December 11-13, 2013, Miraikan, Tokyo, Japan
Message from the General Chair
On behalf of the Organizing Committee of the 23rd International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence (ICAT 2013), it is our great pleasure to express our heartfelt welcome to this year’s academic meeting on the emerging field of artificial reality and telexistence. The first ICAT conference was held as early as 1991, and is the oldest international conference on virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and telexistence.
Artificial reality is the forerunner to VR and AR, and is the technology that provides human beings with the experience of interacting in an artificially generated environment. Telexistence, on the other hand, is a concept named for the technology that enables human beings to have a real-time sensation of being at a place other than the place where they actually exist and to interact with a remote environment with a sensation of existence. Telexistence in the real environment through a computer-generated virtual environment, that is, augmented telexistence, is also possible. Thus, telexistence makes human beings virtually ubiquitous.
We expect new information technology (IT) paradigms, such as ubiquitous computing, wearable computing, entertainment computing, augmented human technology, and humanoid robotics to create more dramatic advancements in the fields of VR, AR, and telexistence. Expecting such advancements and exploring novel ways to transfer and express creative ideas to the society and the people, ICAT 2013 aims at not only the fusion of VR, AR, and telexistence with new IT paradigms mentioned above but also the fusion of art and culture.
The applications of virtual reality, augmented reality, and telexistence are now being sought worldwide, and this technology is expected to be one of the most promising generic technologies of the 21st century. It is therefore quite timely and significant to have this series of international forums annually for the exchange of new concepts, ideas, and experimental results, and for a deep discussion among experts from diverse fields that were regarded as entirely different at least thirty years ago, who are aiming to arrive at the same goal with regard to VR, AR, and telexistence today. It is also important to discuss and evaluate technology not only from the standpoint of technology per se but also from the social perspective.
I really hope that you will find all the dimensions of VR, AR, and telexistence in this conference useful, and also enjoy the demonstrations of the new apparatus and/or products. Technological details of the presentation will be described in the proceedings. All of the committee and secretariat are working hard to make this a successful conference. We look forward to meeting and engaging in an interactive discussion with you. We sincerely hope to see you all at the conference!
Sincerely,
Susumu Tachi, Ph.D.General Chair
