Enhancing Security and Authenticity in Immersive Environments

Virtual reality (VR) is one of the building information modeling (BIM) use cases that can benefit a project from the early stages of design to the construction and operation phases. VR enables designers, contractors, and owners to experience interacting with a facility before it is constructed. Currently, interaction with VR environments takes place through controllers. The equipment helps users to navigate virtual facilities and interact with the surrounding objects. Although controllers address the need for creating an interactive virtual environment, they make the experience less realistic, since real-life interactions take place through body movements, not by/through pressing buttons. This paper reports a project in which vision-based artificial intelligence (AI) technology is used to create a contactless connection between users and virtual environments. In this project, a series of body movements and gestures are mapped to the input commands of a BIM-based VR software. The paper overviews the state of the art in remote human-computer interaction (HCI) technologies and discusses both the potential and challenges of applying HCI technologies to immersive VR environments. It then introduces the architecture of the developed, contactless virtual environment and reports a case study of using this technology in an immersive setting.

In human computer interaction, proxemics describes the ways that people use space to interact with other people or objects. We focus on proxemic maps, which are virtual maps in immersive environments that react to proxemic interaction. Proxemic maps take advantage of new opportunities brought about by immersive visualization, where virtual maps can be freely positioned in virtual or physical space and adapt themselves relative to the spatial position of the viewer. We discuss proxemic interactions that alter the content and type of maps, including changing scale, symbolization, type of visualization and geometry. We propose a novel transformation that changes the geometry of maps based on their proximity to users. Users move the map back and forth and the map transitions between ring, horizontal, vertical and cylindrical geometries. The ring geometry surrounds the user and aligns features on the map with features in the real world. We implemented the map transformation in virtual reality and conducted a user study to evaluate it. The results of the user study indicate that participants preferred the ring and horizontal geometries. The ring geometry is useful because it simplifies connecting virtual features on the map with real features in the landscape, while the horizontal geometry provides an overall view of the landscape. We further found that combination of different geometries helped the study participants to overcome the limitations of each geometry.

Human-computer interaction for virtual-real fusion

Currently, emerging technologies such as immersive environments are transforming the field of education. Within this context, Education 5.0 has emerged as an approach that integrates advanced digital tools to enhance learning experiences. However, its implementation requires that teachers engage in critical reflection regarding its pedagogical use. This qualitative study aimed to analyze teachers’ reflections on the integration of Education 5.0 and immersive environments. A thematic analysis was conducted on the reflections of 30 upper-secondary and higher education teachers who participated in a training workshop. Data were gathered through synchronous sessions and discussion forums. The findings indicate that teachers perceive Education 5.0 and immersive environments as valuable tools for personalizing learning, increasing student motivation, and fostering collaboration—provided their use is pedagogically intentional. They also recognize their potential to create more dynamic and interactive learning experiences. Nevertheless, key challenges were identified, including technological gaps, limited infrastructure, and concerns regarding digital security. While Education 5.0 presents a promising opportunity for educational innovation, its successful integration requires ongoing evaluation of its impact on both teacher professional development and student learning.

With the rapid advancement of virtual reality technologies, understanding how human-computer interaction (HCI) affects user performance and experience has become increasingly important. This study systematically explores the impact of human-computer interaction technology in virtual reality (VR) environments on user experience. Forty-five participants conducted virtual navigation experiments, object recognition and selection tasks, and information search tasks. By analyzing statistics of eye moving–related data and subjective questionnaires from the three experiments, the study clearly indicated that different human-computer interaction patterns had a significant impact on users' task efficiency, visual cognitive load, and depth of information processing. Based on the results of the experiments, this paper presents three optimization schemes, providing specific and feasible references for future design and research in VR human-computer interaction. These findings offer valuable insights for enhancing interactive system design and promoting more effective user engagement in immersive environments. Beyond immediate design implications, the study also contributes to a broader understanding of user cognition and behavior in virtual contexts, laying the groundwork for future interdisciplinary research in education, healthcare, entertainment, and beyond.

