Florian Weidner

Lancaster University | LU · School of Computing and Communications

Head pointing is widely used for hands-free input in head-mounted displays (HMDs). The primary role of head movement in an HMD is to control the viewport based on absolute mapping of head rotation to the 3D environment. Head pointing is conventionally supported by the same 1:1 mapping of input with a cursor fixed in the centre of the view, but this...

The appearance of virtual humans (avatars and agents) has been widely explored in immersive environments. However, virtual humans’ movements and associated sounds in real-world interactions, particularly in Augmented Reality (AR), are yet to be explored. In this paper, we investigate the influence of three distinct movement patterns (circle, side-t...

Augmented reality (AR) presents vivid opportunities for interpersonal communication. With the growing diversity of social AR users, understanding their unique needs and perceptions becomes crucial. This study delves into how younger, middle-aged, and older adults perceive avatars with different aging attributes and degrees of realism, focusing on t...

The combination of smartphone Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) makes it possible for on-site and remote users to jointly and simultaneously explore a physical space and its digital twin through an asymmetric Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE). In this paper, we investigate two spatial awareness visualizations to enable joint exp...

This paper explores the classification of eye expressions for EOG-based interaction using JINS MEME, an off-the-shelf eye-tracking device. Previous studies have demonstrated the potential for using electrooculography (EOG) for hands-free human-computer interaction using eye movements (directional, smooth pursuit) and eye expressions (blinking, wink...

Integrating taste in AR/VR applications has various promising use cases - from social eating to the treatment of disorders. Despite many successful AR/VR applications that alter the taste of beverages and food, the relationship between olfaction, gustation, and vision during the process of multisensory integration (MSI) has not been fully explored...

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are pushing from the labs towards consumers, especially with social applications. These applications require visual representations of humans and intelligent entities. However, displaying and animating photo-realistic models comes with a high technical cost while low-fidelity representations may evoke...

When operating a conditionally automated vehicle, humans occasionally have to take over control. If the driver is out of the loop, a certain amount of time is necessary to gain situation awareness. This work evaluates the potential of stereoscopic 3D (S3D) dashboards for presenting smart S3D take-over-requests (TORs) to support situation assessment...

This chapter deals with the authoring of VR and AR applications. The focus here is on the use of authoring tools in the form of software development kits (SDKs) or game engines. First, the actual authoring process will be briefly discussed before selected authoring tools for VR and AR are reviewed. Subsequently, the authoring process and the use of...

Recent developments in augmented reality for TV productions encouraged broadcasters to enhance interaction with virtual content for moderators. However, traditional interaction methods are considered distracting and not intuitive. To overcome these issues, we performed a gesture elicitation study with a follow-up evaluation. For this, we considered...

This chapter outlines the current state of automotive user interfaces and by that, highlights challenges that are still open and some that the automotive UI research community might encounter in the future. This chapter also presents the state of research on in-car displays and S3D outside and inside the automotive domain.

Managing trust between a driver and an automated vehicle is crucial for proper usage. This chapter describes if and how the usage of an anthropomorphic agent presented in stereoscopic 3D fosters trust between an automated vehicle and a driver-passenger.

This chapter introduces important core concepts that are necessary for an understanding of this thesis. Visual perception and depth cues are introduced, so are the foundations of stereoscopic 3D displays. To get a deeper understanding of the automotive domain, driving simulators and levels of automation are explained.

Parts of this section are based on Weidner and Broll [2017b].

This chapter discusses the findings of the previous chapters on driver distraction, trust, take-over notifications, and interaction in the context of the overall research objectives and research questions.

To develop and evaluate stereoscopic 3D user interfaces for cars, a setup is necessary that helps to make informed judgments about this technology. Aim of this section is to outline the development process and the final design of the integrated driving simulator environment used in this thesis.

Previous research 3D displays in vehicles has focused on information perception and increasing task performance. Thus, all previous S3D automotive user interfaces and prototypes (ours and related work) were non-interactive. However, to fully exploit user interfaces that present binocular depth cues, interaction is a fundamental building block. Core...

This thesis explored the design space and possibilities of stereoscopic 3D dashboards. Important problems that have been and will be a challenge in the automotive domain, guided the research process. Our results provide insights in these very domains — driver distraction, trust, and take-over process — but also open up new application domains.

In SAE level 3 automated vehicles, the human driver still needs to be ready to take over control in case the vehicle encounters a situation outside its operational design domain. This chapter outlines a case study where smart stereoscopic 3D icons act as a take-over notification.

