The concept of presence can be understood as a synthesis of interrelated psychophysical ingredients where multiple perceptual dimensions intervene. A better understanding of how to impact specific aspects such as plausibility, the illusion that virtual events are really happening, co-presence, the illusion of being with others, or place illusion, the feeling of being there, is key to improve the quality of XR experiences. The availability and performance of advanced technologies will let us reach high levels of presence in XR, essential to get us closer than ever to the old VR dream: to be anywhere, doing anything, together with others from any place. The PRESENCE project will impact multiple dimensions of presence in physical-digital worlds, addressing three main challenges: i) how to create realistic visual interactions among remote humans, delivering high-end holoportation paradigms based on live volumetric video capturing, compression and optimization techniques under heterogeneous computation and network conditions; ii) how to provide realistic touch among remote users and synthetic objects, developing novel haptic systems and enabling spatial multi-device synchronization in multi-user scenarios; iii) how to produce realistic social interactions among avatars and agents, generating AI virtual humans, representing real users or AI agents.

The contribution of Artanim will focus on smart autonomous characters, which are able to generate physically-plausible behavior integrating the cues of avatars of human users or other autonomous characters in specific scenarios. Specific parameters will be studied, for the movement to respond plausibly to social cues such as interpersonal differences or to collaboration tasks. Interactive virtual agents may take into account the position of others to respect implicit proxemics rules by generating small step rotations, or if a user needs an object, the interactive virtual agents will grab and offer it.

Artanim is the inventor and continuously develops since 2015 the VR technology driving Dreamscape Immersive. This multi-user immersive platform combines a 3D environment – which can be seen and heard through a VR headset – with a real-life stage set incorporating haptic feedback elements.

The user’s movements are sparsely captured in real time and translated into a full-body animation thanks to a deep understanding of body mechanics. Contrary to other static position VR systems, the platform allows up to eight users to truly feel immersed in a VR scene. They are rendered as characters (avatars) inside a computer generated world where they can move physically, interact with objects and other players, and truly experience worlds previously accessible only in their imagination. The bodies of the users thus become the interface between the real and virtual worlds.

The platform combines the following features:

• Wireless: complete freedom of movement across large spaces.
• Social: interactive multi-user experiences within a shared environment or across connected pods.
• Accurate: full-body and physical objects tracking with less than 1 millimeter deviation.
• Real-time: zero discernible lag eliminating most concerns of motion sickness.
• Flexible: SDK allowing content creators to easily create experiences for this particular platform.

This platform is leveraged by Dreamscape Immersive through their worldwide location-based VR entertainment centers, as well as through educational and training programs and other enterprise solutions.

The platform was also used to produce VR_I, the first ever choreographic work in immersive virtual reality, as well as Geneva 1850, a time traveling experience and historical reconstruction into the Geneva of 1850.