W3C

W3C Workshop on Web & Virtual Reality

October 19-20, 2016; San Jose, CA, USA

Call For Participation

What is the purpose of this workshop?

The primary goal of the workshop is to bring together practitioners of Web and Virtual Reality technologies to make the Open Web Platform a better delivery mechanism for VR experiences.

The secondary goals of the workshop are as follows:

  • Share experiences between practitioners in VR and related fields.
  • Discuss how to solve for VR use cases that are difficult or impossible today on the Web.
  • Identify potential future standards and establish timelines to enable the Web to be a successful VR platform.

We won't just be listening to presentations, but we will be actively participating in breakout sessions and working discussions covering topics including but not limited to the current WebVR API. (To learn more information about WebVR, you may visit WebVR.info and read the Editor's Draft of the WebVR specification.)

How is the Web a viable platform for VR?

The Web provides a promising preexisting ecosystem for the creation, distribution, and experiencing of VR content, applications, and services.

In leveraging the Open Web Platform, we hope to provide an interoperability to avoid fragmentation and duplicated effort.

Why does the Web platform need VR?

The Web can benefit from the the new possibilities offered by ubiquitous VR from improved 3D graphics and media capabilities to tight integration with immersive sensors, and on to new ways of discovering and interacting with content and services.

How can I attend?

Attendance is free for all invited participants and is open to the public, whether or not W3C members.

If you wish to express interest in attending, please fill out the registration form. We want to fill the room with people with practical experience of both Web and VR technologies.

Because the venue can accommodate unfortunately only 100 attendees, you must receive an acceptance email in order to attend. Also, be sure to keep an eye on these important dates.

As an alternative to the registration form, you are encouraged to submit a topic in the form of a position statement.

Our aim is to get a diversity of attendees from a variety of industries and communities, including:

  • VR hardware vendors
  • VR platform providers
  • VR content producers and distributors
  • VR software developers, preferably with experience in developing for Web browsers
  • VR experience designers
  • users of VR, especially in fields beyond entertainment
  • experts in challenges and opportunities of VR for people with disabilities
  • browser vendors

This workshop, as other W3C meetings, operates under its Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

See also the current list of expected participants.

Which topics will be covered?

We will cover important issues and architectural aspects of bringing VR experiences to the Web.

The tentative list of topics is as follows:

  • displaying stereoscopic content
  • detecting and adapting to characteristics of VR headsets
  • handling new and varied input methods for VR (e.g., gamepad, hand position, etc.)
  • accessible user interfaces and interoperability considerations across VR applications
  • innovative VR applications that provide novel accessibility supports
  • 3D audio
  • 3D media synchronization
  • declarative 3D scenes and 3D scene-graph APIs
  • interoperable formats and codecs for 3D and 360° content
  • displaying and interacting with 360° video and images from HTML
  • bringing VR as progressive enhancement to classic Web browsing
  • 3D video capture (3D camera) and processing (e.g., scene perception)
  • streaming 3D/360° content, streaming real-time 3D content
  • obstacles to high-framerate rendering of 3D and better support for low-latency input, processing, and rendering
  • intersection of needs for VR & AR in the Web Platform (note that AR is not the main focus of the workshop, but the Program Committee will consider topics that provide insights on how the two fields overlap in the context of the Web Platform)
  • performance of client-side rendering and bandwidth
  • open and Web-friendly file formats, codecs, and containers for VR

Suggestions for further workshop topics? Submit a pull request on GitHub or email Dominique Hazael-Massieux <dom@w3.org>.

How can I suggest a presentation?

This is a workshop, not a conference, and any presentations will be short, with topics suggested by submissions and decided by the chairs and program committee. Our goal is to actively discuss topics, not to watch presentations.

In order to best facilitate informed discussion, we encourage attendees to read the accepted topics prior to attending the workshop.

If you wish to present on a topic, you can send us a position statement at <team-vr-submission@w3.org> by the deadline (see important dates). Our program committee will review the input provided, and select the most relevant topics and perspectives.

A good position statement should be a few paragraphs long and should include:

  • Your background in the intersection of Web and Virtual Reality technologies.
  • Which topic you would like to lead discussion on.
  • Links to related supporting resources.
  • Any other topics you think the workshop should cover in order to be effective.
  • A focus on technical issues, not process or platform preference. We plan to talk about the what, not the how.
  • Position statements must be in English, preferably in HTML or plain-text format; images should be included inline in HTML using base64-encoded data URIs. You may include multiple topics, but we ask that each person submit only a single coherent position statement. The input provided at registration time (e.g., bio, goals, interests) will be published and linked to from this workshop page.

What is W3C?

W3C is a voluntary standards consortium that convenes companies and communities to help structure productive discussions around existing and emerging technologies, and offers a Royalty-Free patent framework for Web Recommendations. We focus primarily on client-side (browser) technologies, and also have a mature history of vocabulary (or “ontology”) development. W3C develops work based on the priorities of our members and our community.

Location

The W3C Workshop on Web & Virtual Reality is located at the Samsung Semiconductor facilities in San Jose, CA, USA.

Venue

Samsung Semiconductor

3665 N 1st St

San Jose, CA 95134

United States

Program

Program Committee

Chairs

Committee

Host

Samsung

Samsung

Sponsors

Platinum Sponsors

Google
Mozilla

Silver Sponsors

The Khronos Group

Becoming a Sponsor

W3C Workshops, meetups, and other events bring you into direct contact with leading Web technology experts: representatives from industry, research, government, and the developer community.

Whether your interests are focused on a particular topic being discussed by a Working Group, or you wish to reach a diverse international audience setting, your sponsorship will help your organization engage W3C's participants in its strategic direction.

Sponsorships offset a portion of our meeting costs, so W3C welcomes multiple sponsors for each event. All proposals for sponsorship are subject to W3C approval.

If you're interested in being a sponsor of the W3C Web & Virtual Reality Workshop, please contact J. Alan Bird, Global Business Development Leader, at <abird@w3.org> or +1 617 253 7823.

For details on the available sponsorship opportunities for this workshop, see our Sponsorship Packages.