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) enables users to interact with a computer only through their brain biological signals, without the need to use muscles. BCI is an emerging research area but it is still relatively immature. However, it is important to reflect on the different aspects of the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) area related to BCIs, considering that BCIs will be part of interactive systems in the near future. BCIs most attend not only to handicapped users, but also healthy ones, improving interaction for end-users. Virtual Reality (VR) is also an important part of interactive systems, and combined with BCI could greatly enhance user interactions, improving the user experience by using brain signals as input with immersive environments as output. This paper addresses only noninvasive BCIs, since this kind of capture is the only one to not present risk to human health. As contributions of this work we highlight the survey of interactive systems based on BCIs focusing on HCI and VR applications, and a discussion on challenges and future of this subject matter.

Real Time Distributed Content Rendering Technique based on Agent-mediator Communication Framework for Multi-display Systems

Virtual Reality (VR) technology has emerged as a transformative force in the realm of Human-computer interaction (HCI), offering novel applications and redefining user experiences. VR games have changed traditional electronic games, providing a human-computer interactive immersive gaming experience. In social media, VR innovative applications allow users to have an immersive conversation through various interactions, giving users a more immersive and real experience. The paper synthesizes recent research findings, highlighting key trends, challenges, and opportunities in the integration of VR into HCI and illustrates the embodiment of immersive experiences while using VR compared to the traditional way. At the same time, the challenges associated with VR technology such as motion sickness, accessibility concerns, ethical considerations, and medical challenges, are also discussed, offering a balanced perspective on the current state of the field. The future development perspective is also mentioned. As technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more immersive and interactive experiences that blur the lines between the physical and virtual worlds, offering users new ways to engage with digital content and each other.

We briefly describe a novel immersive environment—the interactive tent—and an artistic production within it, the Illusion of Being. In this production, immersants experience a vivid cycle of the elements in a way that depends on their bodily movements. This elemental “story” has four versions in all, with each created to have differential effects on sense of presence and of subjective duration, according to a theoretical model. The model proposes three orthogonal dimensions of experience: focus, the level of abstraction;locus, real versus virtual; andsensus, the overall level of attention of the observer. An experiment, conducted to assess the effects of the different versions, is reported. The results confirmed the model's prediction that rated presence is relatively high when experienced media is of a form that elicits predominantly concrete (perceptual) processing, and relatively low when the emphasis is on more-abstract (conceptual) processing. But the concrete-abstract dimension had no direct effect on judged duration, contrary to our predictions. However, some evidence suggests that judged presence and estimated duration were positively correlated for media categorized as virtual, but not for content captured from the real world.

With the rapid development of society, humans tend to live in an individualistic manner, with less connection to reality, and electronic devices have become necessities. Human entertainment methods are inseparable from the virtual world, and the development of human-computer interaction in the entertainment industry is imminent. However, technology, humanities, and other aspects still face many obstacles and challenges, as well as negative impacts such as privacy leaks, cyberbullying, and information overload from virtual network identities. This article analyzes the technical limitations, social and cultural constraints, and issues of connection between the virtual and real worlds that human-computer interaction faces in this field. Based on the analysis above, it is suggested that human-computer interaction technology should pay more attention to user experience, co-creation of content, personalized services, and user stickiness to meet challenges and fully utilize future opportunities. In the future, human-computer interaction technology will become more intelligent personalized, and people-centered to address the ever-evolving needs of users, providing safe, fun, and interactive entertainment experiences.

