Mixed Reality Lab
NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates Program at the
USC Institute for Creative Technologies
May - August 2016
USC Institute for Creative Technologies
May - August 2016
Overview
In the summer of 2016, I had the opportunity to intern at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies as part of the Mixed Reality Lab. As an intern, I contributed to two VR research projects: Virtual Humans over Mobile Video and Proxemics in Virtual Reality. My focus was on redesigning interfaces and virtual environments used in the studies in order to facilitate smoother interactions between the participant and the virtual human. At the Mixed Reality Lab, I worked under the guidance of Dr. Sinhwa Kang, Dr. David Krum, and Thai Phan.
Note: These works have not been published yet and, thus, several details are omitted.
Note: These works have not been published yet and, thus, several details are omitted.
Proxemics in Virtual Reality
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For this project, I worked on prototyping the virtual environment that the study participants would walk through as well as the interface for the experimenter to control interactions between the participant and a virtual human. In addition, I performed internal testing to determine the ideal distances between the participant and virtual human for triggering interactions. I programmed the virtual environment and interface using Unity and C# and tested on the HTC Vive headset.
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Virtual Humans Over Mobile Video
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My task for this project was to redesign the Wizard-of-Oz (WOZ) interface used to control the verbal and facial expressions of a virtual human counselor. Although the ultimate goal is for the virtual human to be autonomous, for the purposes of conducting studies, the virtual human is actually controlled by the experimenter. Before I started working on revamping the WOZ interface, the virtual human's range of responses was quite limited. Due to this, the interactions that the virtual human could have with a participant were rather terse and, at times, unnatural.
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One of the virtual human counselors
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This was the original WOZ interface
My tasks for improving this interface were the following:
After a great deal of online research as well as multiple rounds of prototyping & user testing, I was able to accomplish these tasks. I programmed this final interface using Unity and C# scripts.
- Adding more backchannels to make conversations between the virtual human and participant more natural
- Creating a new facial expression for the virtual human to express sympathy
- Optimizing the interface layout to allow the experimenter to respond to the participant efficiently
After a great deal of online research as well as multiple rounds of prototyping & user testing, I was able to accomplish these tasks. I programmed this final interface using Unity and C# scripts.
My redesign of the WOZ interface
