News

Please refer to our projects and publications page for more details.

Paper Publication

Our paper "PetPresence: Investigating the Integration of Real-World Pet Activities in Virtual Reality" was accepted by IEEE TVCG, and will be presented in IEEE VR 2024. Congrats to Ningchang and Qingqin.

Lab Move

Happy New Year! We moved to a new lab space in M7095, Level 7, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre.


Demonstration

We demonstrated SoftVibe in SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 Emerging Technologies.


Lab Visit

Prof Vali Lalioti, the Director of Programmes, Creative Computing Institute (CCI), University of Arts London (UAL), visited our lab and see demos.


Paper Publication

Our paper "A skin-integrated multimodal haptic interface for immersive tactile feedback" was accepted by Nature Electronics. It's a collaboration with Prof. Xinge YU and his team from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, CityU.

Research Service

Dr. Kening Zhu will be the workshop chair of DIS 2024, and the ISWC Brief and Note Chair for Ubicomp 2024.

Thesis Defence

Pingchuan Ke successfully defended his PhD thesis: "Embodied Interaction Techniques for Immersive Virtual Reality: From Lower Limb to Whole body Experience in Virtual Reality". Congrats, Dr. Ke! As follow, he will join Hong Kong Shue Yan University as an Assistant Professor.


Thesis Defence

Shaoyu Cai successfully defended his PhD thesis: “Haptic Modeling and Rendering Techniques for Material Simulation and Modulation in Virtual and Mixed Reality”. Congrats, Dr. Cai!


IEIG 2023

Pingchuan showed his work "PropelWalker" in th 48th The International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva, and received the Bronze award. Congrats Pingchuan!


CHI 2023

Lab members attended CHI 2023 in Hamburg, Germany. Xingyu presented his full paper "Emoband: Investigating the Affective Perception towards On-wrist Stroking and Squeezing Feedback mediated by Different Textile Materials ". His paper received the Honaroable Mention award (top 15%). Congrats to Xingyu!!

Pingchuan presented his work "PropelWalker" in the Workshop of Body x Material, and had a fruitful discussion with Prof Hiroshi Ishii from MIT Media Lab, who is the founder of Tangible User Interfaces.


Alumni News

Dr. Taizhou Chen joined Department of Computer Science, Shantou University as a lecturer. Dr. Arshad Nasser joined University of British Columbia as a Post-doc research fellow. Congrats on Taizhou and Arshad!

Lab Visit

Dr. Shengdong Zhao from NUS HCI Lab visited our lab. He gave a talk on "Heads-up Computing" and saw our lab demo.


Awards

We received several prizes in ChinVR 2022 and CCVR 2022. Congrats to everyone!

New Research Assistant

Qi ZHANG joins us as a Research Assistant. She received her master degree of Electronics and ICT Engineering Technology from KU Leuven, and her bachelor degree of Engineering Technology from both KU Leuven and Chongqing University.

Awards

Congrats to Shaoyu on receiving the Second Prize for his presentation in the Second China Postgraduate Student Forum on Computer Graphics.

Paper Publication

Our paper "EFRing: Enabling Thumb-to-Index-Finger Microgesture Interaction through Electric Field Sensing using Single Smart Ring " is accepted by Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT). Congrats to Taizhou, Tianpei, and Xingyu!

Awards

Congrats to Shaoyu and Pingchuan on Research Tuition Scholarship and Outstanding Academic Performance Award respectively.

Demonstration/Exhibition

PropelWalker/Weighted Walking was shown in Digital Entertainment Leader Forum 2022 in Hong Kong Cyberport.


Paper Publication

Our paper "PropelWalker: A Leg-based Wearable System with Propeller-based Force Feedback for Walking in Fluids in VR" is accepted by IEEE TVCG. Congrats to Pingchuan, Shaoyu, and Haichen!

Thesis Defence

Taizhou Chen successfully defended his PhD thesis: Deep-learning-based Gesture Sensing Techniques for Wearable Devices. Congrats, Dr. Chen!


Paper Publication

Our paper "Understanding and Adapting Bezel-to-Bezel Interactions for Circular Smartwatches in Mobile and Encumbered Scenarios" is accepted by MobileHCI 2022. It's a collaboration with Professor Pourang Irani and his team from the University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus), and Dr. Simon Perrault from Singapore University of Technology and Design.

New PhD Students

Two new PhD students, Mr. Tianpei LI and Mr. Haichen GAO, are joining us in September 2022. Tianpei got his master degree from The University of Hong Kong, and his bachelor degree from South China University of Technology. Haichen was previously an RA in our lab, and got his master degree from UCL.

