INTUITION

Virtual Reality (VR) technology is still a rapidly evolving and diversifying field. The massive research and development process has reached a degree which makes a pan-European structuring and integrating effort an absolute necessity. In addition, VR technology has started being used to an extent in industrial applications; this has been processed though an unorganised way, lacking of long-term vision and dealing with case-by-case scenarios. Thus, a critical milestone is facilitate the adoption of Virtual Environments (VEs) in industrial processes and assess the impact of its “penetration” into the workplace and everyday life in terms of cost-effectiveness, health hazards and side-effects of the users and its impact on the actual working environment, on an individual and organizational level.

INTUITION’s major objective is to bring together leading experts and key actors across all major areas of VE understanding, development, testing and application in Europe, including industrial representatives, SMEs and key research institutes, universities and major international organisations or associations in order to overcome fragmentation and promote VE establishment within product and process design. Its major objectives include the integration of resources and VR equipment all around Europe, the structuring of European Research Area at VR and the promotion of Europe as a leading force in this filed world wide.

To perform this, a number of activities will be carried out in order to establish a common view of VE technology current status, open issues and future trends. These activities will include integration of human and infrastructure resources, research structuring, spreading of excellence and dissemination tasks. The quite large consortium is controlled by a firm managerial structure. Strong links with National relevant Networks, current National and EU-funded projects and clustering activities with new initiatives as well, will assist in structuring the VR European Research Area.