It is widely acknowledged that geospatial information has immense applicability across a vast spectrum of human endeavors. Examples include oil and gas exploration, energy management, smart city engineering, weather forecasting, tracking, aviation, satellite ground systems, environmental planning, disaster management, public administration, civil planning and engineering, and science. All such activities entail gathering a significant amount of data and other critical information stored, accessed, managed, manipulated, analyzed, and visualized. This variety of applications requires novel methodologies and technologies capable of delivering both interactive visualization and intelligent complexity reduction.The main focus of this workshop report is the detailed dissection of these technologies, their relationship to one another, and their unique abilities to realize cross-reality capabilities and design principles in a multimodal immersive, and intelligent geographical environment. The goal is to enumerate (and prioritize) critical research and standards opportunities for merging geospatial technologies with smart manufacturing systems.

There is a looming shortage of well-trained professionals in the wood construction workforce. To challenge this shortage, we developed a simulated learning environment that leverages a novel Virtual Reality (VR) system to train novice workers in wooden wall construction. A comprehensive task analysis was first used to best identify training requirements. Then, a virtual building site was modeled and a 3D video tutorial was implemented using a VR Head-Mounted Display (HMD). To evaluate the effectiveness of this tool, participants who learned via the VR training tool were compared with participants who instead only had simple 2-D instructional video training. VR training resulted in better retention, task performance, learning speed, and engagement than the video training counterpart, maintaining system usability. This demonstrates that VR is a viable training tool for the construction sector and can produce benefits beyond those of traditional video training.

Rapid advances in immersive reality technologies have resulted in a vast quantity of research papers which generally include or attempt to apply it to human cognitive augmentation. Taking advantage of traditional psychological and physiological metrics for studying human cognition and behavior, researchers are applying various near-real time analysis techniques to modulate immersive experiences and influence the mental state of the user. Because of the variety of contributing sub-domains, there is little consensus as to any rigid paradigm for the knowledge being synthesized. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review to determine the state of the art of dynamic cognitive augmentation in immersive environments. Following a structured query of academic publications, we conduct an in-depth analysis of 104 papers from a sample of 538. We observed that roughly 66% of papers among this frontier apply methods best suited for exploratory purposes, limiting the overall extent to which conclusions can be drawn about immersive reality technology's capability to augment human cognition. We further identify a pressing gap in the knowledge necessary for the effective application of immersive reality towards dynamic cognitive augmentation in practical industrial scenarios. We hope this work will influence academia, industry, and standards development organizations to extend the use of XR technology networked with biosensor-enabled intelligent cognitive assistants to enhance the effectiveness of hybrid human-machine systems.

Real time data associated with the Building Information Model plays a critical role in the interpretation of the built environment, which is particularly relevant as an increasing number of education facilities and institutions promote sustainable engineering practices and monitoring data available to the public. However, it is challenging for non-technical audiences to fully comprehend or use information concealed in scientific data related to the performance of structures and materials. It is especially difficult for them to connect these concepts to physical contexts and phenomena. In this paper, we present how cross-reality paradigms in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction, coupled with multimodal representation techniques, enhance data literacy in both professionals and laypeople alike. In particular, we present the design of a learning environment where cutting-edge holographic interfaces and display technologies are combined with sonified and visual data to create a more immersive environment for data analysis and exploration, empowering users with situated data awareness and new ways of understanding real-time data.