Speaker
Dr. Ling Guan, professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada
Topic
Natural Human-Computer Interaction for the Creation of Life-like Experience in Immersive Environment.
Abstract
Immersive computing and communication (ICC) refers to information and communications technologies used to: generate virtual reality, mixed reality, and augmented reality environments; perform human-computer interactions (HCI) between users and the immersive environments; detect, recognize, process, track, and visualize objects and scenes in an immersive environment; and exchange and communicate information between two or more immersive environments. ICC is multidisciplinary in nature, involving signal and image processing, machine learning, communication, computer graphics and visualization, with the core objective of creating life-like experience for a wide range of applications across industries, education, arts and entertainment, healthcare, and many more. ICC also provides a compelling tool to visualize data, taking advantage of the intuitive and natural connection between data and human judgment in the immersive environment. Since ICC is all about creating and delivering life-like experience, center to ICC is naturally how we interact with the immersive environment in the same way we interact with each other and with the environment surrounding us in real life, which we call natural human-computer interaction. This talk will first provide an overview on the current state of HCI in ICC, and the exciting advancement natural HCI has brought about to the research and our daily life. We will then proceed to present recent works on the study of information theoretic methods and tools for the development of natural HCI, including human gaze, emotion, gesture, action, haptics and the integration of these natural means, through theoretical analysis, graphic illustration and the creation of life-like experience. We will devote the last few minutes of the talk to a proposal of further improvement and eventual perfection of natural HCI technology.
Speaker's biography
Dr. Ling Guan is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, and a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Multimedia and Computer Technology. He held visiting positions at British Telecom (1994), Tokyo Institute of Technology (1999), Princeton University (2000), National ICT Australia (2007), Nanyang Technological University (2007), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2008-09), Microsoft Research Asia (2002, 2009) and Chinese Academy of Science (2010). Dr. Guan has published extensively in multimedia processing and communications, human-centered computing, machine learning, adaptive image and signal processing, and, more recently, multimedia computing in immersive environment. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, an Elected Member of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and an IEEE Circuits and System Society Distinguished Lecturer. Because of his contributions, Dr. Guan has been honored with numerous awards, including the 2014 IEEE Canada C.C. Gotlieb Medal for Technical Achievement in Computer Science and Engineering, and the 2005 IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Best Paper Award. Dr. Guan received his B.Sc. Degree from Tianjin University, M.A.Sc Degree from University of Waterloo, and Ph.D. Degree from the University of British Columbia.