[Archive] SoSe21 - Seminars, Workshops and Lectures

Semester Topic: Virtual Ecosystems (Experiments in Artificial Life) 
Kick-off: April 14th

© Braitenberg 1986 MIT Press

In the course we explore various approaches to the creation of virtual worlds and their inhabitants. 

We will focus on the kinds of interactions and behaviours between agents and their environment that can emerge from simple sensorimotor systems.  

The course around two seminal works in the field of artificial life. The first is Valentino Braitenberg's "Vehicles - Experiments in Synthetic Psychology", in which he demonstrates how simple sensorimotor arrangements can give rise to apparent life-like behaviour. The second is Karl Sims "virtual creatures", in which genetic algorithms are used to evolve creatures that exhibit surprisingly life-like behaviour. 

Students will develop their own virtual simulations drawing on the basic concepts demonstrated in these works. In particular, we will focus on the creation of interactive systems, in which human input influences the unfolding narratives in the virtual world. 

The class will be structured around a weekly 2 DS workshop + own additional work in which we first cover some relevant theory and then apply the techniques to our projects. 

Assessment: Project, report and presentation 

References: 

• Karl Sims "Evolved Virtual Creatures":  https://doi.org/10.1145/192161.192167, https://doi.org/10.1162/artl.1994.1.4.353, Video: Karl Sims - Evolved Virtual Creatures 1994 

• Braitenberg Vehicles:  https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg-Vehikel 

• Braitenberg, V. 1984. Vehicles, Experiments in Synthetic Psychology, London, Cambridge: The MIT Press 

• https://www.richlord.com/ 

First Meeting: April 19th

This course is aimed to teach students how to conduct empirical research on the cognitive and behavioral effects of experiences with immersive technologies. Students will learn about user experience research, usability testing, psychometric experiments, and experimental methodologies used in the field of human-computer interaction. At the end of the course, students be able to how to: create a hypothesis based on research questions, design an experiment, determine independent and dependent variables, collect and analyze sensor data (physiological, motion tracking, etc.), perform a statistical analysis, write a "Methods" section of a research paper with statistical results, and write a "Discussion" of empirical results. Additionally, students will be exposed to ethics approval processes, specifically creating Informed Consent Forms and securely storing data in accordance with data protection and privacy guidelines. 

We will meet 2 times a week for 2 hours virtually, but some weeks the second 2 hour block will be solo home work. The first two hours will be theory, and the second part will be workshop/participatory, with a break in between. The course will be highly interactive and students will frequently work together in pairs in breakout sessions to complete exercises. The course will be structured introducing Usability and UX Research, then shifting to Psychological research methods to study behavior and cognition. Each session will feature an exercise which will be led in class and then completed by the students for homework. 

Students will be assessed based on a final project, which will be a small empirical study submitted as a written report at the end of the course. 

Immersive media like virtual and augmented reality are intrinsically multisensory experiences, involving vision, hearing and touch. As aspects of immersion and perceived realness are seemingly highly dependent on the degree of congruence between the senses, an essential challenge in the creation of virtual or augmented realities is the minimising of any disagreement between visual, auditory and haptic stimuli.  

In this Komplexpraktikum, we will explore methods for inducing congruence and incongruence between vision and hearing with virtual and augmented reality. We will explore creative ways of inducing different types of congruence - e.g. spatial, temporal, kinematic, semantic, epistemic – and ways of measuring the resulting experience. 

Specifically, we are looking at displaced performances in which the people acting and watching are distributed and thereby not in the same place. 

For this, the stage space must be captured accordingly and presented to the audience in a meaningful way with everyday hardware. Here, we are going to investigate for instance see-through AR to create a more engaging remote performance. 

Technically speaking, we are investigating Depth/"3D-Video" and point-cloud streaming with OpenCV, Unity, and Web-Technologies.

Kick-off: April 14th

This seminar provides an introduction to academic research methodologies and tools (e.g. academic search strategies, managing a bibliography, academic writing styles, avoiding plagiarism), and exposure to recent research results and the current outstanding challenges in the fields of virtual and augmented reality and immersive media. 

This seminar is tailored for students intending to write a bachelor or master thesis in the field of immersive media. However, it can also be taken by students not in this category. 

Students will be given the opportunity to select and refine a thesis topic, familiarise themselves with the relevant technologies, and then prepare extensively the theoretical and technical components of the thesis. 

The seminar is available in two forms: as "(Pro/Haupt) Seminar Immersive Media" and "Research Frontiers in Immersive Media"

The Seminar+KP "Research Frontiers" version involves an additional 2 SWS which you will devote to the learning of practical technical skills and knowledge to prepare you for your research project. For example, suppose your project involves using a new software or programming language, then you would devote 2 SWS towards learning these new tools. 

Seminar structure: 

• Weekly meetings (online) 

• Student presentation, student-led discussions and close readings of research papers 

• Student-led "reading group" 

All students: 

• Submit an annotated bibliography and literature review / survey paper on a refined research topic. 

• Presentation in class. Present results of literature review and lead class discussion. 

4 SWS "Research Frontiers" students only: 

• Submit a concrete project proposal containing project description, experimental / technical design, implementation schedule, precisely identify technical infrastructure. 

• Set up technical foundations. For example, if you are using Unity and Oculus HMD… had a working system with unity and oculus running with a basic empty scene. 

• Self-training on technical foundations. E.g. Gitlab, Unity, …. 

IXLAB is offering a range of individual and group Research Projects in the field of immersive media.  

Topics range from technical and engineering challenges, perceptual factors, design and artistic issues and novel applications.   

Application fields include archaeology, architecture, data visualisation, geospatial science, physiotherapy or psychotherapy, museums and libraries, music and film production, journalism or education and training. 

See here for a list of available Research Projects

If you would like to discuss a project, please arrange a meeting by email to matthew.mcginity@tu-dresden.de

The workshop will be run in conjunction with the Staatsschauspiel Dresden and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden, and we will be looking at the challenge of running a theatre festival online.

You can find more information here: https://ixlab.io/fast-forward