A UCF computer science professor who has dedicated his career to advancing virtual reality (VR) technologies has been recognized for his achievements by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Visualization and Graphics Technical Community (IEEE VGTC).
Joseph J. LaViola Jr., a Charles F. Millican professor in the UCF Department of Computer Science, has been selected to the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Academy, a testament to his significant contributions to the field.
“I am honored to be selected to the IEEE VGTC VR Academy this year and to be a part of a group of VR researchers, developers and practitioners that I looked up to and followed as a graduate student at Brown University and as a professor here at UCF,” he says. “I am truly humbled to be a part of this select group.”
LaViola says he was captivated by VR at a young age. As an elementary school student in the 1980s, LaViola learned about VR from Sierra On-Line, a gaming magazine. The idea of a computer-generated technology that allowed people to live and work in a virtual world, one so believable that you felt you were actually there, was fascinating to him.
“I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever heard of,” he says. “From that point on, I decided that I wanted to study and do research in VR.”
He was drawn to UCF by two researchers who were making great strides in virtual and augmented reality: Charles Hughes and Mike Moshell.
“UCF was already a great place for VR research and I wanted to build off of and collaborate with these highly regarded professors,” LaViola says.
He has carried a passion for the technology throughout his career, making it his mission to improve the VR experience. LaViola is active in two UCF Faculty Cluster Initiatives, the Disability, Aging and Technology Cluster and the Learning Sciences Cluster. At his lab, the Interactive Computing Experiences Research Laboratory, his team focuses on 3D user interfaces; pen and multi-touch computing; human-robot interaction; games, training and learning; and motion tracking and estimation.
He and his team of researchers are focused on a number of projects, all dedicated to improving the VR experience.
One of LaViola’s Ph.D. students is working on presence, or how “real” the VR experience is perceived by a subject, based on the fidelity of the virtual environment. Another is working on multimodal interactions in VR, with a goal of allowing a user to interact with the technology through several methods, including voice, gestures, eye gaze and facial expressions.
A third project incorporates artificial intelligence (AI), using computer-generated created study participants to test 3D user interfaces in VR.
“Using deep learning and other generative AI techniques we believe we can create realistic avatars that can simulate the interactions user’s perform which will ultimately reduce the number of human participants required in user studies in VR,” he says.
LaViola foresees far-reaching advancements in VR over the next decade that he has categorized as AI-enhanced VR. He says generative AI, large language models (LLMs) and visual language models (VLMs) will have a profound impact on the field.
“One example is that using LLMs and VLMs as the backbone for virtual avatars will make them more realistic than ever before as they will respond to users in rich and life-like ways which will increase immersion and a sense presence in virtual as well as augmented reality,” he says. “A second example is with the power of generative AI, people will be able to create rich and dynamic virtual worlds with simply a few sentences opening the door for anyone to generate a compelling VR experience.”
LaViola says he’s motivated by the limitless possibilities in the field: his vision for what VR is today versus what it can be.
“Although VR had made great strides over the last 30 years there is still so much work to be done to improve VR hardware and software as well as user interaction to reach truly immersive experiences in VR,” he says. “I feel it is important to not only make novel contributions to the VR field but also to educate people on what VR is capable of and how they can create their own virtual environments.”
Story by Bel Huston