Four young scientists of Fraunhofer IGD convinced the international committee as authors at the Web3D Conference 2011 in Paris. Their “Best Long Paper” proves that science is easily accessible with comprehensible presentation and preparation.

A nine-page paper: original, concise and comprehensible. Tobias Franke, Svenja Kahn, Manuel Olbrich and Dr. Yvonne Jung of Fraunhofer IGD don’t only inspire by their research topic alone. Rather, readers of their scientific document quickly gain the desired sudden insight, too.

This difficulty is what makes numerous scientists fail, even if they realize their topic to professional perfection. At the annual Web3D ACM Conference, the international Web3D consortium offered a competition for the best article in 3D research, in which four researchers of Fraunhofer IGD succeeded this year.

In their composition, the authors show how they can use the range cameras of games consoles for Augmented Reality applications. The researchers of the “Virtual and Augmented Reality” and “Visual Computing System Technologies” competence centers use range cameras in order to bring together real and virtual 3D models. Range cameras are 3D camera systems and measure distances.

It is often the same questions that designers need to ask themselves in such applications. Is an object hidden, i.e. is the virtual object behind or in front of the real object? How is it illuminated, i.e. does the virtual object cast a shadow over the real object? How do the objects interact in the three-dimensional space, i.e. how can I grasp and process a virtual object in my hands? In their contribution, the authors show methods for previously unresolved issues.

The young scientists managed to prepare their contribution in writing and speak with graphs and images such that the committee awarded them with the “Best Long Paper” prize at the 16^th Web3D ACM Conference in Paris.