| Abstract |
The city of Singapore proudly hosts the 7th ACM SIGGRAPH International Conference on Virtual-Reality Continuum and its Applications in Industry (VRCAI 2008), on 8-9 December 2008. This year, the conference will take place just before SIGGRAPH Asia 2008. An exciting VRCAI 2008 awaits participants from both academia and industry in Singapore - a hotbed of innovation - where state-of-the-art technologies and applications in the Virtual Reality Continuum (VRC) will be explored and presented. Spanning across next-generation infocommunication environments like Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Virtuality (AV), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR), VRC is key in the way we define and interact, with and within, our virtual worlds. Advances in research and novel applications in this field have revolutionized much of our leisure activities, making them more appealing and fun. Just as significantly, these advances provide the foundation for more effective interactivity in work- and learning-related activities. VRCAI 2008 will focus on the following main themes: Fundamentals, Systems, Interactions, and Industry and Applications in the VRC. Virtual Reality Continuum (VRC), which spans across next-generation info communication environments like Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Virtuality (AV), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR), is key in the way we define and interact with, and within, our virtual worlds. Advances in research and novel applications in this field have revolutionized much of our leisure activities, making them more appealing and fun. Just as significantly these advances provide the foundation for more effective interactivity in work- and learning-related activities. To advance research in the VRC field, the VRCAI conference seeks to provide a forum for scientists, researchers, developers, users and industry players in the international VRC community to come together to share experiences, exchange ideas and spur one another in the knowledge of this fast-growing field. This year, VRCAI 2008 focuses on the following themes: Fundamentals, Systems, Interactions and Industry and Applications. A new focus area on Interactions had been introduced. We see this as an area of growing importance as more and more user applications are developed for VRC as VRC progresses from research into the industry. Thus, how we interact with the systems in such applications will determine the success of VRC technology adoption by users. Since its beginnings as the 1st International Workshop on Virtual Reality and Visualization in Scientific Computing held in Hangzhou, China, in 1995, VRCAI had grown and matured into a reputable biennial conference. Selected papers from past VRCAI conferences had been published in special issues of Computers & Graphics journal, International Journal of Virtual Reality, International Journal of Image and Graphics, and Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds. Since 2004, the conference had been indexed by EI. It had also been co-sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH, and its papers included in the ACM Digital Library. Held for the second time in Singapore, the 7th VRCAI 2008 conference attracted 95 submissions from twenty countries in Europe, North and South America, Middle East, and Asia. The submissions were reviewed by about 70 reviewers, with each paper receiving at least three reviews. The papers were of high quality and after much deliberation, 35 were accepted as regular papers and 25 as posters. The International Journal of Virtual Reality had proposed a special issue containing all accepted regular papers of VRCAI 2008. |
