The 2018 VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award

The 2018 Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award goes to Gregory F. Welch of the University of Central Florida, USA, in recognition for his contributions to human motion tracking and to mixed reality applications in medicine and training. Professor Welch has been working in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality for more than 25 years. His method for single- constraint-at-a-time tracking with continuous automatic calibration has been cited as the reason UNC Chapel Hill’s HiBall tracking system was the fastest, lowest latency, most precise, and most accurate wide-area tracking system. Among his many publications, his “Introduction to the Kalman Filter” report has been cited over 8,000 times. Professor Welch co-developed the ideas and methods for unified image-based modeling and spatially immersive displays, Spatial Augmented Reality, and Shader Lamps. He later applied these methods to humanoid forms to achieve physical-virtual avatars, and groundbreaking patient simulators for training healthcare practitioners. The IEEE VGTC is pleased to award Gregory F. Welch the 2018 Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award.