Multimedia-Based Digital Reality Technologies: Ad Hoc Committee That Informed IEEE’s Response
Stefan Mozar · IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society · 2025
In early 2023, an Ad Hoc Committee was formed to assist IEEE to coordinate their response to multimedia-based digital reality (MBDRT). The MBDRT label was chosen in order to fuse the common interests between the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society (CTSoc) and the IEEE Digital Reality. While initially IEEE Digital Reality was launched as an IEEE Future Directions Initiative, in 2023 it transitioned into a technical community, under the lead of IEEE CTSoc. MBDRT, a term that can interchangeably be used with Extended Reality (XR) was examined from five different viewpoints in the Ad Hoc Committee that presented its findings to the IEEE President in December 2023. The five sub-committees that were created included, digital reality, infrastructure, the metaverse, taxonomy, and social implications with respect to XR. This article summarizes the main outcomes of each Sub-Committee, in addition to a draft position statement, IEEE MBDRT-related standards identification and new initiatives, and an extensive briefing report.