EVL alumna and Associate Professor in Interactive Systems at the Department of Informatics & Telecommunications, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Maria Roussou presents her research in immersive eXtended Reality (XR): 
Wednesday, May 3, 2023, 1:30PM 
EVL Continuum Room 2068 ERF 
Dr. Roussou&rsquo;s talk entitled &ldquo:Extending the virtual: the museum as a hybrid experience&rdquo; will discuss the use of advanced digital technologies, such as Virtual Reality, in the GLAM sector (e.g., galleries, libraries, archives, museums, etc.) to create immersive experiences for visitors has come of age. However, to date, the emphasis has been on reconstructing the real to transgress the built environment's limitations. Nowadays, the focus turns to integrating the physical and the virtual. The physical space is highlighted, complemented, and expanded through close coupling with the digital. Tangible objects are integrated and play a leading role in the digital experiences of visitors, creating a hybrid reality. Drawing from a range of high-end immersive eXtended Reality (XR) applications but also lower-end mobile tours created for cultural or informal educational purposes, this talk will explore how the future’s hybrid nature is shifting immersive presentation from the mainly didactic walkthroughs to experiences that are playful, emotive, social and shared, meaningfully interactive, and, ultimately, relevant and resonant to those they are designed for. 
Specifically, Roussou will present aspects of the BRIDGES project, a multi-user, multisensory XR experience set in informal learning contexts, and the EMOTIVE project, which aims to leverage interactive, social, and participatory capabilities. Both combine historical accuracy in representation with dramatic storytelling to enhance knowledge about the past, historical empathy, and resonance. 
--- 
The <a href="https://www.bridges-horizon.eu">BRIDGES project</a> and the <a href="https://www.emotiveproject.eu/">EMOTIVE project</a> have received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. 
Bio: 
Maria Roussou is an Associate Professor in Interactive Systems at the Department of Informatics & Telecommunications, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In 2003 she founded and co-directed <a href="http://www.makebelieve.gr/mroussou
">makebelieve</a>, an experience design and consulting company. Previously, she established (in 1998) and directed (until 2003) the Virtual Reality Department at the Foundation of the Hellenic World, where she was responsible for setting up the immersive projection-based VR exhibits and managing the research, design and development of the VR programs and related visitor experiences. She holds a PhD in Computer Science (VR/HCI) from the University of London (UCL), a Master in Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Electronic Visualization from the School of Art and Design, University of Illinois at Chicago, a Master of Science (M.Sc) in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the same university, and an undergraduate degree in Applied Informatics from the Athens University of Economics and Business. Maria is a Senior Member of the ACM, and Vice-chair of the Greek ACM SIGCHI Chapter and the Greek ACM-W Chapter.

Extending the virtual: the museum as a hybrid experience

Undergraduate Researcher - VR Systems

Charles Brailovsky

Assistant professor Hy Kim, director of UIC&rsquo;s Human-Centered Engineering Lab will present his research: 
Friday 10/25/24, 1pm 
EVL Continuum (Room 2068 Engineering Research Facility) 
Abstract: 
Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to fundamentally change the way we interact with information. Direct perception of computer-generated graphics atop physical reality can afford hands-free access to contextual information on the fly. However, as users must interact with not only information on the display but also environmental changes in the real world, the traditional User-Centered Design (UCD) approaches that focus on human-computer interaction, may not always adequately address the dynamic nature of human-environment interaction. This seminar will introduce, Ecological Interface Design (EID), a new approach to the design and evaluation of AR interfaces to complement UCD. EID is a framework for interface design that respects dynamic, environmental constraints imposed on users&rsquo; behavior. EID addresses two questions for interface design; what information should be displayed (the content and structure of information that represent the physical reality of the work environment), and how that information should be presented (the perceptual forms of interface elements compatible with human information processing). The talk will start with the theoretical background of EID and show how this approach can benefit AR user interface design and evaluation with an example of an AR head-up display for vehicle drivers. 
Bio 
Hy Kim is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago, where he is leading the <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/human-centered-engineering">Human-Centered Engineering lab</a>. His current research focuses on new methods for the requirements analysis, design, prototyping, and evaluation of extended reality (XR) applications, emphasizing human-technology partnerships at future workplaces. Sponsored by government agencies and industry partners, he has investigated basic topics on human factors in XR, such as human depth perception, visual attention, situation awareness, workload, and task performance while interacting with XR applications. Recently, his team has developed virtual environments to study how people would interact with future urban transportation services such as external human-machine interfaces for robotaxis & urban street robots (Honda), driver interfaces for SAE L3 automated vehicles (GM), and crew stations for remote operations of search & rescue vehicles (US Army). 
Dr. Kim received a Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering specializing in human factors and ergonomics from Virginia Tech in 2017. He has more than ten years of research experience in Human-Computer Interaction from academia and industry, including Oakland University, Virginia Tech Center for HCI, and General Motors. He has served as PI or Co-PI of more than 10 research projects and published more than 30 papers in top-tier conferences and journals such as IEEE Virtual Reality, IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, ACM Automotive User Interfaces, and ACM Intelligent User Interfaces, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, and Human Factors. He actively serves the above research communities as an organizer of international conferences and workshops.

