European Media and Immersion Lab

Project Information

EMIL

Grant agreement ID: 101070533

DOI

10.3030/101070533

Project closed

EC signature date 13 June 2022

Start date 1 September 2022

End date 30 June 2025

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 7 449 850,00

EU contribution

€ 7 449 850,00

Coordinated by

AALTO KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR
Finland

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EMIL (European Media and Immersion Lab)

Reporting period: 2024-03-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In the ever-evolving landscape of Mixed Reality (XR) technology, staying ahead of the curve is essential for professionals and researchers alike. XR technologies are being used in various business sectors such as entertainment, health, sports, media, education and more. EMIL (European Media and Immersion Lab) will define and accelerate the development of the XR industry through innovation, collaboration and knowledge exchange, inviting XR business and research professionals to work together to meet the world's and people's challenges.

At the heart of the pan-European network is a community of developers, content creators, researchers, entrepreneurs and industry leaders united by their passion for XR technology. The EMIL network is coordinated by Aalto University (Aalto) in Finland and includes Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (FABW) in Germany, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Spain and University of Bath (UB) in England, as well as 13 new members from Greece, the Netherlands, Austria and France. The community covers a wide range of starting points for XR media, from location-based media to health care and sports applications, from entertainment production and education to co-working platforms and the development of new devices and tools for XR media.

The network connects members' physical and virtual infrastructures to accelerate the development of virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies, content, services and applications.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The core of the network is the research carried out at the four node universities, Aalto, FABW, UPF and UB. They cover location-based media (FABW), health and sports applications (UB), collaborative gadgets for augmented reality (UPF) and smart garments for XR (Aalto). To identify the most promising XR developers in Europe, EMIL organised calls for proposals with a budget of 5.6 million EUR for financial support to third-party (FSTP). The network is supporting the 13 newly launched projects not only with generous grants (250k€-500k€), but also by providing access to its premises and equipment, as well as advice.

The Smart Garments (Aalto) and Magic Lantern (UPF) have had common workshops for utilizing the development work done in both nodes.

UPF is in constant dialogue with the other nodes to coordinate potential needs of FSTPs. For example, two of the FSTPs supervised by UPF are having contact for assessment and support with FABW. On the other hand, two projects being supervised by other nodes (one from FABW and one from Aalto) are in touch with UPF to get support from us; even one of these will travel to Barcelona for an in-person workshop.

Several FSTP partners have taken advantage of for example exergaming expertise and getting advised about motion capture technology and support in the use of sensors. The nodes have found each other’s expertise very useful for their own research, for example UB is giving Aalto access to the EmoSense SDK for affect recognition (D3.7) which will be applied in the evaluation of their XR sauna experience.

The node‘s professional film studios, IT infrastructure and XR equipment are an essential contribution to the EMIL project at large and the FSTPs in particular. The network of professionals, researchers and business-oriented lecturers a major contribution, too. Through exchange with FSTPs the nodes provide expertise and infrastructure and naturally the nodes are tutoring with FSTPs. EMIL’s online presence on website and social media, especially the website and the LinkedIn page, can be considered successful the FSTP projects, with LinkedIn having an excellent engagement rate of above 10% (with anything above 2% being considered great).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Creating multimodal haptic experiences with a range of actuators has historically been complex and costly. We introduce an open platform facilitating the seamless creation of scalable hardware prototypes by designers and developers. By providing modular electronic designs and open APIs, the platform can contribute to standardizing the implementation of thermo-haptic feedback across different XR systems.

UB Lighthouse: Estimating users’ affective state while using VR and being physically active is difficult, as VR and physical activity interfere with common physiological sensors. We develop Software Development Kits that can be used to integrate physical activity and affect recognition into VR experiences. The SDKs address common problems such as removing the effects of VR from physiological sensor data.

The EMIL network and development cycle

The node presentations at EMIL web-site https://emil-xr.eu

FABW's The Fate of The Minotaur represents location based XR in game context.

The logo of EMIL – European Media and Immersion Lab