{"id":30429,"date":"2023-09-04T15:18:08","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T19:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=30429"},"modified":"2023-09-04T15:18:48","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T19:18:48","slug":"virtual-arboretum-featured-at-global-film-data-visualization-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/virtual-arboretum-featured-at-global-film-data-visualization-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtual Arboretum Featured at Global Film, Data Visualization Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A virtual corner of UCF\u2019s campus was demonstrated alongside some of the biggest names in the computer graphics industry at the ACM SIGGRAPH 2023 Electronic Theater Retrospective Celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/r9I0XuI6NmY\">Virtual UCF Arboretum<\/a>, an immersive digital twin of nature, was created by Associate Professor of Digital Media Maria Harrington, Ph.D., and was part of the featured presentations in a globally recognized conference that features everything from short films and music videos to data visualizations and behind-the-scenes visual effects reels. This was the 50<sup>th<\/sup> conference and was held in Los Angeles in early August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year, a reel of seminal pieces representing the best and most innovative projects from around the world\u2014including Harrington\u2019s work\u2014were showcased to reflect and celebrate 50 years of discovery and advancement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an incredibly prestigious event,\u201d said Harrington. \u201cI have deep gratitude for being invited to have my work highlighted alongside the best pioneers and leaders in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Virtual UCF Arboretum allows users to experience, interact and learn about the actual UCF Arboretum, which is home to 247 acres of unspoiled Florida habitat, through cutting-edge augmented and virtual reality technology. The landscapes range from swamps to scrubby flatwoods, providing stunning images that are pulled from field observations, photos, measurements, drone footage and historical geographic information system (GIS) data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The entire model is currently being updated using Epic Games Reality Capture and photogrammetry techniques for Unreal Engine 5 to improve graphical and visual \ufb01delity. This work will amplify immersive embodied experiences, emotional reactions, such as calm, excitement, and curiosity that are correlated to learning gains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"The Virtual UCF Arboretum version 2.0  light test with new plants and environment - more work to do!\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/r9I0XuI6NmY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u201cThese immersive digital twins of natural environments are different than others, because they are data visualizations of the botanical and ecological information,\u201d Harrington said. \u201cNot only are they photorealistic and beautiful, but what you see is information that represents the real natural world, data\u2014the truth.\u201d &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her newly published research paper in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/frvir.2023.1100540\/full\"><em>Frontiers in Virtual Reality<\/em>, \u201cVirtual Nature Makes Knowledge Beautiful,\u201d <\/a>shows the importance of emotions and aesthetics in learning. Designing technical artifacts will help build rich and successful learning environments so that anyone, from a child starting school to a retiree, can access information right from their fingertips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis work will help achieve the kinds of learning that enable a transformation of society,\u201d explains Harrington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As she prepares for a new semester, Harrington is looking forward to what\u2019s next. In the future, she hopes to integrate digital twins of nature with man-made digital twins to enhance the real world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p><a id=\"_msocom_1\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A virtual corner of UCF\u2019s campus was demonstrated alongside some of the biggest names in the computer graphics industry at the ACM SIGGRAPH 2023 Electronic Theater Retrospective Celebration. The Virtual UCF Arboretum, an immersive digital twin of nature, was created by Associate Professor of Digital Media Maria Harrington, Ph.D., and was part of the featured [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":30480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[33,38,13,37,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arboretum","category-breaking-news","category-news","category-communication","category-top-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Virtual Arboretum Featured at Global Film, Data Visualization Conference - College of Sciences News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/virtual-arboretum-featured-at-global-film-data-visualization-conference\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Virtual Arboretum Featured at Global Film, Data Visualization Conference - College of Sciences News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A virtual corner of UCF\u2019s campus was demonstrated alongside some of the biggest names in the computer graphics industry at the ACM SIGGRAPH 2023 Electronic Theater Retrospective Celebration. 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