Digital Storytelling-Creating Interactive Illusions with AVOCADO

After 10 years of research in Virtual Environments, interactive real time Virtual Reality systems are now available that even support highly immersive, interactive presentations for large audiences. Following the single-user head bounded technology of the early days, multi channel stereo projection systems are now applied in nearly all application domains, complemented with display for spatial audio, and prepared for haptic and olfactory sensation. The paper discusses the application of interactive digital storytelling as a means for future education, entertainment, product presentation and event based marketing. We will introduce the process of creating, developing, installing and operating digital stories. We will also communicate experience from applying those stories in different public scenarios in the past 3 years. Several examples of story-type applications with different goals will be presented, and the suitability of VR displays will be discussed. GMD's Virtual Reality Framework for distributed applications, called AVOCADO, is introduced, along with an outlook for storytelling in terms of both technology and content.