Ana Rita Rebelo, a doctoral student at NOVA FCT and researcher at NOVA LINCS – Computer Science and Computing Laboratory, has won the 2025 Professor José Luís Encarnação Award. The award is presented annually by the Portuguese Association for Computer Graphics and Interaction (GPCGI), the Portuguese chapter of Eurographics.
The jury highlighted the scientific quality and impact of the winning paper, titled "Techniques for Multiple Room Connection in Virtual Reality: Walking Within Small Physical Spaces". The work, authored by Ana Rita Rebelo, Pedro A. Ferreira, and Rui Nóbrega, presents innovative methods for Virtual Reality navigation in small physical spaces and was published in the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.
The study addresses the challenge of physical movement in Virtual Reality within limited space environments, such as users' homes. Instead of controls like teleportation or joystick movement, which can reduce the sense of presence and cause discomfort, Ana Rita Rebelo's work proposes the concept of "impossible spaces", where multiple virtual rooms overlap within the same physical space. This allows users to move between rooms without leaving the available area, making the experience more natural and accessible.
Applications for these methods include virtual museum tours, training simulations, and emergency preparedness exercises. Ana Rita Rebelo's doctoral project, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, aims to adapt virtual environments to small domestic spaces.
The Professor José Luís Encarnação Award seeks to encourage excellence in research in Computer Graphics and Applications among Portuguese higher education students. The 2025 edition featured high-quality journal articles, reflecting the vitality of the national community in this field.
The award was presented during the ICGI 2025 – International Conference on Graphics and Interaction.
