William Bainbridge takes an in-depth look at the fantasy religions that exist in 34 different massively multiplayer online roleplaying games. He categorizes the religions, noting similarities across the games. He points, for instance, to the prevalence of polytheism: a system which, Bainbridge argues, can function as an effective map of reality in which each deity personifies a concept. Religions are as much about conceptualizing the self as conceptualizing the sacred. Most games allow the players to have multiple avatars, an idea Bainbridge likens to contemporary scientific ideas about personality. He also focuses on sacred spaces; the prevalence of magic and its relationship to the computer program and programmer; the fostering of a tribal morality by both religion and rules programmed into the game; the rise of cults and belief systems within the game worlds (and how this relates to social science theories of cult formation in the real world); and, of course, how the gameworld religions depict death. As avatars are immortal, death is merely a minor setback in most games. At the same time, much of the action in some gameworlds centers on the issue of mortality and the problematic nature of resurrection. Bainbridge contends that gameworlds are giving us a new perspective on the human quest, one that combines the arts and simulates most aspects of real life. The quests in gameworlds also provide meaning for human action, in terms of narratives about achieving goals by overcoming obstacles. Perhaps meaning does not naturally exist in our universe, but must be created by us, both in our fantasies and in day-to-day life. Like the games analyzed in this book, he says, traditional religions are fantasies that should be respected as works of art in a future civilization of disbelief.

This volume presents a wide range of methodological strategies that are designed to take into account the complex, emergent, and continually shifting character of virtual worlds. It interrogates how virtual worlds emerge as objects of study through the development and application of various methodological strategies. Virtual worlds are not considered objects that exist as entities with fixed attributes independent of our continuous engagement with them and interpretation of them. Instead, they are conceived of as complex ensembles of technology, humans, symbols, discourses, and economic structures, ensembles that emerge in ongoing practices and specific situations. A broad spectrum of perspectives and methodologies is presented: Actor-Network-Theory and post-Actor-Network-Theory, performativity theory, ethnography, discourse analysis, Sense-Making Methodology, visual ethnography, multi-sited ethnography, and Social Network Analysis.

Fantasy sport has become big business. Recent estimates suggest that there as many as 27 million fantasy sport participants in the US alone, spending $1.5bn annually, with many millions more around the world. This is the first in-depth study of fantasy sport as a cultural and social phenomenon and a significant and growing component of the contemporary sports economy. This book presents an overview of the history of fantasy sport and its close connection to innovations in sports media. Drawing on extensive empirical research, it offers an analysis of the demographics of fantasy sport, the motivations of fantasy sport players and their significance as heavy consumers of sport media and as ultra-fans. It also draws cross-cultural comparisons between fantasy sport players in the US, UK, Europe and beyond. The Fantasy Sport Industry examines the key commercial and media stakeholders in the production and development of fantasy sport, and points to new directions for the fantasy sport industry within modern sport business. It is therefore, fascinating reading for any student, scholar or professional with an interest in sports media, sports business, fandom, the relationship between sport and society, or cultural studies.

Augmented reality takes the real world and through the use of graphics, sound and other effects allows you to enhance the environment. It makes a game more real. Your social media app puts you where want to be or go. Pro iOS 5 Augmented Reality walks you through the foundations of building an augmented reality application for the iPhone or iPad. From using MapKit, to the accelerometer and magnetometer, to integrating facial recognition and Facebook data, you'll learn the building blocks of creating augmented reality applications. Case studies are included in this one-of-a-kind book and you'll learn how to create augmented reality apps that unleash the full potential of the on-board sensors and camera. This book complements other iOS game or social media apps development books available from Apress. After reading Pro iOS 5 Augmented Reality, you'll be able to build augmented reality rich media apps or integrate all the best augmented reality techniques and tools into your existing apps.

Virtual reality (VR) techniques are becoming increasingly popular. The use of computer modeling and visualization is no longer uncommon in the area of ergonomics and occupational health and safety. This book explains how studies conducted in a simulated virtual world are making it possible to test new solutions for designed workstations, offering a high degree of ease for introducing modifications and eliminating risk and work-related accidents. Virtual reality techniques offer a wide range of possibilities including increasing the cognitive abilities of the elderly, adapting workstations for people with disabilities and special needs, and remote control of machines using collaborative robots. Detailed discussions include: Testing protective devices, safety systems, and the numerical reconstruction of work accidents Using computer simulation in generic virtual environments On the one hand, it is a self-study book made so by well-crafted and numerous examples. On the other hand, through a detailed analysis of the virtual reality from a point of view of work safety and ergonomics and health improvement. Ewa Grabska, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland Noteworthy is the broad scope and diversity of the addressed problems, ranging from training employees using VR environments with different degrees of perceived reality; training and rehabilitation of the elderly; to designing, testing, modifying, and adapting workplaces to various needs including those of disabled workers; to simulation and investigation of the cause of accidents at a workplace. Andrzej Krawiecki, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland

