Subject: Intelligent Virtual Agents 99

From: "Daniel Ballin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 21:05:23 +0100

Workshop on Intelligent Virtual Agents (Virtual Agents 99) 
		
	One day workshop prior to the UK Virtual Reality Conference
	
		The Centre for Virtual Environments, 
		   	     Salford, United Kingdom 

			13th September 1999 
			
			Sponsored By 
	 Simulation Solutions Ltd,  VR News,  GEMISIS,  NICVE 

         	    http://www.salford.ac.uk/cve/va99/  

Introduction 
---------------- 

The field of Intelliegent Virtual Agents is a new and emerging area that
is starting to make its  way out of research and into the commercial 
world. The area brings together two  disciplines, the field of 
visualization covering areas such as 3D graphics, virtual  reality, 
computer animation, and multimedia, and the field of agents, both within
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial Life (ALIFE). 

Only recently has the price and power of computers made virtual agents a
viable option to explore scientifically. Despite being a relatively new 
field of research, large  strides have been made in a short time. Lately 
there has been a marked increase in  interest with virtual agents in diverse
industries such as entertainment, education,  engineering, and film. 

At the 13th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI98), a 
very successful workshop was held on Intelligent Virtual Environments. 
Participants felt a  follow-up workshop should be organised in 1999 and 
since a major theme had been  that of Virtual Agents, this was chosen as
the theme of the forthcoming workshop. 

People researching virtual agents tend to come from either the visualization
or agent  community. The two communities have much to learn from each 
other,
if wheels are  not to be reinvented on both sides. This workshop aims to 
bring these two communities together to discuss the current state-of-the-art 
in virtual agents, together  with leading international keynote speakers,
and to create a roadmap for the future of  this technology. 

Topics of interest include (but not limited to) 
---------------------------------------------------------------- 

Virtual and physical agent interaction 
Perception in autonomous virtual agents
  
Augmented virtual agents 
Intelligent virtual agent architectures  
Intelligent virtual actors  
Emotionally driven synthetic characters 
Novel applications of virtual agents  
New tools and technologies for the building of virtual agents
Human interaction with virtual agents (e.g. voice recognition)  
The use of virtual agents for training
Virtual agents in shared worlds  
Biologically inspired virtual agents
Virtual ecosystems 

Paper Submission 
-------------------------- 
If you are interested in contributing please send an extended abstract
1000 - 2000 words or final paper electronically, in Word, HTML or Postscript
to: [email-masked]. Final papers should be about 4000 words.
The deadlines for submission are given below

Demonstrations and Exhibits  
------------------------------------------- 
An opportunity will exist for people to demonstrate their work. To give us time
to organise the floor space and technical requirements we would like to be 
notified before the 6th August, contact us for details of resources available:  
[email-masked].  

Attendance and Registration 
------------------------------------------ 
To encourage discussion and interaction there are a limited number of places,
so early registration is recommended. Anyone with an interest in virtual 
agents
may attend - it is not necessary to submit a workshop paper in order to 
attend
but people who do will get priority.  

Registration is NOW free but all delegates wishing to attend should send a
short position statement highlighting their research or interest in virtual
agents. Position papers not more than half a side of A4 should be sent in 
plain
text or HTML only to: [email-masked].  

Lunch, morning and afternoon tea/coffee, and a copy of the proceedings will
be provided. It is not necessary to register for the UK VR-SIG on the 14th
and 15th of September, if you only wish to attend the virtual agent workshop. 

Programme Committee 
-------------------------------------- 
Ruth Aylett, 		Centre for Virtual Environments,  - Programme Chair  
Daniel Ballin, 		Centre for Virtual Environments   
Marc Cavazza,		University of Bradford    
Dave Cliff,	 	Hewlett Packard Labs, Bristol   
Kerstin Dautenhahn,	University of Reading   
Chris Hand, 		Napier University    
Mike Luck,		University of Warwick   
Divine Ndumu,		Bristish Telecommunications Laboratories,   
Paolo Petta, 		Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence  
Peter Wavish,		Philips Research Labs, Redhill,   
Mark Wells, 		Televirtual, Norwich,   
Christopher Winter,	Cyberlife Technology Ltd    

Keynote Speaker 
-------------------------- 
Professor Demetri Terzopoulos  
Department of Computer Science 
University of Toronto 

Professor Terzopoulos does pioneering work in artificial life, an emerging
field that  cuts across computer science and biological science. He devises
computer models of animal locomotion, perception, behaviour, learning and
intelligence. Demetri Terzopoulos and his students have created artificial 
fishes, virtual inhabitants of an  underwater world simulated on a powerful
computer. These autonomous, lifelike  creatures swim, forage, eat and mate 
on
their own. Demetri Terzopoulos has also  done outstanding work on human 
facial
modelling. He and his co-workers have  produced what is widely recognised 
as
the most realistic biomechanical model of the  human face to date. 
Expressive
synthetic faces are useful in entertainment, human- computer interaction, 
planning reconstructive facial surgery, automated face recognition, and 
teleconferencing systems. Demetri Terzopoulos is widely known as the 
inventor
of deformable models, a family of shape modelling algorithms that have  
bridged
the fields of computervision and computer graphics and have opened up new 
avenues
of research in medical imaging and computer-aided design.  

Audio / Visual 
--------------------- 
An overhead projector will be provided, as well as a TV-video (PAL-VHS) and 
laptops (PC and Mac) running PowerPoint. Please notify us prior the 
workshop 
if you need these.  

If you have any other hardware requirements please contact us, and we will 
try and accommodate them. 

Important Dates  
------------------------ 
Submission of Final Papers
or extended Abstracts		 		11th June 1999  
Notification of accepted papers 		16th July 1999  
Proposals for Demonstrations/Exhibits 		6th August 1999  
Submission of camera-ready full papers 		20th August 1999  
Deadline for registration 			20th August 1999  
Intelligent Virtual Agents workshop 		13th September 1999  

Publication 
----------------- 
All papers will be in the formal proceedings and considered for later 
publication
in a special journal issue, details of this will follow. 

Contact person 
---------------------- 
Daniel Ballin,  
The Centre for Virtual Environments 
Business House 
University of Salford, 
Salford 
M5 4WT, UK 
Email: [email-masked] 
Tel: +44-(0)161-295-2918  
Fax: +44-(0)161-295-2925 
http://www.salford.ac.uk/cve/va99/