Emerging Applications in Immersive Technologies

The world of Virtual Environments and Immersive Technologies (Sutherland, 1965) (Kalawsky, 1993) are evolving quite rapidly. As the range and complexity of applications increases, so does the requirement for intelligent interaction. The now relatively simple environments of the OZ project (Bates, Loyall & Reilly, 1992) have been superseded by Virtual Theatres (Doyle & Hayes-Roth, 1997) (Giannachi, 2004), Tactical Combat Air (Jones, Tambe, Laird & Rosenbloom, 1993) training prototypes and Air Flight Control Simulators (Wangermann & Stengel, 1998). This article presents a brief summary of present and future technologies and emerging applications that require the use of AI expertise in the area of immersive technologies and virtual environments. The applications are placed within a context of prior research projects