We are experimenting with Virtual Reality Settings in the field of learning and researching.
The VR Market
The market is developing in several fields of Hardware and Software
The world is changing constantly. All of a sudden we had to meet online in tools like Zoom, Teams or Skype. The next development will be happening in virtual reality formats.Several big players in the IT industry compete to define their claims for the future.
We would like to invite you to a Virtual Reality Experiment during GOR.
In order to present a VR meeting at GOR the HTW Berlin student Yann was responsible for the technical setup.
We had several constraints to respect.
- Hardly anyone of the participants owns a real VR Device like Oculus quest. So we needed to find something that would work without special VR hardware.
- No one wants to register for an additional service or install another piece of software
- The preparation of the rooms needs to be possible with our standard input formats like PDF or JPEG. The future will definitively bring new 3 dimensional formats. But for now we will work with the existing stuff.
After testing more than a dozen tools we decided to run our first trial in the open source setting of Mozilla Hubs.
What tool to use for VR?
We were testing a lot of tools. Some of them require full force technologies. Some of them do not ask for much. Some cost a fortune per user per month. Some are open source projects and free to use.Some of the tools require special devices, the installation of an app or a special software and a registration with some of the services.
As we do not want to make it more complicated as it already is, we were happy, that Jan Michalik found the one solution, that fits it all: Mozilla Hubs.
Mozilla Hubs
Hubs can be used as a hybrid. That means it works on a computer screen, it works in the browser of a mobile phone and it is available in the browsers of the standard VR Tools like Oculus .It is also possible to stay anonymous when entering the room. Anyhow you will only look like a game piece in the standard setting. But if you want: feel free to create your own avatar by adding a photo to your game piece.
The only negative thing we encountered is the fact that a browser based solution is limited in the performance. Showing 20 Videos in a VR Room simultaneously is more than just a challenge. So you better use the Google Chrome browser to participate as this is the best performing browser.
We created Rooms with SPOKE and set them online.
The rooms we created are also our first experiences in the field of VR. So please forgive us the mistakes you may find. We are just working on the future of the crazy new normal.
First VR Poster Session during GOR20
Out first Virtual Reality Poster Session for GOR20 is available under
https://vr.htw-berlin.com
Navigation in VR on PC
Once you are inside the room you need to figure out how to navigate.
Congratulations to the Winner of the first VR Poster Session
Adrian Hoffmann, Julia Meisters, & Jochen Musch (University of Düsseldorf, Germany).
Indirect Questioning Techniques: An Effective Means to Increase the Validity of Online Surveys
Avatar Creation Tools
| Name | (Selbst-)Beschreibung des Anbieters | Link |
| Spatial | Eigener Avatar auf Basis von eigenen Photos. The Metaverse for… | https://spatial.io/ |
| VideoRobot | Erstellt menschliche, aber auch Karikaturen als Avatare und mischt diese mit Text2Speech oder eigenen Audiofiles | https://videorobotapp.com/ |
| Synthesio | Synthesys AI Avatars Meet our AI Avatars, completely life-like human spokespeople, that say exactly what you want them to say. They are not avatars. Instead, we’re calling them ‘Humatars’ and they are the new standard for spokespeople in the video. | https://synthesys.io/ |
| Soulmachines | Say hello to Digital PeopleTM | https://www.soulmachines.com/ |
| Talking Faces | REAL Human Spokespeople Look | https://talkingfaces.net/ |
| Avatarmaker | Vereinfachtes Tool für Cartoon Bildavatare | https://avatarmaker.com/ |
| Ready Player Me | Spielübergreifende Avatar-Plattform für das Metaverse | https://readyplayer.me/ |
| Quilt | Create your own ‘re-skin’ of a robot or box bot avatar for the use inside Mozilla Hubs | http://tryquilt.io/ |