Auralization is the creation of audible acoustic sceneries from computer-generated data. The term "auralization" is to be understood as being analogue to the well-known technique of "visualization." In visual illustration of scenes, data or any other meaningful information, in movie animation and in computer graphics, we describe the process of "making visible" as visualization. In acoustics, auralization is taking place when acoustic effects, primary sound signals or means of sound reinforcement or sound transmission, are processed to be presented by using electro-acoustic equipment. This book is organized as comprehensive collection of basics, methodology and strategies of acoustic simulation and auralization. With mathematical background of advanced students the reader will be able to follow the main strategy of auralization easily and work own implementations of auralization in various fields of applications in acoustic engineering, sound design and virtual reality. For readers interested in basic research the technique of auralization may be useful to create sound stimuli for specific investigations in linguistic, medical, neurological and psychological research and in the field of human-machine interaction.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design. The 6th volume in this series represents a selection of 7 contributions from DMDCM 2011, the 5th International Conference on Digital Media and Digital Content Management, held in Chongqing, China, in December 2011, as well as 18 contributions from CASA 2011, the 24th International Conference on Computer Animation and Social Agents, held in Chengdu, China, in May 2011. The topics covered are: pen-based interface, urban heat island simulation, BR-based on-line expo, physically-based tree animation, 3D face texture stitching, chessboard corner extraction, textured-based tracking, motion control, motion capture and retargeting, path planning, physics based animation, image based animation, behavioral animation, artificial life, deformation, facial animation, multi-resolution and multi-scale models, knowledge-based animation, motion synthesis; social agents and avatars, emotion and personality, virtual humans, autonomous actors, AI based animation, social and conversational agents, inter-agent communication, social behavior, gesture generation, crowd simulation; animation compression and transmission, semantics and ontologies for virtual humans and virtual environments, animation analysis and structuring, anthropometric virtual human models, acquisition and reconstruction of animation data, level of details, semantic representation of motion and animation, medical simulation, cultural heritage, interaction for virtual humans, augmented reality and virtual reality, computer games and online virtual worlds.

The two-volume set LNCS 6773-6774 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Virtual and Mixed Reality 2011, held as Part of HCI International 2011, in Orlando, FL, USA, in July 2011, jointly with 10 other conferences addressing the latest research and development efforts and highlighting the human aspects of design and use of computing systems. The 47 revised papers included in the first volume were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: VR in education, training and health; VR for culture and entertainment; virtual humans and avatars; developing virtual and mixed environments.

Lars Qvortrup The world of interactive 3D multimedia is a cross-institutional world. Here, researchers from media studies, linguistics, dramaturgy, media technology, 3D modelling, robotics, computer science, sociology etc. etc. meet. In order not to create a new tower of Babel, it is important to develop a set of common concepts and references. This is the aim of the first section of the book. In Chapter 2, Jens F. Jensen identifies the roots of interaction and interactivity in media studies, literature studies and computer science, and presents definitions of interaction as something going on among agents and agents and objects, and of interactivity as a property of media supporting interaction. Similarly, he makes a classification of human users, avatars, autonomous agents and objects, demon strating that no universal differences can be made. We are dealing with a continuum. While Jensen approaches these categories from a semiotic point of view, in Chapter 3 Peer Mylov discusses similar isues from a psychological point of view. Seen from the user's perspective, a basic difference is that between stage and back-stage (or rather: front-stage), i. e. between the real "I" and "we" and the virtual, representational "I" and "we." Focusing on the computer as a stage, in Chapter 4 Kj0lner and Lehmann use the theatre metaphor to conceptualize the stage phenomena and the relationship between stage and front-stage."

Recently, with the success of Java and the existence of different interfaces be tween VRML and Java, it became possible to implement three-dimensional internet applications on standard VRML browsers (Plugins) using Java. With the widespread use of VRML-Browsers, e.g., as part of the Netscape Com municator and Microsoft's Internet Explorerstandard distributions, everyone connected to the internet via a PC ( and some other platforms) can directly enter a virtual world without installing a new kind of software. The VRML technology offers the basis for new forms of customer services, e.g., interactive three-dimensional product configuration, spare part ordering, or customer training. Also this technology can be used for CSCW in intranets. This book has a theoretical and a practical part. The theoretical part is intended more for teachers and researchers, while the practical part is in tended for web designers, programmers and students, who want to have both a hands-on approach to implementing Web 3D applications and a technically detailed overview of existing solutions for specific problems in this area."

