XR Hub at Bits&Pretzels

02 Oct 2020

On Friday, 2 October 2020, Bavarian Minister of State for Digital Affairs Judith Gerlach (MdL), Prof. Dr. Marc Erich Latoschik and Prof. Dr. Carolin Wienrich held a masterclass at Bits&Pretzels 2020 called “Dive into XR – use cases and outlook”. Using the ViLeArn application, developed by Florian Kern (M.Sc.) and Peter Kullmann (M.Sc.) in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Silke Grafe, their avatars outlined different use cases in the field of health, education & culture as well as new kinds of collaboration. The photorealistic avatars were made in the Embodiment Lab under the supervision of Andrea Bartl (M.Sc.).

In our master class we presented several success stories of local companies, start-ups and research projects in the fields of health, education and culture. We presented XR applications in medicine, therapy and well-being. For example, the ViTraS project, in which we are conducting research on the controlled modulation of body perception in cooperation with medium-sized companies in order to achieve computer-mediated interventions in obesity diseases. In the field of education, CAT MEDIC explains the effects of the coronavirus on the human body through immersive storytelling and 3d-animations in an easily understandable way using XR. XR is also used in various innovative artistic fields, e.g. by the Staatstheater Augsburg, which makes the opera Orefeo ed Euridice experienceable for the audience through VR, or by the artist Tamiko Thiel, who uses media like XR in politically and socially critical artworks.