Colloquium Talk: Dr. Bobby Bodenheimer

Details

Title:
Designing Augmented Reality Interfaces: Simulating Pedestrian Navigation without Smartphones

Bio:
Bobby Bodenheimer is a professor of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University, with secondary appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Psychology, and Psychology & Human Development. His research examines virtual and augmented reality, specifically how people act, perceive, locomote, and navigate in virtual and augmented environments. He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award and received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. His research is funded by NSF, NIH, ONR, and DoD. He has been the conference chair of the ACM APGV and the ACM SCA, the program chair of ACM APGV and IEEE VR, and is a member of the steering committee for ACM SAP. A senior member of the IEEE, he is currently Editor-in-Chief of the ACM Transactions on Applied Perception.

Abstract:
Head-worn augmented reality (AR) – technology integrates 3D virtual objects into real environments in real-time – is on the cusp of becoming a commodity technology. The next generation of these devices will provide interactive services to people without the need for holding or glancing at a smartphone. This talk examines one aspect of that future interaction in detail, how pedestrian navigation interfaces might be designed. AR pedestrian interfaces have choices in how to convey navigation information, such as whether to place cues and instructions in a head-referenced system or to place them as fixtures in the environment. Our lab has been studying this problem, and this talk will describe our progress and findings. In particular, we will cover progress on designing such interfaces, and findings on how users process spatial information and utilize the cues and features of the display.