The Dagstuhl Seminar "Modeling and Engaging with Virtual Restorative Environments" addresses a central challenge in contemporary immersive computing: how to design, model, and evaluate Extended Reality (XR) systems that meaningfully support human well-being. Using virtual nature as a focused but representative domain, the seminar investigates how computational systems can evoke restorative, cognitively beneficial, and emotionally engaging experiences that are traditionally tied to real-world environments.

Access to natural environments – known to reduce stress, improve cognitive functioning, and support overall well-being – is increasingly limited due to urbanization, mobility constraints, and social inequalities. XR technologies offer a promising pathway to mitigate these limitations by providing simulated, adaptive, and interactive environments. However, realizing this potential requires more than advances in visual realism. It demands a deeper understanding of how presence, perception, and restoration emerge from the interaction between multisensory simulation, computational modeling, and human cognition.

The seminar aims to bring together researchers from computer science, human–computer interaction, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and related disciplines to address a set of tightly interconnected research challenges. A primary focus lies on the computational modeling of multisensory environments: identifying which sensory cues are necessary and sufficient to evoke restorative experiences, and how these can be implemented efficiently within scalable XR systems. This includes questions about procedural modeling, real-time rendering, generative AI, and multimodal integration.

A second focus concerns evaluation and measurement. Establishing robust, reproducible methods to assess the effects of virtual environments on users is critical for scientific progress and real-world deployment. The seminar will therefore examine how physiological sensing, behavioral data, and machine learning can be integrated into coherent evaluation pipelines that capture both short-term and longitudinal effects.

Interaction design forms a third pillar of the seminar. Unlike task-oriented XR applications, restorative environments emphasize experience over efficiency. This shifts the design space toward embodied, mindful interaction and raises new challenges for locomotion, accessibility, and user comfort. Computational approaches are required to balance immersion, usability, and physiological constraints such as cybersickness.

Beyond technical considerations, the seminar explicitly addresses ethical and societal implications. XR-based nature experiences introduce a fundamental tension between accessibility and authenticity: while they can democratize access to restorative environments, they must not replace or diminish engagement with the natural world.

This Dagstuhl Seminar is structured as an interactive, discussion-driven event combining short keynotes, collaborative working groups, and hands-on sessions. Participants will jointly identify open research challenges, develop conceptual and methodological frameworks, and outline an interdisciplinary research agenda. The expected outcomes include a consolidated research roadmap, collaborative publications, and the foundation for long-term initiatives, including shared platforms and multi-site research efforts.

By positioning virtual restorative environments as a model domain, the seminar aims to contribute to broader questions in immersive computing: how limited computational resources can be allocated to maximize perceptual impact, how human-centered metrics of presence can be operationalized, and how XR technologies can be designed to support well-being in an ethical, scalable, and scientifically grounded manner.

Creative Commons BY 4.0

Daniel Zielasko, Victoria Interrante, Sara LoTemplio, and Francsico Raul Ortega

This seminar qualifies for Dagstuhl's LZI Junior Researchers program. Schloss Dagstuhl wishes to enable the participation of junior scientists with a specialisation fitting for this Dagstuhl Seminar, even if they are not on the radar of the organizers. Applications by outstanding junior scientists are possible until Friday, July 10, 2026.