Advancing the future of remote work: IMMERSE‑team gathered in Sundsvall
In early December, the IMMERSE research team met at Mid Sweden University in Sundsvall to review project progress, share results, and plan upcoming work. The meeting brought together researchers from Sweden and Finland to deepen collaboration on future remote-operation technologies.
Cross-Border Team Meets at Mid Sweden University
In the beginning of December, the IMMERSE team gathered at Mid Sweden University’s campus in Sundsvall for a full-day project meeting. Visiting from the University of Oulu were Prof. Janne Heikkilä and researchers Janne Mustaniemi and Ahmed Alhawwary. The group was hosted by Prof. Mårten Sjöström and his research team at the Realistic 3D; Emin Zerman, Ali Hassan and Mohammadreza Shamshirgarha.
The meeting focused on reviewing progress in all work packages and jointly discussing technical challenges and next steps.
- It is extremely valuable for us to meet in person and dive deeper into the research questions. Getting perspectives from both Oulu and Mid Sweden University strengthens the scientific quality of the work, says Prof. Mårten Sjöström.
Demonstrations in the Realistic 3D Lab
During the afternoon, the team visited the Realistic 3D lab, where researcher Emin Zerman demonstrated the recently developed RT-MPINet model's view synthesis and depth-estimation outputs. This view synthesis method was proposed in a research article that has been presented at MMSP 2025. The demonstration also included a showcase of the VISTA-Q toolkit that enables user evaluations on various display devices. These developments were also described in the research article “A Visual Quality of Experience Toolkit for Realistic Immersive Telepresence Applications” which has been presented at QoMEX 2025. Both articles were authored by Manu Gond, Emin Zerman, Mohammadreza Shamshirgarha, Sebastian Knorr and Mårten Sjöström.
Industrial Data Collection for Future Field Tests
Researcher Janne Mustaniemi shared updates from data collection at Ginolis, a company providing automation technologies for medical diagnostics manufacturing. Ginolis is exploring how augmented and virtual reality can support improved machine maintenance.
- This data collection is the first step towards a larger field test planned for the end of the project. We aim to evaluate our visualization-based maintenance support in a real industrial environment together with experienced operators, say Janne Mustaniemi, who leads the work.
Supporting Remote Work and Skills Availability in the North
The IMMERSE project aims to promote remote work and remote operation through immersive augmented-reality technologies. By enabling experts to support or perform tasks remotely, the project addresses a key challenge in the northern regions: limited access to specialized skills in geographically dispersed areas.
Primary beneficiaries include organizations in mining, forestry, and manufacturing, where immersive technologies can improve operational efficiency, safety, and sustainability.
IMMERSE is jointly carried out by Mid Sweden University and the University of Oulu and is funded with support from EU-programme Interreg Aurora.
Read more about IMMERSE - Augmented and Immersive Remote Presence and Operation
Link to open-source toolkit on GitHub
Read more about the company Ginolis