The articles by well-known international experts intend to facilitate more elaborate expositions of the research presented at the seminar, and to collect and document the results of the various discussions, including ideas and open problems that were identified. Correspondingly the book will consist of two parts. Part I will consist of extended articles describing research presented at the seminar. This will include papers on tracking, motion capture, displays, cloth simulation, and applications. Part II will consist of articles that capture the results of breakout discussions, describe visions, or advocate particular positions. This will include discussions about system latency, 3D interaction, haptic interfaces, social gaming, perceptual issues, and the fictional "Holodeck."

Growing more quickly than we can study or come to fully understand it, social computing is much more than the next thing. Whether it is due more to technology-driven convenience or to the basic human need to find kindred connection, online communication and communities are changing the way we live.
Social Computing and Virtual Communities compiles contributions from international experts to offer the sort of multidisciplinary study that is required in any investigation of communities. Delving fully into theories and methods, application areas, and types of online social environments, this book -

• Introduces several theories regarding online social interaction
• Provides a general overview of methodologies, qualitative and quantitative, for analyzing and evaluating virtual communities
• Makes an in-depth investigation into e-learning communities and the formation of social networks of learners
• Examines healthcare communities motivated by physical pain, illness, and burdensome symptoms
• Discusses intellectual property (IP) issues, including those involving user-generated content
• Delves into the topic of online trust
• Introduces virtual communities, in which users immerse themselves in a 3D virtual environment, including MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing games)
• Presents an unusual community of older people of Chinese culture who perceive virtual communities as a place where old beliefs and traditional norms can be preserved
• Explores the rapid rise of social networking sites (SNS)

Books of this kind are uncommon. This work not only provides case studies of different domains of virtual communities and different types of social technologies but also emphasizes theoretical and methodological aspects required to research and analyze such communities.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Virtual Storytelling, ICVS 2007, held in Saint-Malo, France, in December 2007. The 12 revised full papers, three invited papers and seven poster and demo papers were carefully reviewed and selected. The papers are organized in topical sections on authoring tools and story models, behavior modeling, user interactivity, an invited session: related EU projects, as well as the poster and demo session.

Virtual Reality systems enable organizations to cut costs and time, maintain financial and organizational control over the development process, digitally evaluate products before having them created, and allow for greater creative exploration. In this book, VR developers Alan Craig, William Sherman, and Jeffrey Will examine a comprehensive collection of current, unique, and foundational VR applications in a multitude of fields, such as business, science, medicine, art, entertainment, and public safety among others.

An insider s view of what works, what doesn t work, and why, Developing Virtual Reality Applications explores core technical information and background theory as well as the evolution of key applications from their genesis to their most current form. Developmental techniques are cross-referenced between different applications linking information to describe overall VR trends and fundamental best practices. This synergy, coupled with the most up to date research being conducted, provides a hands-on guide for building applications, and an enhanced, panoramic view of VR development. Developing Virtual Reality Applications is an indispensable one-stop reference for anyone working in this burgeoning field.

Dozens of detailed application descriptions provide practical ideas for VR development in ALL areas of interest Development techniques are cross referenced between different application areas, providing fundamental best practices Includes a media-rich companion website with hours of footage from application demonstrations"

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Multimedia Modeling Conference, MMM 2007, held in Kyoto, Japan, in January 2007. The 23 revised full papers and 24 revised poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 130 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections that include material on media understanding, creative media, visual content representation, and video codecs, as well as media retrieval, audio and music.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Virtual Reality, ICVR 2007, held in Beijing, China. It covers 3D rendering and visualization, interacting and navigating in virtual and augmented environments, industrial applications of virtual reality, as well as health, cultural, educational and entertainment applications.

A comprehensive survey of technological developments in Virtual Reality for use in a variety of medical procedures

Medicine and the biological sciences have long relied on visualizations to illustrate the relationship between anatomic structure and biologic function. The new multidimensional imaging modalities are powerful counterparts to traditional forms of observation–surgery, postmortem examination, or extensive mental reconstruction. VR technologies have reached unimagined levels of sophistication and utility, giving physicians and students new avenues for planning and practicing surgery and diagnostics.

The two volumes of Information Technologies in Medicine thoroughly explore the use of VR technology in three-dimensional visualization techniques, realistic surgical training prior to patient contact, and actual procedures in rehabilitation and treatment, including telemedicine and telesurgery. Editors Akay and Marsh have brought together all the available information on the subject of VR technologies in medicine and medical training to create the first comprehensive guide to the state of the art in medicine for use by students, doctors, and researchers.