Thesis Defence

Arshad Nasser successfully defended his PhD thesis: 'Touching for Knowing': Design and Evaluation of Wearable and Graspable Haptic Devices for the People with Visual Impairment. Congrats, Dr. Nasser!


Invention Award

GestOnHMD receives a Bronze Medal in Inventions Geneva Evaluation Days 2022. Congrats to Taizhou and Lantian!

Paper Publication

Our paper "Deep-Learning-based Unobtrusive Handedness Prediction for One-handed Smartphone Interaction" is published in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Congrats to Taizhou.

Paper Publication

Our paper "FritzBot: A data-driven conversational agent for physical-computing system design" is published in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Congrats to Taizhou and Lantian.

Demonstration/Exhibition

ThermalCane was demonstrated in Hong Kong InnoCarnival 2021 in Hong Kong Science Park.


New Research Assistant

Haichen Gao will join us as a full-time research assistant. He got his master degree from Univeristy College London, and his bachelor degree from Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University.

Paper Publication

Our paper "GAN-based Image-to-Friction Generation for Tactile Simulation of Fabric Material" is accepted by Computers & Graphics. Congrats to Shaoyu, Prof Narumi and Prof Ban from University of Tokyo, Prof Liu Yue and Dr. Zhao Lu from Beijing Institute of Technology.

Research Funding

We received RMB 610,000 from National Natural Science Foundation of China General Programme (國家自然科學基金面上項目) to work on Data-driven Thermotactile Signal Synthesis and Rendering for Virtual Material Simulation.

New PhD Student

Xingyu Yang will join us as a PhD student. He got his master degree from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), and his bachelor degree from Dalian University of Technology.

Paper Publication

Our paper "ThermEarhook: Investigating Spatial Thermal Haptic Feedback on the Auricular Skin Area" is accepted by The 23rd ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2021). Congrats Arshad and Kexin!

Paper Publication

Our paper "FritzBot: A Data-Driven Conversational Agent for Physical-Computing System Design" is accepted by International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Congrats Taizhou and Lantian!

Paper Publication

Our paper "Visual-Tactile Cross-Modal Data Generation using Residue-Fusion GAN with Feature-Matching and Perceptual Losses" is accepted by IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters and IEEE IROS 2021. Congrats to Shaoyu, Prof Narumi and Prof Ban from University of Tokyo.

Demonstration/Exhibition

Embodied Weather was presented and demonstrated in Hong Kong Maritime Museum, May 1st - 2nd, 2021, along with the selected student works from the course of SM3804: Materials and Fabrication Studio.



Research Funding

We received RMB 100,000 from Guangdong Natural Science Fund General Programme (廣東省自然科學基金面上項目) to work on Data-driven Thermal Haptics.

Faculty Promotion

Dr. Kening Zhu is promoted to Tenured Associate Professor.

Lab Visit

Prof Ruigang LI (黎瑞刚) visited our lab. Prof LI is the founding dean of the School of Creativity and Art, ShanghaiTech University. He is also the Chairman of China Media Capital and the Vice Chair of TVB.


Invention Award

ThermalCane receives a Bronze Medal in Inventions Geneva Evaluation Days 2021. Congrats to Arshad! More details in CityU News.

New Research Intern

Yuchun SONG, a BBA year-3 undergraduate student, joined our lab as a research intern. She will work on the project of gesture-based smartglass interaction.

Company Visit

Kening and Shaoyu visited MAD Gaze, a local company on smart watch and smart glass interaction. We shared the lab's projects, and initiated the discussion of future collaboraiton.

Paper Accepted by IEEE VR Conference

Larger Step Faster Speed: Investigating Gesture-based Locomotion in Place with Different Walking Speed in Virtual Reality is accepted as IEEE VR 2021 Conference Full Paper. Congrats to Pingchuan.

Paper Accepted by IEEE TVCG

GestOnHMD is accepted by IEEE TVCG Special Issue on IEEE VR 2021. Congrats to Taizhou, Lantian, and Xianshan.

Best Paper Audience Choice Award

FrictGAN received Best Paper Audience Choice Award in ICAT-EGVE 2020. Congrats to Shaoyu, Professor Takuji Narumi (University of Tokyo), and Professor Yuki Ban (University of Tokyo).

Interns at Huawei

PhD students, Taizhou CHEN and Pingchuan KE, joined Huawei Human-Machine Interaction Lab as interns.

Congrats to Jacky CHEUNG

Jacky CHEUNG passed his MPhil Defence. Thesis title: User Manipulation and User Interaction with Input Techniques on Desktop Computer.