Today, applications using high-quality interactive computer graphics are omnipresent. The technology powering such real-time interactive systems is driven by the computer games industry, pushing advanced technology to the masses, and yielding highly versatile development tools.

The availability and accessibility of these technologies open up new possibilities in the simulation, analysis of and presentation of data, processes and systems, supporting current research efforts in a broad range of disciplines.

In this course, students from Games Engineering, BSc (3+ semester) and Computer Science, MSc with a focus on Games Engineering and graduate students/researchers from the Life Sciences will jointly develop realtime-interactive applications aimed to directly support Life Science research or to make complex scientific questions approachable.

Applications should allow to visualize and explore data to help scientists in finding new insights, provide interactive human-in-the-loop simulations that make models explorable and accessible, or help to communicate scientific questions and promote research through visually attractive experiences. Possible target platforms can be desktop, mobile, web-based, augmented or virtual reality devices.

After a kick-off session, primers on topics such as game engine technology, scientific visualization, interactive simulation, immersive analytics, and human-computer interaction, hands-on tutorials using state-of-the-art game engines (e.g. Unity3D) will be provided. The students will learn about agile processes and other methodological perspectives, such as the CoSMoS process, furthering the development of scientific software as an interdisciplinary effort.

Students will be asked to form joint teams of two or three members, to develop an application concept that is based on a research challenge, and implement this concept in an agile, iterative fashion.

Continous feedback opportunities on project progress will be offered.

The course ends with a final presentation of the project results, a demonstration of the implemented application, and – optionally – the opportunity to present the results at the Human-Computer, Games, and Informatics EXPO 2020.