Subject: interactions in virtual worlds

workshop interactions in virtual worlds may 19-21 , 1999 parlevink research group university of twente / ctit enschede the netherlands introduction the parlevink research group of the centre of telematics and information technology ( ctit ) is pleased to announce a 3 - day workshop on interactions in virtual reality ( vr ) environments . anyone dealing with theoretical , empirical , computational , experimental , sociological and anthropological aspects of vr environments that are either purely artificial or use real world characteristics is invited to participate in this workshop . in this workshop the emphasis is on vr environments that provide means for interacting with the objects in the environment , with embedded information sources and services ( possibly represented as agents ) or with other users and visitors of the environment . motivation in recent years we have seen that the computer science and the cognitive ergonomics communities have discovered and are exploring the possibilities of vr in user interfaces . in order to visualize available information and to provide users access to this information , virtual environments have been built such that users can find and explore information , communicate with other users and can communicate with objects and agents in the virtual worlds . this workshop emphasizes the role of vr in interfaces and in environments in which people share knowledge and experience and in which new forms of interactivity will emerge . in particular we want to explore the role of speech and language in virtual environments . how can we navigate in vr using speech and language , how can we model multimodal access to such environments , how can we communicate with other humans and with artificial agents in the vr environment , etc . the workshop is organized in the context of the u - wish project of the dutch telematics institute . format the format of the workshop will consist of keynote presentations by experts in the fields of vr , dialogue modelling and speech and language processing , combined with presentations of accepted papers . all presentations will be plenary . submission procedure researchers working in this domain are invited to email a 400 - words abstract ( plain ascii format ) , together with title , affiliation and keywords to twlt15 @ cs . utwente . nl . invited and accepted papers will be published in the workshop proceedings . invited lectures niels ole bernsen ( odense university . odense , denmark : coordinator of i3net , the european network for intelligent information interfaces . i3 was created in 1997 in order to take a human-centred approach to the exploration of new , visionary interactive systems for people in their everyday activities . lili cheng ( microsoft research , seattle , wa . , usa ) : lead program manager in the microsoft research 's virtual worlds group , working on the virtual worlds platform . at nyu , cheng designed graphics and created the human interface for one of the first participatory , real time rendered 3d environments which was broadcast tri-weekly from nyu . lili is a registered architect and designed commercial architecture in both tokyo and los angeles . james n . davidson ( cedes , seattle , wa . , usa ) : project manager of the community and environmental design simulation lab , ( cedes ) , jointly sponsored by the college of architecture and urban planning and the human interface technology lab of the university of washington . the mandate for this lab is to research and teach the use of real-time simulations and vr for urban , architectural and landscape design , and the creation of virtual spaces and environments . james c . lester ( north carolina state university , raleigh , usa ) : the primary objective of lester 's research is to design , construct , and empirically evaluate computational mechanisms to support hci in educational and scientific software . his interests focus on developing advanced animated and natural language explanation systems that facilitate learning and scientific analysis . stephen n . matsuba ( vrml dream company , toronto , canada : matsuba has authored a series of vr spaces for cyberstage live : an on-line journal dealing with the arts and technology . his interests are focussed on multimedia and vr applications . he and others developed a vrml - based theatre adaptation of shakespeare 's a midsummer night 's dream . pierre nugues ( ismra - caen , france ) research of pierre nugues is focused on natural language processing for spoken dialogue and user interfaces . this includes design & implementation of conversational agents within a multimodal framework . program committee program chairman : anton nijholt ( ctit , enschede ) niels ole bernsen , james n . davidson , james c . lester , stephen n . matsuba , pierre nugues & oliviero stock organizing committee local chairman : betsy van dijk olaf donk , boris van schooten & hendri hondorp venue the workshop on " interactions in virtual worlds " will take place in the computer science building at the campus of the university of twente , enschede , the netherlands . hotel accommodation is available at the campus and in two nearby cities . important dates march 1 : deadline for submitted abstracts march 15 : notification of acceptance , instruction for authors , information on accommodation april 15 : dead - line for camera-ready papers may 19-21 : workshop further information for further information , please contact olaf donk ( donk @ cs . utwente . nl ) . updated information will also be available at http : / / wwwseti . cs . utwente . nl / parlevink / conferences / twlt15 . html
