Virtual Environments and Future Media

The Centre for Virtual Environments and Future Media has two homes. You will find these pages most useful for accessing information on the research arm based in Newton Building, with an overview of the commercial modelling and simulation activity undertaken in Business House via the Commercial Activities pages and directly on their website

The Centre for Virtual Environments and Future Media

• is the UK's leading centre researching telepresence
• has an unprecedented critical mass of systems to support our research goals
• is internationally recognised for its research
• has been top rated academically since 1997
• incorporates VETS3D who are at the forefront of real time 3D visualisation and are currently working with a number of public and private sector partners.
• has worldwide partners in both industry and academia
• has around 20 staff in two sites on campus
• is well placed to investigate next generation solutions to novel industry problems thanks to our flexible 'back off the system' ethos
• is sister centre to the thinklab which provides access to leading current generation systems

Research Vision

The Centre for Virtual Environments was founded in 1994 by the University of Salford, in partnership with the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC). With further major expansion in 1997, and consistent success and funding support over the last ten years the centre has consolidated its position as an area of research excellence. Our newly confirmed status as a research centre in our own right once again means we are now formally "The Centre for Virtual Environments and Future Media"

Research themes

• Studying the impact of visual technologies on the experience and performance of people
  
• Empathy, rapport and engagement with virtual humans
  
• Interplay between people, places and technology
  
• Dealing with complexity in visualisation
  
• Applications of virtual environments and media in a wide range of areas including medical visualisation, rehabilitation, and distance learning
  
• Reproducing face-to-face meetings and design of visualisation spaces