CWI contributes to new international ITU standard on XR
Publication date: 2026-06-16
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has officially published a new international standard for eXtended Reality (XR) communications. This new standard provides practical methodologies to evaluate the Quality of Experience (QoE) for users engaging in interactive XR, such as virtual meetings or collaborative environments. Researchers from CWI’s Distributed and Interactive Systems (DIS) group played a significant role in its development.
Assessing Quality of Experience in XR
As virtual meetings and collaborative digital environments become more common, evaluating how users experience these technologies is critical. The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) develops international standards (known as “Recommendations”) to ensure different communication technologies, networks, and systems around the world can seamlessly talk to one another. To this end, they now have published ITU-T Recommendation P.1321. You can read the publication titled “Interactive test methods for subjective assessment of extended reality communications” here.
A core part of the standard is the definition of a set of four communication-based interactive tasks that are suitable for testing XR communication systems. While not exhaustive, these tasks can cover a broad range of XR systems:
- Survival Game: Audio communication between participants.
- Body Communication: Visual interaction between users, emphasizing representation and movement.
- Block Building: Audiovisual collaboration involving the manipulation of 3D objects.
- Treasure Hunt: Navigational exploration with audiovisual communication among participants.
Additionally, the standard recommends relevant assessment measures, including behavior analysis, questionnaires focused on QoE constituents, and physiological evaluations, to ensure broad applicability across various use cases.
CWI’s contribution
CWI’s DIS group has been involved in the standard since its inception, as part of the Visual Quality Expert Group (VQEG) sub-group on Immersive Media (IMG). DIS researchers helped define all four core tasks, led the exploration of the Body Communication task, and collaborated heavily on the Block Building framework. This foundational research resulted in two major publications (see the associated publications below). Furthermore, CWI directly accelerated the standard’s development by hosting a key VQEG standardization meeting in Amsterdam in 2024. The event gathered 26 international experts from industry and academia to share preliminary test results across the 13 labs that were involved. This led to interesting discussions and helped advance the ongoing work on the ITU-T recommendation.
About the ITU
The ITU is the United Nations specialized agency in the field of telecommunications, and information and communication technologies (ICTs). Its Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is a permanent organ responsible for studying technical, operating, and tariff questions, and issuing Recommendations to standardize telecommunications on a worldwide basis.
Associated Publications
- C. Cortés et al. (2024). Delay Threshold for Social Interaction in Volumetric eXtended Reality Communication. ACM TOMM. Read the publication here.
- A. Singla et al. (2025). QoE Evaluation of Remote Physiotherapy in Volumetric Video and Video-Based Real-Time Communication. IEEE ICME. Read the publication here.
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