As computers grow ever smaller and faster, the option of wearing them, rather than carrying or sitting in front of them, is rapidly becoming a reality. One especially promising approach for wearable user interfaces is augmented reality. This alternative form of virtual reality augments the physical world with additional information, rather than replacing it. For example, a see-through, head-worn display can be used to overlay computer graphics on what the user normally sees.
This talk provides an overview of the work being done by Columbia's Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Laboratory to address user interface design issues for mobile augmented reality. Such systems must function indoors and outdoors, both stand-alone and together with many other displays, devices, and users, into and out of whose presence we move. I will describe research prototypes that exploit a mix of display and interaction technologies. One example that I will present allows a mobile user to explore an unfamiliar urban environment using head-worn and hand-held displays in combination with centimeter-level GPS (global positioning system) position tracking and inertial orientation tracking.
Dr. Steven Feiner is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, where he directs the Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Laboratory. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brown University. His research interests include virtual environments and augmented reality, knowledge-based design of graphics and multimedia, information visualization, wearable computing, and hypermedia.
Prof. Feiner is coauthor of Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice (Addison-Wesley, 1990) and of Introduction to Computer Graphics (Addison-Wesley, 1993). He is an associate editor of ACM Transactions on Graphics and a member of the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. Prof. Feiner serves on the executive boards of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Visualization and Graphics and the IEEE Computer Society Task Force on Human-Centered Information Systems, and is program co-chair of IEEE Virtual Reality 2000. In 1991 he received an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award.
Time and Location: see main colloquium page