Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

European Initiatives

FP7 Projects

VERVE

• Title: VERVE

• Type: COOPERATION (ICT)

• Defi: Services to promote E-inclusion using socially realistic virtual environments

• Instrument: Integrated Project (IP)

• Duration: October 2011 - September 2014

• Coordinator: Trinity College - Dublin (Ireland)

• Others partners: DFKI (Germany), CNRS-ParisTech (France), CNRS-IRCAM (France), U. of Zaragoza (Spain), Testaluna (IT), KAINOS (UK)

• See also: http://www.verveconsortium.eu/

Social exclusion has many causes, but major factors are the fear and apathy that often accompany a disability. The European e-Inclusion policy stresses the importance of ICT in improving the quality of life in potentially disadvantaged groups, including older people and persons with disabilities. In this project, we will develop ICT tools to support the treatment of people who are at risk of social exclusion due to fear and/or apathy associated with a disability. These tools will be in the form of personalised VR scenarios and serious games specifically designed for therapeutic targets and made broadly available via a novel integration of interactive 3D environments directly into Web browsers. We will perform cutting edge research into rendering and simulating personalised and populated VR environments, 3D web graphics, and serious games. These technical efforts will be underpinned by our clinical/laboratory and industry partners, who will be fully involved throughout in the requirements, design and evaluation of VERVE, and liaison with the stakeholders (i.e., participants, carers/family, and health professionals). They will implement the VERVE interventions in three use-cases, each targeting a different group of participants: Fear of falling, Apathy related to cognitive decline and behavioural disturbances, and other emotional disturbances linked to anxiety. While developing clinical assessment methods and interventions for the first two patient groups is our primary focus, our results will be applicable to a much wider range of potentially disadvantaged individuals.

For the first year period (October 2011 - September 2012), the consortium focused its effort on the following main actions:

• Designing scenarios for different situations, 3 main scenarios were designed:

  1. DogPhobia scenario (for phobias),

  2. Kitchen scenario (for Alzheimer patients),

  3. MeMoVE (for memory complaints).

• Ethical approvals submission for the different scenarios.

• Conducting different experiments in the context of these different scenarios, especially DogPhobia scenario.

• Development and adaptation of different technologies in order to implement the scenarios:

  • Image based rendering (IBR) for virtual realistic environment modeling,

  • Emotive avatars,

  • Crowds simulation,

  • Realistic human skin rendering.

• Development of different technical tool:

  • Virtual environment for mobile device serious game (Kitchen scenario),

  • Porting the IBR to immersive space for the MeMoVE scenario,

  • Adapting the partner's technologies to the different platforms within the consortium.

The first year review of the VERVE project was hold on October 2nd, 2012, and the project were judged good and follows the defined plan.