Digital Content Technology Standards Committee, IEEE Computer Society

By Kyoungro Yoon, Chair, Digital Content Technology Standards Committee, IEEE Computer Society; and Edward Au, VP, Standards Activities, IEEE Computer Society

IEEE Metaverse Newsletter, 2025

Standards are crucial for the commercialization of new technologies as standards encourage innovation in the industry and shorten the time to market of products and technologies. IEEE standards have had a profound impact on the computer science and engineering community as well as on mainstream applications. Some of the most popular standards in terms of global markets and the number of participants are the IEEE 802.3 standards for Ethernet and IEEE 802.11 standards for Wi-Fi. Both standards series are managed by the IEEE local area network (LAN)/metropolitan area network (MAN) Standards Committee of the IEEE Computer Society (CS).

The IEEE Computer Society recognizes that standards fuel the development and implementation of technologies that influence and transform the way we live, work, and communicate. The IEEE Computer Society Standards Activities Board supports the development of new technical standards to reflect the continuous creation of new practices and technologies. In late 2024, a new Standards Committee – Digital Content Technology Standards Committee – is established for standards activities dedicated to metaverse.

The Digital Content Technology Standards Committee currently have 13 active projects (also known as project authorization requests, PAR):

• P2888.1a: IEEE Standard for Specification of Sensor Interface for Cyber and Physical Worlds Amendment: Binary Representation of Data Formats for Interfacing Sensors and their Capabilities
• P2888.2a: IEEE Standard for Actuator Interface for Cyber and Physical Worlds Amendment: Binary representation of data formats, application programming interfaces and definition of additional actuators
• P2888.5a: IEEE Standard for Virtual Training System Evaluation Methods, Amendment: Physiological evaluation method for virtual training systems
• P2888.6: Standard for Holographic Visualization for Interfacing Cyber and Physical Worlds
• P2888.7: Standard for Architecture of a Digital Twin System for Carbon Emission Management
• P3079.1: Motion to Photon (MTP) Latency in Virtual Environments
• P3079.2: Standard for Mixed Reality (MR) Framework for Motion Training
• P3079.2.1: Standard for a Basic Framework for Motion Training Systems
• P3079.2.2: Standard for UI (User Interface)/UX (User Experience) Framework for Motion Training
• P3079.3.1: Standard for Service Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for Digital Human Authoring and Visualization
• P3079.3.2: Standard for a Framework for Privacy Protection through Identifiability Management Arising from Avatar Interaction
• P3079.4: Standard for the Visual Quality Assessment of Auto-Stereoscopic Displays
• P3422: Recommended Practice for Metaverse Ecosystem Reference Models

These projects are created because of the following reasons:

• Recent advances and interest in digital twin and smart cities are based on the convenience and effectiveness provided by building a cyber world to model target products or city infrastructure. Building a cyber world synchronized with the physical world depends on information coming from a large number of remotely controlled sensors and actuators. Today, there are no standards for the data format or data interface of these sensors and actuators, and manufacturers have to depend on the specifications provided by each individual service provider. By providing standard for these formats, the manufactured sensors and actuators can fit into any environment without considering specific service provider specifications, accelerating the development of the technology and related services.
• Virtual reality and mixed reality have led to the development of many technologies. In addition, many content services using these technologies are being developed. In particular, mixed reality technology based on motion recognition is widely used as a tool for learning and training motion. For this purpose, it is necessary to synchronize the contents with the mixed reality device, and it is a very basic condition to be developed so that the data provided by the sensor can be well reflected in the contents. Thus, a standard framework standard for such mixed reality content is necessary. By using this standard framework, interoperability of mixed reality content for learning postures such as rhythms, sports, and games is ensured to promote the realistic mixed reality industry and accelerate the development of technologies and services.

The IEEE Computer Society develops many standards, and you can be a part of these activities too! Visit the websites of the Digital Content Technology Standards Committee and its respective Working Groups to find detailed information for participation:
sagroups.ieee.org/dctsc/
sagroups.ieee.org/2888/
sagroups.ieee.org/3079/
sagroups.ieee.org/3333-1/
sagroups.ieee.org/mwg/