Interactive Virtual Environments: From the Laboratory to the Field

Virtual reality technology has the potential to change the way information is retrieved, processed and shared, making it possible to merge several layers of knowledge in a coherent space that can be comprehensively queried and explored. In realizing this potential, the human-computer interface plays a crucial role. Humans learn and perceive by following an interactive process, but the interaction occurs in different places and contexts, between people, and with people. Accordingly, the interactive system components have to be tailored to the application and its users, targeting robustness, multimodality and familiarity. In this presentation I aim to explore the promise and challenges of interactive virtual technologies by discussing generally the design and the evaluation results of selected real-world applications, developed by multi-disciplinary research groups, in very different domains, ranging from medicine and finance to the cultural heritage. Luigi Gallo is a Research Scientist at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) - Institute for High-Performance Computing and Networking (ICAR). He graduated in 2006 in Computer Engineering, and received a PhD degree in Information Technology Engineering in 2010. Between 2012 and 2018, he worked as an Adjunct Professor of Informatics at the University of Naples "Federico II". He holds leadership roles within nationally funded research projects dealing with the development of ICT solutions for medical, financial and cultural heritage applications. His fields of interest include computer vision, natural user interfaces and the human interface aspects of virtual and augmented reality. He has authored and co-authored more than 90 publications in international journals, conference proceedings and book chapters, and serves on the organizing committee of several international conferences and workshops.