Tool for Studying Written Artefacts. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction. SUI ’23: ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3607822.3618021

Rolff, T., Li, K., Hertel, J., Schmidt, S., Frintrop, S., & Steinicke, F. (2023). Interactive VRS-NeRF: Lightning fast Neural Radiance Field Rendering for Virtual Reality. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction. SUI ’23: ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3607822.3618020