The IEEC Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces conference brought together 1800 designers, scientists, engineers and other industry experts. The event is one of a kind bringing together people from different parts of the globe. The experts closely examined top and latest research and VR advancements. Those in attendance had an opportunity to watch presentations, live talks and participated in different poster and demonstration sessions.
The conference was typical in every sense academically except for the fact that it will take place online. This means social events will take place in a completely virtual environment. A Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing and IEEE VR conference co-chair, Blair Maclntyre proposed having around virtual reality environment to enhance social distancing. This is crucial amid WHO and CDC among other health expert’s recommendations on the need to support social distancing amid COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were planning on a small experiment with online attendees to investigate the use of VR to make conferences more accessible and sustainable. Suddenly, we need to ramp up to accommodate everyone across all traditional conference activities,” Maclntyre said.
The five day conference convened in Mozilla Hubs, a powerful online and VR platform for IEEC VR, marks the first time a major global conference of such a scale is being held online. The event relies on a virtual environment platform and includes the best social networking sessions that make up a crucial part of the conference.
The event’s experience merges VR, online chat platforms and video streaming with the best custom version of Hubs. It also operates efficiently on most web browsers offering an opportunity for attendees to participate whether they have a VR device or not. As with most in-person conference, attendees and participants will watch, engage in talks and parallel sessions as well as a one on one network while interacting on avatars.
The IEEE VR conference will be held at the Eastern Standard Time.