Imagine collaborating with someone on the other side of the world and feeling as if they were standing right next to you — sharing the same space, interacting with the same objects, communicating naturally.
This is the vision behind PRESENCE, a European research project running from 2024 to 2027, bringing together 17 partners across Europe to rethink how social presence works in extended reality (XR).
The project explores three key building blocks for the future of social XR:
- Ultra-realistic holoportation – capturing people volumetrically and bringing them into shared virtual environments as lifelike 3D representations
- Advanced haptics – enabling users to feel touch and physical interactions across virtual and real worlds
- Socially intelligent virtual humans – capable of generating interpersonal cues and interacting naturally with users
At Artanim, we focus on enabling physics-based control for autonomous virtual humans, allowing them to respond to body-centric behaviour and interact with elements in their environment.
By combining these technologies, PRESENCE aims to redefine what “being together at a distance” truly means — unlocking new possibilities for remote collaboration, training, culture, and social interaction in immersive environments.
More info: https://artanim.ch/project/presence/