Paper #1: Virtual reality applied to sports: do handball goalkeepers react realistically to simulated synthetic opponents?
Benoît Bideau, Franck Multon, Richard Kulpa, Laetitia Fradet and Bruno Arnaldi
Virtual reality is currently used in several application fields. In those applications and, especially in sports, the motor behavior of the subjects plays a major role. We propose to test the specific problem of handball goalkeeper and thrower duel. To this end, we studied if real handball goalkeepers react in a virtual scenery as in real game. The virtual scenery is composed of virtual opponents that are driven by a kinematical animation model. This model enables to change a specific parameter in the virtual thrower's motion and to examine the resulting effects on the goalkeepers' reactions. This paper aims at verifying if this animation model reproduces real motions with an enough accuracy to engender realistic goalkeepers reactions. Our results show that this kind of model enables to carry-out virtual experiments without modifying the natural gestures of the subjects.

Paper #2 Learning Molecular Biology By VR Playing
BF Lu, KT Lim, JM Zheng and YY Cai
Learning by playing is one of the natural way for knowledge and skill acquisition. This paper addresses the issue of learning molecular biology by Virtual Reality (VR) based playing. A software system MolecularStudio is developed using the VR Technology for learning of protein structure. The paper also reports an experiment with a group of seven volunteer secondary students learning bio-molecule using the MolecularStudio.

Paper #3 Simulation on Pattern Design in Group Calisthenics
Qingge Ji, Zhigeng Pan and Lin Mei
Because the transformation of alignments and patterns in group calisthenics are complex, it will spend a very long time to rehearse group calisthenics. To reduce rehearsal time, we studied group calisthenics training simulation. This paper gives several pathplanning methods and a collision avoidance algorithm, and uses virtual human crowds to simulate the transforming method of alignment and pattern. Our new algorithm is simpler and more efficient than former methods. This method has been used in our virtual arrangement and rehearsal system of group calisthenics. This method can help group calisthenics arrangement personnel to improve designing quality and efficiency of transforming manner of alignment and pattern, and provide an aid tool for group calisthenics arrangement personnel.

Paper #4 Adapting COTS Games for Military Simulation
Gwenda Fong
The interactive digital medium of computer games holds promise for application in the realm of military simulation. This paper presents the Defence Science & Technology Agency (DSTA) and Singapore Armed Forces' (SAF) initiative to leverage on commercial computer games for military applications, how several SAF schools have adopted modified commercial games to enhance classroom instruction, and our future plans to extend the use of games in the SAF.

Paper #5 Real Time 3D Avatar for Interactive Mixed Reality
Sang-Yup Lee, Ig-Jae Kim, Sang C Ahn, Heedong Ko, Myo-Taeg Lim, Hyoung-Gon Kim
This paper presents real-time reconstruction of dynamic 3D avatar for interactive mixed reality. In computer graphics, one of the main goals is the combination of virtual scenes with real-world scenes. However, the views of the real world objects are often restricted to views from the cameras. True navigation through such mixed reality scenes becomes impossible unless the components from real objects can be rendered from arbitrary viewpoints. Additionally, adding a real-world object to a virtual scene requires some depth information as well, in order to handle interaction. The proposed algorithm introduces an approach to generate 3D video avatars and to augment the avatars naturally into 3D virtual environment using the calibrated camera parameters and silhouette information. As a result, we can create photo-realistic live avatars from natural scenes and the resulting 3D live avatar can guide and interact participants in VR space.