Manipulation in Virtual Environments

Sunday, April 14

Human-computer interaction issues with graphical and haptic user interfaces are becoming increasingly important for research and development of virtual and augmented computer environments. People from many disciplines have become interested in means for grasping and manipulating physical, virtual, and augmented objects in virtual environments. These user interfaces and interactions may apply in teleoperation, augmented environments, or virtual reality settings.

In keeping with the conference theme of Common Ground, our theme will be Searching for Common Ground in Manipulation of Virtual Environments. Regardless of the scale and conditions of the environment to be manipulated, there are elemental problems in action selection, task and trajectory planning, obstacle avoidance, grasping, object characteristics, task constraints, physical laws, mechanics of manipulation, contacts and compliance, co-ordinate transformations, representation, and rendering.

The goals of this workshop are:

• identify common ground, issues, misconceptions, and problems
• provide opportunities to learn, collaborate, and share solutiotions with one another
• develop the beginnings of a common vocabulary for better communication
• identify future directions for research and application

Contact

Christine L. MacKenzie
Simon Fraser University
School of Kinesiology           
Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6 Canada
E-mail: christine_mackenzie@sfu.ca
Tel: +1 604-291-3004                    
Fax: +1 604-291-3040