Trans Realities Lab receives EMIL funding for XR Innovation
The Transdisciplinary Design Networks research group at Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) has been awarded over €448,000 in funding to continue research and development of the eXtended Realities – Intraverse Toolkit (XR-IT).
The award, from the Horizon Europe funded European Media and Immersion Lab (EMIL), builds on pioneering research in the Trans Realities Lab, which is headed by Professor Ian Biscoe. The lab has focused on the infrastructure, software and services required to deliver high-fidelity Networked XR, with applications in education and research; in the performing arts; and emerging business applications in virtual production, design, and geographically dispersed real-time collaboration in coalesced space.
Dr. Biscoe explains: ”Networked XR is a more precise and technical term for what many are calling the future of connected immersive computing, the “Metaverse” or “Spatial Computing”. We see Intraverses as “mini Metaverses”, ones that are deployed to support education and research (such as a spatial layer to the National Regional and Education Networks that exist today), for the creation of global real-time stages in media production and live consumption, and for enabling next generation businesses that perform design globally in real time”.
The eXtended Realities – Intraverse Toolkit (XR-IT) will support the creation of high-fidelity, real-time Networked XR environments that can be coalesced across multiple physical nodes of engagement. The toolkit will significantly simplify (in terms of both time and specialist technical knowledge required) how a node in a network can join and participate in a Networked XR collaboration scenario.
In terms of DAE’s participation with the EMIL network, Dr. Biscoe enthuses “we are delighted for the opportunity to collaborate with the XR lighthouse projects at Aalto University in Finland, Filmakadamie Baden-Wurttemberg, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, and the University of Bath in the UK, along with the other pioneering XR recipients of funding from the EMIL programme”.