Our Research Labs & People

We conduct research in the areas of mobile interaction, new media / mixed reality, usable privacy and security, animation / simulation, graphics, and visualization.

Recently, we have conducted research on the following topics: non-photorealistic rendering, image processing, 3D animation, data visualization, whole body interaction, mobile interfaces, and mixed reality collaborative environments.

By-products of our research have found applications in areas such as healthcare, digitally enhanced manufacturing, security and privacy, geo-spatial information systems, film production, text visualization, interactive media, and personal visual analytics.

Our lab has received funding from the Boeing Company, NSERC CRD program, NSERC Discovery grants, GRAND NCE, and MITACS, among other sources.

H.A.I.K.U. is all about harnessing the potential of hypertext to help individuals find and use information.  Some of the projects are about fundamental issues but others are about doing something soon since technology and people co-develop so rapidly if you don't do something early you cannot have any influence, and there are many bad influences already.

One project about fundamental principles which has reached an important point is about the basis of people's use of hypertext.  Many researchers have noted that people who score highly on certain tests of spatial reasoning tend to use hypertext successfully (that is quickly and accurately) and vice versa.  However when hypertext interfaces are redesigned to the benefit of people with lower scores on spatial ability tests, there is an inversion in success. It is not clear if the two groups completely swap positions however.

H.A.I.K.U.'s research in this area has been to explore the role of domain expertise in comprehending hypertext versions of scholarly publications.  The particular importance of this work is that it could lead to new interfaces for presenting the WWW and to new ways of teaching people to use the WWW.

One of the other project within H.A.I.K.U. which is being conducted as time and research assistants are available, is an automated tool to check colours on webpages to ensure they meet some profile (e.g. suitable for red-green colour blind readers or not a problem for people with ADD) and suggest changes to the author of the webpage.  The work has progressed a lot in the past two years.  Some of thetool's features are unmatched.  Combining it with another teams' work could have a big impact on the WWW.

A major project within H.A.I.K.U. is the development of tools for scholars (including students) to use electronic texts. Work continues on note-taking, sense-making and annotation.  Stay tuned for future developments.

The Virtual Environments and Reality Technologies Exploration (VERTEX) Lab aims to understand better how people think when working inside a 3D virtual environment with a focus on perception. Using that knowledge, we develop novel user interfaces that improve people’s performance on a task but that, at the same time, are easy to use.

Our research projects focus on virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. Recently, we have researched the following topics: gestural interactions, multimodal interfaces, thermal feedback, spatial perception and mislearning in VR. By-products of our research have found applications in areas such as rehabilitation, table tennis, drone pilot training, 3D sketching, and novel HMD design.

Our lab has received funding from the NSERC Discovery grant, MITACS, among other sources.

Research Areas and Projects

• VR, AR, MR
• 3D User Interfaces
• Multimodal Interactions
• 3D sketching
• Spatial perception
• Training in VR/AR/MR
• Understanding issues with HMDs

Group Website

• https://vertexlab.ca

Faculty Members

• Dr. Mayra D. Barrera Machuca