Seminar on Computational Haptics

Spring 2022
263-3712-00L
Otmar Hilliges
Juan Zarate, Thomas Langerak, Velko Vechev, Zicong Fan, Manuel Kaufmann, Nuria Armengol Urpi, Ronan Hinchet
Tue 2-4pm, Virtual
2
Links for Zoom and Papers + Schedule (Credentials given in first lecture)

Overview

Haptic rendering technologies stimulate the user’s senses of touch and motion just as felt when interacting with physical objects. Actuation techniques need to address three questions: 1) What to actuate, 2) How to actuate it and 3) When to actuate it. We will approach each of these questions from a heavily technical perspective, with a focus on optimization and machine learning to find answers.



Teaser image for couse computational interaction. Left: woman leaning over half-silvered mirror. Center: diagram for user modeling. Right: Scans of 3D scene and augmented reality racing track

Topics

The list of papers will be published shortly before the initial meeting. Topics will cover the following areas:

User State Interference

Computational Design/Design Optimization

Control Theory

Goal

The goal of the seminar is to familiarize students with exciting new research topics in this important area, but also to teach basic scientific writing and oral presentation skills.

We will use a case-study format where all students read the same paper each week but fulfill different roles and hence prepare with different viewpoints in mind.

Student roles:
  1. Presenter: Give a short presentation about the paper that you read in depth.
  2. Historian: Find out how this paper sits in the context of the related work. Use bibliography tools to find the most influential papers cited by this work and at least one paper influenced by the work (and summarize the two papers briefly).
  3. PhD student: Propose a follow-up project for your own research based on this paper - importantly the project should be directly inspired by the paper or even use/extend the method proposed.
  4. Journalist: After the presentation, write an article about the the paper that can be understood by the general public; include points from the general discussion during the seminar, the historian, or the PhD student
  5. All students (every week): Come up with an alternative title; did the paper miss anything?

Workload per student:
  1. Presenter role: 15 min presentation (1 x during the course)
  2. Historian role: 5 min presentation (1 x during the course)
  3. PhD student role: 300 words text (1 x during the course)
  4. Journalist role: 500 words text (1 x during the course)
  5. Read paper (weekly)

Attendance in the weekly meetings is mandatory.