Electronic Visualisation and the Arts 2011 (EVA 2011) is co-sponsored by the Computer Arts Society and BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, of which the CAS is a specialist group. Over almost two decades, the EVA conference has established itself as one of London’s most innovative and interdisciplinary conferences in the field of digital visualisation. The papers in this volume touch on museum studies, semantic web, immersive environments, simulation, 3D scanning, haptics, digital archaeology and many others. The latest research by established scholars, early career researchers and students may be found here. Across the three days of papers, contributions can be found on museums; technologies and human computer interaction; digitisation and the digitisation process; social networking and social media; virtual worlds which are becoming ever more ubiquitous and usable; 3D imaging technology, education and philosophy; performance, and the arena of cultural heritage policy and administration. The geographic areas covered by the research reported include Russia, Italy, Spain, Scotland and the Dead Sea, as well as the geographically neutral realms of cyberspace. This illustrates the increasingly fluid definition of the word ‘Visualisation’: whereas once this indicated a relatively straightforward process of turning binary or textual information into graphics, now constructing visualisations means negotiating a whole array of semantic, political and content-related issues. The papers in this collection confront this ‘complexity deluge’ in visualisation from a myriad of different perspectives, and challenge us to re-think its most fundamental concepts.

In an initial study, we characterized the properties of human reach motion in the presence or absence of visuo-haptic feedback in real and Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) or virtual reality within a participant’s maximum arm reach. Our goal is to understand how physical reaching actions to the perceived location of targets in the presence or absence of visuo-haptic feedback are different between real and virtual viewing conditions. Typically, participants reach to the perceived location of objects in the three-dimensional (3D) environment to perform selection and manipulation actions during 3D interaction in applications such as virtual assembly or rehabilitation. In these tasks, participants typically have distorted perceptual information in the IVE as compared to the real world, in part due to technological limitations such as minimal visual field of view, resolution, latency, and jitter. In an empirical evaluation, we asked the following questions: (i) how do the perceptual differences between virtual and real world affect our ability to accurately reach to the locations of 3D objects, and (ii) how do the motor responses of participants differ between the presence or absence of visual and haptic feedback? We examined factors such as velocity and distance of physical reaching behavior between the real world and IVE, both in the presence or absence of visuo-haptic information. The results suggest that physical reach responses vary systematically between real and virtual environments, especially in situations involving the presence or absence of visuo-haptic feedback. The implications of our study provide a methodological framework for the analysis of reaching motions for selection and manipulation with novel 3D interaction metaphors and to successfully characterize visuo-haptic versus non-visuo-haptic physical reaches in virtual and real-world situations.

Recent advances in 3D reconstruction and tracking technologies have made it possible to volumetrically capture human body and performance at real time. In the field of human-computer interaction, however, no works have been reported on the user study made with such volumetric capture avatars. This paper investigates how the volumetric capture avatar affects users’ sense of social presence in immersive virtual environments. In our experiments, the volumetric capture avatar of an actor is compared with the actor captured in 2D video and another 3D avatar obtained by pre-scanning the actor. The experiment results show that users have the highest sense of social presence with the volumetric capture avatar when performing dynamic tasks whereas they have higher sense of social presence with the volumetric capture avatar and 2D video than with the pre-scanned avatar when performing static tasks. These imply that the emerging volumetric capture techniques can be an attractive tool for mixed reality, telepresence, and many other 3D applications.

Extended-Reality Technologies: An Overview of Emerging Applications in Medical Education and Clinical Care.

Augmented Reality (AR) technology is gaining relevance in spatial applications, offering interactive ways for users to explore and navigate destinations by overlaying digital information onto real-world environments. As this technology advances, AR maps present both new possibilities and unique challenges in cartographic communication. Despite their growing presence, a structured, user-centered framework for evaluating the usability and effectiveness of AR maps remains underdeveloped. This paper proposes a theoretical foundation for assessing AR maps through a user-centered lens, emphasizing cognitive, perceptual, and interactional dimensions of map use. Drawing from existing usability evaluation models, human-computer interaction principles and cartographic theory, the framework outlines methods for capturing user experience, including task-based assessments, heuristic evaluation, and subjective usability metrics. This framework is designed to guide future studies and can be adapted across various domains�from navigation to education. It highlights the importance of understanding how users interpret and interact with spatial information in immersive environments. However, ensuring their usability remains a challenge, particularly due to the novelty of AR interaction and the lack of established evaluation guidelines tailored to spatial applications. This paper presents a user-centered theoretical framework for evaluating the usability of AR maps within the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI) and cartography.