ImAc started in October 2018 and remained active during 30 months, until March 2020. During this period the ImaC consortium iteratively (co- and re-)designed and produced the ImAc platform, an end to end system for the production, distribution and consumption of accessible VR360 contents. It consists of a series of editing tools for the handling of subtitles, audio description and sign language accessibility content enrichment, a packager that encapsulates metadata content descriptors, reencodes the content and packetizes it to be served through the internet adaptively, and a VR360 player, fully customizable, and open source, which understands the metadata generated and presents access contents using different strategies.
During the whole process, ImAc followed a user centered apprroach and during the different iterations carried out, more than 1000 users have participated in requirements and evaluation activities. Around 250 users, professionals or consumers, provided direct subjective feedback about the tools and the viewing experience, while data from +850 users and +1000 sessions were gathered through open pilot activities by the end of the project. The resulting data has been analysed to understand the consumption patterns of the audience in a real environment.
In terms of dissemination and communication, the work performed in ImAc is outstanding. ImAc has produced 34 scientific articles, 30 of them during the second period, it has been present in a vast number of conferences and demonstrated its results in relevant forums. In terms of standarization ISO/IEC/ITU has accepted to open a SG on Immersive Environments in the series “Accessibility Interaction” JTC1 SG35 in the family 20071-30 Immersive Environments with very relevant presence of ImAc partners. Last but not least, in terms of exploitation, 4 specific collaboration actions have been launched towards the exploitation of ImAc results: during the last month of the project 2 regional broadcasters have agreed to integrate and test ImAc tools, while 2 research projects will use ImAc open source tools in their activities. In addition to that, the ImAC partner RBB has launched a set of 10 new 360 videos as part of their strategy for Covid situation, and the ImAc platform will be used to offer such contents with a layer of accessibility.