Volume II concentrates on VR technologies specifically in the area of rehabilitation and treatment and provides complete coverage of the most recent advancements in high-tech medicine. Specific treatments include:

• VR in neuro/orthopedic rehabilitation
• VR in treatment of anxiety disorders
• Robot-assisted microsurgery
• VR and the vestibular system
• Maxillofacial virtual surgery

The two volume set LNCS 4351 and LNCS 4352 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Multimedia Modeling Conference, MMM 2007, held in Singapore in January 2007. Based on rigorous reviewing, the program committee selected 123 carefully revised full papers of the main technical sessions and 33 revised full papers of four special sessions from a total of 392 submissions for presentation in two volumes.

Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen. At the time of its initial publication in 2008, Coming of Age in Second Life was the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe. Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group. Coming of Age in Second Life shows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself. Now with a new preface in which the author places his book in light of the most recent transformations in online culture, Coming of Age in Second Life remains the classic ethnography of virtual worlds.

In the fast-developing world of Industry 4.0, which combines Extended Reality (XR) technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), creating location aware applications to interact with smart objects and smart processes via Cloud Computing strategies enabled with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), factories and processes can be automated and machines can be enabled with self-monitoring capabilities. Smart objects are given the ability to analyze and communicate with each other and their human co-workers, delivering the opportunity for much smoother processes, and freeing up workers for other tasks. Industry 4.0 enabled smart objects can be monitored, designed, tested and controlled via their digital twins, and these processes and controls are visualized in VR/AR. The Industry 4.0 technologies provide powerful, largely unexplored application areas that will revolutionize the way we work, collaborate and live our lives. It is important to understand the opportunities and impact of the new technologies and the effects from a production, safety and societal point of view.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Intelligent Virtual Agents, IVA 2006, held in Marina Del Rey, CA, USA, in August 2006.

The 24 revised full papers and 11 revised short papers presented together with 3 invited talks and the abstracts of 19 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 73 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on social impact of IVAs, IVAs recognizing human behavior, human interpretation of IVA behavior, embodied conversational agents, characteristics of nonverbal behavior, behavior representation languages, generation of nonverbal behavior with speech, IVAs in serious games, cognition and emotion, and applications of IVAs.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Interactive Technologies and Sociotechnical Systems, VSMM 2006, held in Xi'an, China in October 2006.

The 59 revised full papers presented together with one keynote paper were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 180 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on virtual reality and computer graphics, vision and image technology, geometry processing, collaborative systems and GIS-related, digital heritage and healthcare, sensing and robotics, as well as arts and gaming.

The 1st International Conference on Virtual Storytelling took place on September 27-28, 2001, in Avignon (France) in the prestigious Popes' Palace. Despite the tragic events of September 11 that led to some last-minute cancellations, nearly 100 people from 14 different countries attended the 4 invited lectures given by international experts, the 13 scientific talks and the 6 scientific demonstrations. Virtual Storytelling 2003 was held on November 20-21, 2003, in Toulouse (France) in the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum "Les Abattoirs." One hundred people from 17 different countries attended the conference composed of 3 invited lectures, 16 scientific talks and 11 posters/demonstrations. Since autumn 2003, there has been strong collaboration between the two major virtual/digital storytelling conference series in Europe: Virtual Storytelling and TIDSE (Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment). Thus the conference chairs of TIDSE and Virtual Storytelling decided to establish a 2 year turnover for both conferences and to join the respective organizers in the committees. For the third edition of Virtual Storytelling, the Organization Committee chose to extend the conference to 3 days so that more research work and applications could be be presented, to renew the Scientific and Application Board, to open the conference to new research or artistic communities, and to call for the submission of full papers and no longer only abstracts so as to make a higher-level selection.

Developing and maintaining a VR system is a very difficult task, requiring in-depth knowledge in many disciplines. The difficulty lies in the complexity of having to simultaneously consider many system goals, some of which are conflicting.

This book is organized so that it follows a spiral development process for each stage, describing the problem and possible solutions for each stage. Much more hands-on than other introductory books, concrete examples and practical solutions to the technical challenges in building a VR system are provided.

Part 1 covers the very basics in building a VR system and explains various technical issues in object modeling and scene organization. Part 2 deals with 3D multimodal interaction, designing for usable and natural interaction and creating realistic object simulation. Primarily written for first level graduates, advanced undergraduates and IT professionals will also find this a valuable guide.