Keynote Speaker
Dr Patrick Bourdot
University Paris-Saclay, France
Biography
Dr. Bourdot is Research Director at CNRS and the founding leader of the VENISE team (www.limsi.fr/venise), a Virtual & Augmented Reality research group established in 2001 at the University of Paris-Saclay. His research focuses on eXtended Reality (XR), including virtual navigation, 3D reconstruction, multimodal and collaborative interactions, and related perception and cognition challenges. Applications span Design and Engineering, Bioinformatics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Science Education, and Autism Spectrum Disorder.
He has led numerous projects funded by the French government and national research institutes, coordinated CNRS participation in the INTUITION VR/AR network (6th IST Framework), and is the founding secretary of AFRV and a founding member of EuroVR/EuroXR, where he served as Vice-President (2016–2021) and President (2021–present).
Dr. Bourdot has published extensively in leading journals (e.g., Presence, JVRB, Frontiers in Robotics and AI) and conferences (e.g., CHI, INTERACT, IEEE VR), and serves as editor of several Springer LNCS volumes and associate editor for Frontiers journals on XR.
Working Together in XR: Challenges and Opportunities for Immersive Collaboration
Abstract: This talk provides an overview of a body of work conducted with my team on immersive collaboration using Extended Reality (XR) technologies. It highlights both the opportunities and the challenges of working together in co-located and remote setups. These range from multi-stereoscopic CAVE-like systems to Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented/Mixed Reality (AR/MR) headsets. Our research addresses key questions, including user co-habitation, dual presence, spatial consistency, workspace partitioning, engagement, and attention. These topics are explored through several use cases, such as immersive training for assembly tasks, immersive analytics of complex data, and remote immersive learning. For each project, we discuss major outcomes, limitations, and insights. We also highlight promising directions for advancing XR-based immersive collaboration in the future.
Josh Bainbridge
Head of Applied Machine Learning at Framestore, UK
Biography
Josh Bainbridge is Head of Applied Machine Learning at Framestore, where he leads the studio’s machine learning team and its drive to innovate with the technology across creative production. He is helping shape Framestore’s wider AI strategy, guiding how emerging tools are explored, adopted and brought into the pipeline. Over more than a decade at the studio, Josh has enabled teams and developers to build software for computer graphics and visual effects on feature film and episodic production. He has architected systems grounded in research that ranges from light transport and shading systems, to Quasi-Monte Carlo techniques, and denoising algorithms.
In 2026, Josh received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement for the design, architecture and engineering of Framestore’s layered shading system, developed with Nathan Walster and used on more than 100 film and television productions. He serves as Chairman of the Technical Steering Committee for the Academy Software Foundation’s OpenQMC project and as an Industry Advisory Board Member at WMG, University of Warwick.
The Evolution of Framestore’s Academy Award-Winning Rendering Tech
Abstract: Over the past fifteen years, Framestore has developed and refined a layered shading system that has become central to the studio’s pursuit of photorealistic surfaces. It has been used on more than 100 film and television productions, and recognised in 2026 with an Academy Award for Technical Achievement.
This talk traces the evolution of that system across three generations, following its path from early architecture through to the engineering decisions that shaped a production-scale renderer. Josh will explore how published research has been adapted to the realities of large-scale visual effects, where physical correctness, artistic controllability and fast iteration must hold together. Drawing on productions including Guardians of the Galaxy, Prehistoric Planet and F1, Josh examines the relationship between research and the systems built to apply it in practice.
As machine learning and AI reshape how images are made, the relationship between artists and technology is shifting again. Josh will consider what this means for the meeting point of art and science that has defined this work so far, where the open problems now lie, and how the research community and creative practitioners might shape that future together.
Co-host
