Talk: Compelling physical interactions in Mixed Reality (Watch)

Abstract: The problem of simulating virtual entities within a dynamically changing real world remains a significant open challenge. We are still far from being able to emulate the rich, physical experience of interacting with real objects, environments and people. Mixed Reality is therefore still a developing field, with most research focussed on developing computer vision and AI technologies for capturing and analysing video of the real world and augmenting it with virtual content. There is now a strong impetus and opportunity to abstract beyond the technological considerations and to consider the convergence of human perception of causality, computer vision, motion capture, computer animation, artificial intelligence and other related fields to deliver compelling physical interactions in Mixed Reality. In this talk I will present some ideas and recent research towards this goal.

Bio: Carol O'Sullivan is the Professor of Visual Computing in Trinity College Dublin. From 2013-2016 she was a Senior Research Scientist at Disney Research in Los Angeles, and spent a sabbatical year as Visiting Professor in Seoul National University from 2012-2013. Her research interests include graphics, AR/VR, perception, Computer Animation, Crowd and Human simulation. She has been a member of many editorial boards and international program committees (including ACM SIGGRAPH and Eurographics), and has served as Editor in Chief for the ACM Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP) from 2006-2012. She has been program or general chair for several conferences, including the annual Eurographics conference, the ACM Symposium on Computer Animation, and the Courses Chair for ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2018. Prior to her PhD studies, she spent several years in industry working in Software Development. She was elected a fellow of Trinity College in 2003 and of Eurographics in 2007.