Centre for Creative and Immersive Extended Reality (CCIXR)

Motion Capture is at the core of a large proportion of the CCIXR’s activities, allowing and enabling innovative developments across the Creative Industries and beyond.

In addition to Full Body motion capture, the CCIXR Motion Capture Studio features facilities for Facial and Hand capture (full performance capture), in real-time using multiple tracking solutions (optical and inertial) to cater for a wide range of performance capture.

The large-scale studio also has a viewing gallery to allow easier communication and collaboration, and features optical and inertia based motion capture systems. A variety of tracking solutions are needed for different locations/tasks - and so a balance of passive and active systems are utilised to ensure maximum flexibility for companies and skills acquisition for our students.

The new studio also explores innovative alternative motion capture solutions, which are only currently available in the USA - including electromagnetic motion capture (Sixense). Exploring these options adds further options to the toolkit of resources which we can make available through CCIXR.  

Bringing LBE facilities to the Solent region increases the ability for UK based companies to develop for this medium, and enable us to develop the talent pipeline within this area. Location Based experiences are key to the growth of the XR market, as they enable consumers to experience the content, without the need to invest in expensive headsets - due to their multiplayer style, they also offer a way to share the experience. Our current innovation research in partnership with the RSC is another form of Location Based experience, and this facility enables us to develop and innovate for the entire experience. This technology incorporates motion capture (Vicon Origin system or similar), backpack PCs, VR headsets, haptic peripherals, face and hand tracking solutions and development computing. Green screen space has also be incorporated for full mixed-reality tracking.

These facilities will be key to leveraging future funding for research and innovation, enabling the CCIXR to be at the forefront of innovation in this sector. Combining Volumetrics with CCIXR’s photogrammetry and motion capture expertise and facilities means that for the first time all of these options can be used together to achieve ground-breaking results. Establishing volumetric capture facilities in the Solent region creates the UK's first facility outside London. 

The photogrammetry system is a metal rig, with a large number of cameras fixed at certain points. All of these cameras are synchronised, so that at the push of one button all the cameras take a photo simultaneously. The rig is calibrated and positioned for detailed facial capture, in addition to an upright person. This enables full body and facial capture, the resulting digital data can then be utilised across the different disciplines and digital applications. Photogrammetry is now widely used by global industry and, this facility will enable us to train a workforce who have the specialist skills that are needed to develop this in the UK. Photogrammetry is a key central resource that will greatly enhance the graphical capabilities of the CCIXR, and will be a very valuable service to industry particularly for games, film, animation, graphics, architecture and marketing. This specialist service is not currently easily available outside of London.

Due to our partnership with Magic Leap, we have the expertise and skills to have developed the first Spatial Computing Lab in the UK. This unique facility is key in enabling creation of spatial computing/mixed reality content and research and innovation in this field. LEP involvement enables the skills development, talent pipeline and further secures this region as a centre of expertise for this emerging technology. UoP has been given early-access developer status by Magic Leap, and as part of that agreement, sustainability of the equipment within this Lab will be ensured, as Magic Leap ensures that headsets are updated with the latest models.

Development bays have been created in order to enable XR technology development and production. LEP support enables CCIXR to have commercial licenses for a proportion of these bays, so that industry collaborators and partners can use these facilities on a short-term project basis. These development bays are equipped with console development kits, VR headsets and other technologies in order to ensure developments can be fully tested on site.

These state-of-the-art facilities include multiple spaces incorporating mixing desks, spatial audio and binaural sound areas, recording studios, musical computing and synthesis. This enables sound and vision to be understood within a context of human interaction and creative coding – ensuring that sound remains central within immersive XR. These facilities support and enable the core strengths within the team in relation to music computing and coding, production and engineering, and composition and performance of sound, and are essential in order to enable skills acquisition and development for sounds XR.

The VR Lab is designed for multiple applications including simulation and training, healthcare and medical, entertainment and media outputs. It incorporates between 4 and 6 degrees of freedom platforms and chairs, haptic devices, mobile development spaces and a virtual production projection mapping system. This also includes VR chairs, allowing new areas of innovation to be supported.

Simulation facilities enable a wide range of industry project applications, in purpose built development facilities, which includes state of the art biometric feedback devices, virtual production facilities, healthcare simulation technologies and cutting-edge XR technologies.

The Mixed Reality Tech Lab provides next generation light projection and mixed reality projection technology to enable interaction with content in real-time. This operates as a smart stage cube system, and will be an invaluable resource to organisations wishing to generate interactive content. This technology is essential to the skills and talent pipeline, as our Industry advice highlights the fact that real-time production skills are in great demand. This technology directly addresses this need.

Working in partnership with the University's innovation spaces, these dedicated CCIXR digital communication facilities, with full Immersive presentation facilities, are bookable by our partners and collaborators. LEP support enables CCIXR to deepen its business support and development offer.

CCIXR also explores immersion of all types, including 360 degree projection and projection mapping.

Novatech, Royal Navy and University of Portsmouth

This third-year undergraduate student project was commissioned by the Royal Navy and Novatech. Its aim was to create a VR simulation tool to support the training for RHIB piloting and navigation. Using a three degrees of freedom (DoF) platform and/or chair the original aim of the project was simply to create a proof of concept. However, these ambitions were significantly surpassed and the project was eventually realised as a full training simulation.

To date, RNR (Royal Navy Reserves) have relied on the right weather and available resources to train their part-time members. These external variables have frustrated training by limiting crucial training required to prepare RNR members for the unpredictable ocean conditions that RHIB coxswains constantly face. This project was able to address this challenge by using a combination of commercially available gaming hardware within training, and has developed into a first-of-its-kind affordable and portable motion simulator. This was developed on a two DoF simulator chair, with a gaming style steering wheel, thruster and Oculus Rift headset.

Following a trial conducted by a Royal Navy coxswain, the motion simulator was deemed a realistic and efficient training sim alternative. However, participant feedback and review led to the development of the simulator from using just a pitch + roll facility, to incorporating heave so as to enhance the reality of the simulated experience. With this addition, the team were able to correctly mimic the ocean’s waves that affect a RHIB in deployment. This VR training tool has been presented at VentureFest South,DSET (Bristol) and in ITECH (Sweden), demonstrating the power of Creative and Immersive technologies within the marine and maritime, and defence sectors.

A Partnership between Worthing Museum, Doye Mosse Productions and University of Portsmouth

Funded by Innovate UK as part of the Audiences of the Future: Design Foundations programme, part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF). This project sought to discover how Creative and Immersive XR could be used within a heritage context to design an exhibition which used digital technologies to augment real objects. Faced with the challenge of caretaking often fragile and precious exhibits, museums, galleries and heritage environments are well versed in the need for careful presentation and interpretation of their collections.

Designing Disgust was a proof of concept project that sought to use creative XR technologies to support and enable the story-telling of historical objects which in a contemporary environment and for political or moral reasons, are now viewed as problematic, inappropriate or just plain disgusting. An example of this is a high-style Victorian silk dress which would have entailed the death of over 1300 silkworms in its creation. Using a selection of different Creative and Immersive XR technologies the team created a number of successful proof of concept artefacts, overcoming the perceived challenges associated with exhibition and presentation of these objects.

For this dress, the team created an animated light projection of silkworms cascading down and slowly filling up the dress in order to illustrate and reveal the challenging history that lay behind such an apparently beautiful object and its creation. Audience research shows that the ‘animated’ yet non-invasive augmentation of this object attracted visitor interest and deepened their engagement and understanding of the collection.