Immersive Technology…

Immersive environments may be an emerging technology, but it is still a little lackluster for my tastes. With all the exploration and research conducted, I was expecting more. Many things are promised, others are foresighted, but little was delivered. At its current level seen in the Visual Design Institute, the so called immersive environments are not much more than movies or video games with remote controls.

Our trip to the Visual Design Institute showed me a lot of interesting applications, but very few with immersive interactivity. They’ve created applications to teach potential police officers how to read skid marks, a program to map out the trip to terminal three of the GTAA, a virtual world of the Vikings in Newfoundland 1000 years ago, and even how the city of Ottawa would look with a light rail system. These applications were neat, but not innovative, specifically as they used the usual mouse and keyboard to control user input. The one program, F.A.C.E. or Facial Animation Communication Engine, gave us our first taste of different forms of interactivity by mapping out a face through a webcam and using it to control a character. This technology looks promising but currently does not provide much functionality.

That is not to say that there is nothing interesting being developed through visualization techniques. Take this total immersion video as an example.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=g8Eycccww6k

It is showcasing a totally immersive environment controlled interactively by motion capture techniques. This level of development is where we should be, yet we still have some applications using what would seem as “old technology”.

Studio IMC is taking the whole immersive environments and motion capture technology in an interesting direction. Using facial recognition technology, they have the ability to conduct market research simply by recording the reactions of ad viewers. Their Immersive environment seems a lot like the one presented at Visual Design Institute, only on a much grander scale and with a motion capture method of interactivity (using hand motions to control objects).

Philips is another company showcasing an innovative way of using this technology to create immersive environments. Their technology, amBX introduces a whole new way of experiencing our favorite media. It claims “games and peripherals providing surround lighting, sound, vibration, air movement and other effects work in harmony together. The result is an incredibly immersive experience bringing game play into the room.” (http://www.ambx.com/site/about/what). This is an interesting avenue of development, and I would be curious to see how well it does in the near future.

Now I agree with some who say it is an emerging technology and we must wait for technological advancements to truly bring out the greatness of the work, but until then, I can see very few practical applications for this medium.

For more information on immersive technology, check out the wikipedia page.

~ by pliskin on October 4, 2007.