Mixed reality research issues

IPCity is a research consortium that is partly funded by the European Commission 6th Framework agreement

The research aim of the IPCity project is to investigate analytical and technological approaches to presence in real life settings. Analytically, this includes extending the approaches to presence accounting for the participative and social constitution of presence, the multiplicity and distribution of events in time and space. Technologically, this translates into developing portable environments for on-site configuration, mobile and light-weight mixed reality interfaces with the ambition to weave them into “the fabric of everyday life”. Methodologically, this calls for moving “out of the lab” with field trials in real settings, applying a triangulation of disciplines and methods for evaluation. These range from interpretative-ethnographic to quasi-experimental approaches and include cognitive science, social-psychological, and cultural-anthropological disciplines.

The vision of the IPCity project is to provide citizens, visitors, as well as professionals involved in city development or the organisation of events with a set of technologies that enable them to collaboratively envision, debate emerging developments, experience past and future views or happenings of their local urban environment, discovering new aspects of their city.