Projects

Using a Mobile Phone in VR

Virtual Reality (VR) Head-Mounted Display (HMD) technology immerses a user in a computer generated virtual environment. However, a VR HMD also blocks the users’ view of their physical surroundings, and so prevents them from using their mobile phones in a natural manner. In this project, we present a novel Augmented Virtuality (AV) interface that enables people to naturally interact with a mobile phone in real time in a virtual environment. The system allows the user to wear a VR HMD while seeing his/her 3D hands captured by a depth sensor and rendered in different styles, and enables the user to operate a virtual mobile phone aligned with their real phone.

Sharing Gesture and Gaze Cues for Enhancing AR Collaboration

This project explores how gaze and gestures could be used to enhance collaboration in Mixed Reality environments. Gaze and gesture provide important cues for face to face collaboration, but it can be difficult to convey those same cues in current teleconferencing systems. However Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technology can be used to share hand and eyep-tracking information. For example a remote user in VR could have their hands tracked and shared with a local user in AR who can see virtual hands appearing over their workspace showing them what to do. In a similar way eye-tracking technology can be used to share the gaze of a remote helper with a local working to help them perform better on a real world task. Our research has shown that sharing a wide range of different virtual gaze and gesture cues can significantly enhance remote collaboration in Mixed Reality systems.

Brain Synchronisation in VR

Collaborative Virtual Reality have been the subject of research for nearly three decades now. This has led to a deep understanding of how individuals interact in such environments and some of the factors that impede these interactions. However, despite this knowledge we still do not fully understand how inter-personal interactions in virtual environments are reflected in the physiological domain. This project seeks to answer the question by monitoring neural activity of participants in collaborative virtual environments. We do this by using a technique known as Hyperscanning, which refers to the simultaneous acquisition of neural activity from two or more people. In this project we use Hyperscanning to determine if individuals interacting in a virtual environment exhibit inter-brain synchrony. The goal of this project is to first study the phenomenon of inter-brain synchrony, and then find means of inducing and expediting it by making changes in the virtual environment. This project feeds into the overarching goals of the Empathic Computing Laboratory that seek to bring individuals closer using technology as a vehicle to evoke empathy.

Empathy in Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) interfaces is an influential medium to trigger emotional changes in humans. However, there is little research on making users of VR interfaces aware of their own and in collaborative interfaces, one another's emotional state.

In this project, through a series of system development and user evaluations, we are investigating how physiological data such as heart rate, galvanic skin response, pupil dilation, and EEG can be used as a medium to communicate emotional states either to self (single user interfaces) or the collaborator (collaborative interfaces). The overarching goal is to make VR environments more empathetic and collaborators more aware of each other's emotional state.

SharedSphere

SharedSphere is a Mixed Reality based remote collaboration system which not only allows sharing a live captured immersive 360 panorama, but also supports enriched two-way communication and collaboration through sharing non-verbal communication cues, such as view awareness cues, drawn annotation, and hand gestures.

Pinpointing

Head and eye movement can be leveraged to improve the user’s interaction repertoire for wearable displays. Head movements are deliberate and accurate, and provide the current state-of-the-art pointing technique. Eye gaze can potentially be faster and more ergonomic, but suffers from low accuracy due to calibration errors and drift of wearable eye-tracking sensors. This work investigates precise, multimodal selection techniques using head motion and eye gaze. A comparison of speed and pointing accuracy reveals the relative merits of each method, including the achievable target size for robust selection. We demonstrate and discuss example applications for augmented reality, including compact menus with deep structure, and a proof-of-concept method for on-line correction of calibration drift.

Mini-Me

Mini-Me is an adaptive avatar for enhancing Mixed Reality (MR) remote collaboration between a local Augmented Reality (AR) user and a remote Virtual Reality (VR) user. The Mini-Me avatar represents the VR user’s gaze direction and body gestures while it transforms in size and orientation to stay within the AR user’s field of view. We tested Mini-Me in two collaborative scenarios: an asymmetric remote expert in VR assisting a local worker in AR, and a symmetric collaboration in urban planning. We found that the presence of the Mini-Me significantly improved Social Presence and the overall experience of MR collaboration.

Augmented Mirrors

Mirrors are physical displays that show our real world in reflection. While physical mirrors simply show what is in the real world scene, with help of digital technology, we can also alter the reality reflected in the mirror. The Augmented Mirrors project aims at exploring visualisation interaction techniques for exploiting mirrors as Augmented Reality (AR) displays. The project especially focuses on using user interface agents for guiding user interaction with Augmented Mirrors.

Empathy Glasses

We have been developing a remote collaboration system with Empathy Glasses, a head worn display designed to create a stronger feeling of empathy between remote collaborators. To do this, we combined a head- mounted see-through display with a facial expression recognition system, a heart rate sensor, and an eye tracker. The goal is to enable a remote person to see and hear from another person's perspective and to understand how they are feeling. In this way, the system shares non-verbal cues that could help increase empathy between remote collaborators.