Virtual reality (VR) can provide our minds with direct access to digital media in a way that seemingly has no limits. However, creating compelling VR experiences is an incredibly complex challenge. When VR is done well, the results are brilliant and pleasurable experiences that go beyond what we can do in the real world. When VR is done badly, not only is the system frustrating to use, but it can result in sickness. There are many causes of bad VR; some failures come from the limitations of technology, but many come from a lack of understanding perception, interaction, design principles, and real users. This book discusses these issues by emphasizing the human element of VR. The fact is, if we do not get the human element correct, then no amount of technology will make VR anything more than an interesting tool confined to research laboratories. Even when VR principles are fully understood, the first implementation is rarely novel and almost never ideal due to the complex nature of VR and the countless possibilities that can be created. The VR principles discussed in this book will enable readers to intelligently experiment with the rules and iteratively design towards innovative experiences.

The two volume set LNCS 8887 and 8888 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Visual Computing, ISVC 2014, held in Las Vegas, NV, USA. The 74 revised full papers and 55 poster papers presented together with 39 special track papers were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 280 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections: Part I (LNCS 8887) comprises computational bioimaging, computer graphics; motion, tracking, feature extraction and matching, segmentation, visualization, mapping, modeling and surface reconstruction, unmanned autonomous systems, medical imaging, tracking for human activity monitoring, intelligent transportation systems, visual perception and robotic systems. Part II (LNCS 8888) comprises topics such as computational bioimaging , recognition, computer vision, applications, face processing and recognition, virtual reality, and the poster sessions.

This is a strong foundation of human-centric virtual reality design for anyone and everyone involved in creating VR experiences. Without a clear understanding of the human side of virtual reality (VR), the experience will always fail. The VR Book bridges this gap by focusing on human-centered design. Creating compelling VR applications is an incredibly complex challenge. When done well, these experiences can be brilliant and pleasurable, but when done badly, they can result in frustration and sickness. Whereas limitations of technology can cause bad VR execution, problems are oftentimes caused by a lack of understanding human perception, interaction, design principles, and real users. This book focuses on the human elements of VR, such as how users perceive and intuitively interact with various forms of reality, causes of VR sickness, creating useful and pleasing content, and how to design and iterate upon effective VR applications. This book is not just for VR designers, it is for managers, programmers, artists, psychologists, engineers, students, educators, and user experience professionals. It is for the entire VR team, as everyone contributing should understand at least the basics of the many aspects of VR design. The industry is rapidly evolving, and The VR Book stresses the importance of building prototypes, gathering feedback, and using adjustable processes to efficiently iterate towards success. It contains extensive details on the most important aspects of VR, more than 600 applicable guidelines, and over 300 additional references.

The two volume set LNCS 8887 and 8888 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Visual Computing, ISVC 2014, held in Las Vegas, NV, USA. The 74 revised full papers and 55 poster papers presented together with 39 special track papers were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 280 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections: Part I (LNCS 8887) comprises computational bioimaging, computer graphics; motion, tracking, feature extraction and matching, segmentation, visualization, mapping, modeling and surface reconstruction, unmanned autonomous systems, medical imaging, tracking for human activity monitoring, intelligent transportation systems, visual perception and robotic systems. Part II (LNCS 8888) comprises topics such as computational bioimaging , recognition, computer vision, applications, face processing and recognition, virtual reality, and the poster sessions.