ACMD Seminar: Examining the latest resurgence of interest of Virtual Reality

Prof. Andrew Ray
Department of Information Technology, Radford University

Friday, December 1, 2017, 15:00 - 16:00
Building 101, Lecture Room D
Gaithersburg

Friday, December 1, 2017, 13:00 - 14:00
Room 1-4058
Boulder

Slides: Adobe PDF

Host: Wesley Griffin

Abstract: I will discuss the recent resurgence of Virtual Reality (VR) and its implications for researchers and developers.  The resurgence was created by the new wave of HMDs from Oculus and HTC and their creation is geared towards entertainment.  By enabling much higher resolution in the hardware, the experience is greatly enhanced compared to older hardware.  Another major factor in VR’s resurgence is that all the required hardware can be bought for less than three thousand dollars.  These improvements allow for VR to be available to the average consumer.  However, enhanced lower priced hardware is the only advance of the current VR resurgence.  The software necessary to create compelling Virtual Environments (VEs) has actually regressed.  The lessons that were learned by VE creators have not carried over to the new hardware platforms.  This talk will focus on how VE creation can be improved on the new wave of hardware.

Bio: Andrew Ray is an Associate Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Information Technology at Radford University. Ray earned his PhD in Computer Science from Virginia Tech. His research focuses center around Virtual Reality (VR) and related fields.  Specifically, on creating engaging, insightful, and useful VR experiences and on allowing developers to create said experiences.  He has developed several Virtual Environments, and has created two major VR/ 3D User Interface toolkits for developers. His current application areas of interest are in low cost VR reality environments geared to enabling “couch-VR” experiences that were once restricted to expensive equipment.