In the issues analysed he addresses the topic of inference by giving different examples in which our brain’s assumptions are far from reality and how VR can use this in its favour to design the next level of immersive experiences. Moreover, he refers to open issues such as eye tracking, hand tracking, focus in VR displays and essentially the importance of coordination of real humans movements within the virtual space.

Looking a bit further around we discovered a market research study indicating how people intend to use VR technologies. We notice a high expectation of VR usage among the users who own the necessary hardware but most importantly the importance of social engagement in VR.

We recently had a great experience by trying out the platform that Oculus experiment with, Oculus Venues, by showing selected games from the World Cup to viewers based in the USA. After joining the experience and starting the application, we found ourselves represented by an avatar and seated in a virtual part of the football stadium where the game was taking place. Besides the football game and the score, the most interesting part was the rest of the people who were around us. It was possible to interact verbally and also use the Rift controllers for moving the hands of the avatar. It was really interesting to see people joining such an experience given the airing time of the events (05:00 a.m.) and its popularity as a time assigned to sleep. Communicating with the other end-users and talking about the sociality of this VR experience was very easy and a lot of this excitement was shared among the crowd of the participants.

VR-Together will be addressing this kind of social experiences in its core by assembling an innovative end-to-end pipeline for the delivery of photorealistic immersive content to multiple users. VR-Together will be going beyond the state-of-the-art experiences mentioned above. In Pilot 1, end-users will be represented by their real-life point clouds, time-varying meshes or 2D images, compared to the avatars used in Oculus Venues.  End-users will be able to interact and communicate with each other in real-time, with a special functionality for HMD removal, within a virtual interrogation room (3D scene) while also being able to interact with the environment itself (in Pilot 3). VR-Together will also conduct some experiments to evaluate the level of immersiveness, the feeling of togetherness and various other aspects that define what constitutes a “truly” social VR experience. An overview of the project, its objectives and envisioned scenarios can be found in the publication presented during the VR workshop in ACM TVX 2018^[1]. Below you can find a list of the metrics VR-Together will be using to evaluate the VR experience in development.

We are excited and proud to present our Pilot 1 experience in September 2018. Make sure to follow our Twitter account and find out about our next demonstration!

Stay tuned and see you soon!

^[1] M. Montagud, J. A. Núñez, T. Karavellas, I. Jurado, S. Fernández, “Convergence between TV and VR: Enabling Truly Immersive and Social Experiences”, Workshop on Virtual Reality, co-located with ACM TVX 2018, Seoul (South Korea), June 2018

Who we are

The i2CAT Foundation is a non-profit research and technology centre that promotes R&D activities in the fields of the Internet and advanced digital technologies. It has pioneered an innovation model based on collaboration between companies, public administrations, academia and users. i2CAT coordinates the VRTogether project

Come and follow us in this VR journey with Motion Spell, CWI, TNO, CERTH, Artanim, Viaccess-Orca, Entropy Studio

This project has been funded by the European Commission as part of the H2020 program, under the grant agreement 762111.

Text: Themistoklis Karavellas – i2CAT

The post VRTogether and the future of Social VR appeared first on VRTogether.

No actual innovations but many improvements

Regarding VR and 360 aspects, we can mention several interesting booths where improvements have been made since last year. The Chinese company Kandao Technology exposed its caption solution “VR Obsidian” with many enhancements from the previous version. Indeed, we discovered an update of the Kandao live software enable to handle 8k 360 in live, and their new 6-Dof volumetric solution based on their deep map generated with their 3D 360 camera. This last solution could be interested to follow for the VRTogether project since it allows to rebuilt 3D from any viewpoint, which pushes the VR experience to a higher level.

Regarding 360 caption, we can also talk about the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) current innovations in the field of immersive imaging technologies. They presented their enhanced Omnicam-360 that enables 10K video 360-degree capturing. The live encoding is tile-based and use the Fraunhofer HHI HEVC encoder compliant with the MPEG-OMAF Viewport-Dependent Media Profile.

We can also put in light the 8ball product from HEAR 360+. It’s a new immersive audio technology included patented omni-binaural microphone and companion software that provides a seamless workflow from on-set recording to content delivery. The 8ball solves the challenges that cinematic VR filmmakers face when attempting to create truly immersive spatial audio.

The general feeling is that most of the VR innovation was about united experiences, including immersion with audio, low latency, precision, wide field-of-views.

This feeling converges with VRtogether’s vision: VR, AR and Immersive Audio is going to fundamentally change how people communicate and create an intense emotional impact.

Future Park zone

We can also report exciting things into the future park zone. Indeed, two projects on the Futures Park, ImmersiaTV and ConvergenceTV are linked with some partners of the VRTogether project.
Indeed, ImmersiaTV features i2CAT, and ConvergenceTV (which won the NAB Innovation Award 2018) features Motion Spell.

Regarding the ConvergenceTV, there was a nice demonstration of MPEG-DASH ultra-low latency using the Motion Spell / GPAC Licensing Signals platforms. Professional players are stable at around 500ms.

Who we are

Motion Spell is an SME specialized in audio-visual media technologies. Motion Spell was created in 2013 in Paris, France. On a conceptual and technical level, Motion Spell will focus on the development of transmission open tools. Furthermore, Motion Spell plans to explore encoding requirements for VR to participate in the current standardization efforts and first implementations. Finally we will also assist on the playback side to ensure the end-to-end workflow is covered.

Come and follow us in this VR journey with i2CAT, CWI, TNO, CERTH, Artanim, Viaccess-Orca, Entropy Studio.

This project has been funded by the European Commission as part of the H2020 program, under the grant agreement 762111.

The post VR at NAB show: the calm before the storm? appeared first on VRTogether.