Beyond User-Centered Design: Ecological Approach to the User Interface Design and Evaluation in Augmented Reality

EVL Affiliated Faculty Assistant Professor, Human-Centered Engineering Lab

Hyungil Kim

September 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). EVL&rsquo;s introduction of the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment in 1992, the first widely replicated, projection-based, walk-in, virtual-reality (VR) system in the world, put EVL at the forefront of collaborative, immersive data exploration and analytics. However, the journey did not begin then. Since its founding in 1973, EVL has been developing tools and techniques for real-time, interactive visualizations - pillars of VR. But EVL&rsquo;s culture is also relevant to its successes, as it has always been an interdisciplinary lab that fosters teamwork, where each person&rsquo;s expertise contributes to the development of the necessary tools, hardware, system software, applications, and human interface models to solve problems. Over the years, as multidisciplinary collaborations evolved and advanced scientific instruments and data resources were distributed globally, the need to access and share data and visualizations while working with colleagues, local and remote, synchronous and asynchronous, also became important fields of study. This paper is a retrospective of EVL&rsquo;s past 50 years that surveys the many networked, immersive, collaborative visualization and VR systems and applications it developed and deployed, as well as lessons learned and future plans. 
Article appears in the journal PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality, in the Special Issue on Immersive Visualization Laboratories - Past, Present and Future, edited by S. Su and W. Sherman, <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/pvar/issue/volume/33">https://direct.mit.edu/pvar/issue/volume/33</a>. 
Article copyrighted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 
DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00421">https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00421</a>

EVL faculty, students, and collaborators 1975.

Electronic Visualization Laboratory&rsquo;s 50th Anniversary Retrospective: Look to the Future, Build on the Past

EVL-affiliated faculty and Communication Distinguished Professor Steve Jones was part of the program committee for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Communication day-long research forum - AI IMPACT. The forum discussed AI&rsquo;s benefits and challenges. From deep learning to deepfakes, from robotics to avatars, from ChatGPT to human augmentics, from virtual influencers to social bots and countless others, the symposium draws from a broad multidisciplinary understanding of AI to investigate how AI-supported technology can be used for the common good. 
Sessions included talks by EVL Director Mike Papka &ldquo;Computational Impact of AI&rdquo;, EVL alumn and Data Science Team Lead at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, Venkat Vishwanath &ldquo;AI for Science&rdquo;, as well as project demonstrations (Playground Spaces) by EVL research students: 
&ldquo;Visualization of Protein-Protein Interactions for Drug Discovery using LLMS&rdquo; - Aaqel Shaik, Michael E. Papka, Shilpika and Venkatram Vishwanath 
&ldquo;AI Engagement is XR (Multimodal AI)&rdquo; - Abdullah Ali, Ricky Massa, Aaqel Shaik, Michael E. Papka 
For more information on the Symposium and to review the program see <a href="https://las.uic.edu/events/las-faculty-research-symposium-ai-impact/">https://las.uic.edu/events/las-faculty-research-symposium-ai-impact/</a>

AI Impact Symposium

September 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL). This paper summarizes EVL&rsquo;s efforts in Visual Data Science, with a focus on the many networked, immersive, collaborative visualization and virtual reality (VR) systems and applications the Lab has developed and deployed, as
well as lessons learned and future plans. 
Index terms: Visualization, Virtual Reality, Visual Data Science, Collaboration

An EVL CAD Rendering of the DOCC Space

Immersive Analytics at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory

Meetings and conversations today are multimodal in nature, including the usage of diverse technologies in the form of text, video, images, voice, AI agents, and also immersive technologies. If it were possible to replay important multimodal conversations in their spatial and chronological contexts, it would benefit several audiences, such as - researchers to study and analyze multimodal conversations, novices in any field who could learn from experts, experts who have missed being part of crucial conversations. However, recreating such multimodal interactions requires integrating all of the modalities used in the conversation. Immersive environments provide a convenient setting to present data with its spatial and temporal referents through the use of situated analytics. We present MuSA (Multimodal Situated Analytics), an immersive environment prototype, as a way to recreate multimodal conversations for exploration and analysis in immersive environments. Our development pipeline consisted of various stages such as data capturing, data cleaning, data synchronization, prototype building, and deploying the final product to end-user hardware. We conducted two comprehensive user studies to evaluate the usability, user adoption, and space usage during the exploration of multimodal conversations with our application. In the first study, we explore conversations between seated participants (n=12), and in the second, we explore conversations between non-seated moving participants (n=13). We share insights gained during the development phase, as well as empirical results and feedback collected through both user studies.

Depiction of an analyst investigating a multimodal conversation that includes participants and other entities of the conversation through MuSA in Mixed Reality (HoloLens2).

eXtended Reality (XR)

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