This content will become publicly available on April 23, 2025
- Award ID(s):
- 2017017
- PAR ID:
- 10558718
- Publisher / Repository:
- arXiv
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, many events and conferences hastily converted to a virtual format, and many commercial ventures promptly developed tools promising seamless transitions to virtual spaces. In particular, efforts to expand and monetize augmented and virtual reality environments increased. While these spaces increased accessibility for some, others were left behind. In 2024, many events returned to on-site venues, yet virtual spaces remain central in academic and research communities, particularly for disabled scholars. As such, in this paper, we advocate for continued virtual access and improved virtual spaces; we also identify some potentially overlooked harms in immersive and embodied virtual spaces.more » « less
-
Consumer level virtual experiences almost always occur when physical space is limited, either by the constraints of an indoor space or of a tracked area. This observation coupled with the need for movement through large virtual spaces has resulted in a proliferation of research into locomotion interfaces that decouples movement through the virtual environment from movement in the real world. While many locomotion interfaces support movement of some kind in the real world, some do not. This paper examines the effect of the amount of physical space used in the real world on one popular locomotion interface, resetting, when compared to a locomotion interface that requires minimal physical space, walking in place. The metric used to compare the two locomotion interfaces was navigation performance, specifically, the acquisition of survey knowledge. We find that, while there are trade-offs between the two methods, walking in place is preferable in small spaces.more » « less
-
Joint professional and stakeholder meetings to share local, regional and national responses to the current and projected effects of climate change have become regular, recurring events over the past decade. These “climate adaptation convenings” generally include presentations, discussions, and social learning about how to effectively respond to climate-related impacts. Many of these convenings shifted to virtual formats during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a study to understand how four virtual convenings in the United States compare with otherwise similar in-person events. Through surveys with attendees of four virtual climate adaptation convenings, we explored how attendees’ outcomes differed between conference formats and captured their perceptions of virtual vs. in-person events. Overall, 71% of attendees indicated that they were more likely or equally likely to attend future convenings online, and 62% reported that knowledge gain was about the same or better online than in-person. Many respondents appreciated the accessibility and more inclusive participation at virtual convenings, as well as the environmental benefits and reduced costs. However, interpersonal interactions were inferior in virtual formats, and some attendees experienced difficulties with technology and screen fatigue. Respondents shared suggestions for addressing these challenges. Altogether, findings suggest that virtual convenings have high potential if greater attention is paid to these elements.more » « less
-
Virtual Reality (VR) telepresence platforms are being challenged to support live performances, sporting events, and conferences with thousands of users across seamless virtual worlds. Current systems have struggled to meet these demands which has led to high-profile performance events with groups of users isolated in parallel sessions. The core difference in scaling VR environments compared to classic 2D video content delivery comes from the dynamic peer-to-peer spatial dependence on communication. Users have many pair-wise interactions that grow and shrink as they explore spaces. In this paper, we discuss the challenges of VR scaling and present an architecture that supports hundreds of users with spatial audio and video in a single virtual environment. We leverage the property of \textit{spatial locality} with two key optimizations: (1) a Quality of Service (QoS) scheme to prioritize audio and video traffic based on users' locality, and (2) a resource manager that allocates client connections across multiple servers based on user proximity within the virtual world. Through real-world deployments and extensive evaluations under real and simulated environments, we demonstrate the scalability of our platform while showing improved QoS compared with existing approaches.more » « less
-
Abstract For many, 2020 was a year of abrupt professional and personal change. For the aquatic sciences community, many were adapting to virtual formats for conducting and sharing science, while simultaneously learning to live in a socially distanced world. Understandably, the aquatic sciences community postponed or canceled most in‐person scientific meetings. Still, many scientific communities either transitioned annual meetings to a virtual format or inaugurated new virtual meetings. Fortunately, increased use of video conferencing platforms, networking and communication applications, and a general comfort with conducting science virtually helped bring the in‐person meeting experience to scientists worldwide. Yet, the transition to conducting science virtually revealed new barriers to participation whereas others were lowered. The combined lessons learned from organizing a meeting constitute a necessary knowledge base that will prove useful, as virtual conferences are likely to continue in some form. To concentrate and synthesize these experiences, we showcase how six scientific societies and communities planned, organized, and conducted virtual meetings in 2020. With this consolidated information in hand, we look forward to a future, where scientific meetings embrace a virtual component, so to as help make science more inclusive and global.