When driving manually, people often have to react to stimuli on the dashboard, for example flashing warning signs on the instrument cluster. Also, many applications in the vehicle are structured as text-based, hierarchical menus. For example, the entertainment or the navigation system. When executing such tasks, the user is distracted and cannot fu...

Over the last decades, the interior of cars has been constantly changing. A promising, yet unexplored, modality are large stereoscopic 3D (S3D) dashboards. Replacing the traditional car dashboard with a large display and applying binocular depth cues, such a user interface (UI) could provide novel possibilities for research and industry. In this bo...

Many virtual reality (VR) applications rely on passive haptics where virtual objects have a real counterpart that provides tactile feedback. In addition to that, many VR applications do not provide accurate hand representations, especially when there is a high chance of occlusion as this makes vision-based tracking problematic. Hence, we investigat...

In recent years, stereoscopic 3D (S3D) displays have shown promising results on user experience, for navigation, and critical warnings when applied in cars. However, previous studies have only investigated these displays in non-interactive use-cases. So far, interacting with stereoscopic 3D content in cars has not been studied. Hence, we investigat...

Dieses Kapitel befasst sich mit der Erstellung von VR- und AR-Anwendungen. Im Zentrum der Betrachtung steht hierbei die Nutzung von Autorenwerkzeugen in Form von Softwarepaketen oder (Game) Engines. Zunächst soll kurz auf den eigentlichen Autorenprozess eingegangen werden, bevor ausgewählte Autorenwerkzeuge für VR und AR betrachtet werden. Anschlie...

Calling while driving poses a severe safety risk. When more than two people are involved in a call-a conference call-this risk increases even more. Intelligent vehicles could offer support systems that ease the cognitive burden of such a multiparty calls. We explore the possibilities of such advanced driving assistant systems (ADAS) in two ways: fi...

Trust in self-driving cars is considered to ensure appropriate usage of such vehicles. Representing the automation system as an anthropomorphic virtual assistant that communicates the system's behavior could help to build and maintain trust. To explore such assistants, a prototype of an anthropomorphic virtual assistant was designed and integrated...

When operating a conditionally automated vehicle, humans occasionally have to take over control. If the driver is out-of-the-loop, a certain amount of time is necessary to gain situation awareness. This work evaluates the potential of smart stereoscopic 3D (S3D) dashboard visualizations to support situation assessment and by that, take-over perform...

The ongoing digitalization of our world also offers an increasing amount of information to the human. To present this data to a driver, visualization strategies are necessary going beyond traditional displays. In this paper we investigate the effect of stereoscopic 3D (S3D) visualization and the influence of the S3D contents’ locations on the dashb...

In the sharing-economy, users do not necessarily own a car but use commercial services to rent a car according to their needs, requirements, and liking. To provide the best driving experience and safety, it is necessary that they understand the car and its functionality. Assuming that future vehicles will facilitate mostly screens for information p...

Although visual attention cues are of particular importance for driving simulation tasks, research on the relationship of visual attention and simulator sickness is scarce. This exploratory study is aimed at investigating this relation with a laboratory study in a fixed-based driving simulator (N = 36). No correlation between visual attention and s...

The ongoing digitalization is a huge chance for retailers and stores to make shopping more convenient and by that, increase their overall turnout. It may also be valuable for customers to have a pleasant and stress-free shopping experience. Mixed Reality (MR) could support this by merging virtual elements with the real shopping environment. One pos...

The ongoing digitalization is a huge chance for retailers and stores to make shopping more convenient and by that, increase their overall turnout. It may also be valuable for customers to have a pleasant and stress-free shopping experience. Mixed Reality (MR) could support this by merging virtual elements with the real shopping environment. One pos...

Recently released consumer head-mounted displays (HMD), such as the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, or the Sony PlayStation VR, hyped up the market of virtual reality, particularly affecting the gaming industry. Although the technology is now publicly accessible, it is not yet mature enough to guarantee its users an absolutely pleasant experience. Side...

The amount of available information and functionality in cars is increasing rapidly. Academia and industry are working tirelessly on technologies to integrate both in automotive user experience while providing high usability and safety. A large stereoscopic 3D dashboard could offer binocular disparity as a depth cue and by this, support these effor...

Multimodal medical image fusion combines information of one or more images in order to improve the diagnostic value. While previous applications mainly focus on merging images from computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasonic and single-photon emission computed tomography, we propose a novel approach for the registration and fu...

Multimodal imaging allows the analysis of orthogonal aspects of imaged subjects. Combining these aspects into a single view might unveil hidden correlations that support more detailed medical decisions. In neurosurgery, preoperative MRI and CT are used to gain knowledge about tissue structure. Functional MRI and intraoperative thermography allow to...