Virtual Loupes: An Augmented Reality Aid for Microsurgery

Virtual Loupes: An Augmented Reality Aid for Microsurgery

Microsurgery requires the use of loupes, which are optical elements attached to eyeglass frames that magnify objects such as blood vessels and nerves. To address the inflexibility of loupes, we have developed an augmented reality system that provides virtual loupes with a video see-through headset, allowing for easy-to-use variable zoom in a surgical context. Our prototype solution utilizes a gaze-controlled interface, which allows for the zoom level to be selected in either a discrete or continuous manner. A feasibility study...
Glanceable AR: Scalable Content Transition During Spatial Movements

Glanceable AR: Scalable Content Transition During Spatial Movements

In commercial AR systems, virtual applications default to be world-fixed and persist at a fixed location unless being moved by the users. However, users are frequently in transition from spaces to spaces to check information or accomplish tasks. The world-fixed nature of current AR interfaces do not allow the users to access the same piece of information they placed at the previous location. In this project, we explore scalable ways of moving AR content with the users when they conduct...
Clean the Ocean: An Immersive VR Experience Proposing New Modifications to Go-Go and WiM Techniques

Clean the Ocean: An Immersive VR Experience Proposing New Modifications to Go-Go and WiM Techniques

It’s the year 2048 and the world’s negligence to plastic pollutants in the ocean has given rise to deep-sea creatures growing to abnormal sizes, threatening the delicate balance of the marine ecosystem. It is your mission to save the world’s oceans! In this project, we present our solution to the 2022 3DUI Contest challenge. We aim to provide an immersive VR experience to increase players' awareness of trash pollution in the ocean while improving the current interaction techniques in virtual...
Evaluating the Benefits of Explicit and Semi-Automated Clusters in Immersive Space to Think

Evaluating the Benefits of Explicit and Semi-Automated Clusters in Immersive Space to Think

Immersive technologies provide an unconstrained three-dimensional space to solve sensemaking tasks by enabling rich semantic interaction to engage with documents in the environment. Sensemaking tasks require the user to create a hypothesis out of raw data from a pile of documents However, isolating the relevant documents from the pile is a vital task. To do that, the user needs to interact with multiple documents at the same time. As the user goes through the documents, she makes several groups with...
Glanceable AR: Exploration of Techniques for Rapid Activation of Glanceable Information

Glanceable AR: Exploration of Techniques for Rapid Activation of Glanceable Information

Future augmented reality (AR) glasses will provide pervasive and continuous access to everyday information. However, it remains unclear how to address the issue of virtual information overlaying and occluding real-world objects and information that are of interest to users. One approach is to keep virtual information sources inactive until they are explicitly requested, so that the real world remains visible. In this research, we explored the design of interaction techniques with which users can activate virtual information sources in AR....
Socially Adaptive Context-Aware Glanceable AR

Socially Adaptive Context-Aware Glanceable AR

It is widely believed that AR glasses will be the next generation of personal information access devices. Lightweight AR glasses have the potential to give users hands-free access to any information, anytime, anywhere without the need for any physical displays (Glanceable AR). An intelligent AR interface will need to handle challenges such as avoiding occlusion of important real-world objects, using real-world surfaces when appropriate, and determining how and when content should move along with the users. This shows the importance...
Solitude: A Head-worn AR Historical Tour

Solitude: A Head-worn AR Historical Tour

Solitude, the oldest building on Virginia Tech's campus. Augmented reality provides a new medium to explore cultural heritage sites, potentially providing benefits over other on-site history learning experiences. Using the Solitude AR Tour as a testbed, we are exploring how to create meaningful historical tours for AR headsets. The Solitude AR Tour is an experience being developed as part of Virginia Tech's upcoming 150th anniversary, and explores the history of the oldest building on the Blacksburg campus, Solitude. Originally built...
Fantastic Voyage 2021

Fantastic Voyage 2021

Introduction Science storytelling is an effective way to turn abstract scientific concepts into easy-to-understand narratives. Science storytelling in immersive virtual reality (VR) can further optimize learning by leveraging rich interactivity in a virtual environment and creating an engaging learning-by-doing experience. In the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we propose a solution to use interactive storytelling in immersive VR to promote science education for the general public on the topic of COVID-19 vaccination. The educational VR storytelling experience we have...
ARCritique: Supporting Remote Design Critique around Mockups

ARCritique: Supporting Remote Design Critique around Mockups

Collaborative presentation and critique of physical artifacts is an essential part of the design process and studio model in many disciplines, such as Industrial Design (ID). In a conventional in-person session, the instructor and other students can communicate fluidly about the artifacts because of the shared space and ease of spatial referencing. However, moving these critique sessions online to support re-mote learning is difficult, as it is challenging to give feedback on a physical object through remote communication tools. While...

Welcome to the 3D Interaction Group

The 3D Interaction (3DI) Group performs research on 3D user interfaces (3D UIs) and 3D interaction techniques for a wide range of tasks and applications. Interaction in three dimensions is crucial to highly interactive virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications to education, training, gaming, visualization, and design. We also conduct empirical studies to understand the effects of immersion in VR and AR, the impact of natural and magic 3D interaction techniques, and usability and user experience in 3D UIs.

Our Team

Our Lab