PROJECTS
Participation in European Projects
POPULATE: is a EU Programme funded under Horizon2020 workprogramme and is an Innovation Action in the field of mobile games. The objective is to develop a game prototype involving crowds, using both wearable and mobile devices as controllers and using TV as the main display. My team in the GV2 lab is using the game as a tool to study the psychology of gamers. The goal is to record their behavior during gameplay, analyze, and use it to draw conclusions for research in the fields of sociology and psychology and to enhance future gaming experiences.
VR-HYPERSPACE: is a 7th Framework Programme funded under the Aeronautics and Air Transport (AAT) workprogramme. It presented a profoundly new approach to the issue of aircraft passenger comfort for the second half of this century. The overall aim was to carry out fundamental research and development leading to a paradigm shift in relation to passenger comfort. The EVENT-lab team investigated increasing passenger comfort level by changing the very perception of oneself.
CEEDS: The Collective Experience of Empathic Data Systems (CEEDs) project aims to develop novel, integrated technologies to support human experience, analysis and understanding of very large datasets. My team in the SPECS lab was dedicated on building an augmented reality mobile application that allows visualizing and navigating on the Bergen-Belsen memorial site, using online geo-tagged data retrieval.
BrainAble: the project's aim is to provide autonomy and social inclusion for people with motor disabilities, through mixed reality Brain-Computer Interfaces. My task as a member of the SPECS lab was to create an online 3D application aimed for disabled persons that would allow choosing and customizing an expressive virtual character, navigating in a virtual world, meeting and chatting with other characters.
HBP: The aim of the Human Brain Project is the understanding the human brain and gain profound insights into what makes us human, develop new treatments for brain disease and build revolutionary new computing technologies. The project aims to make fundamental contributions to neuroscience, to medicine and to future computing technology. My task was to collaborate with scientists from other universities in order to build Virtual Reality experimental setup, towards understanding human behaviour.
Personal Projects
My virtual face (Project at TCD): a game experience that uses facial tracking to reproduce facial expresions and movements on virtual characters in order to provide immersion and connection with one's virtual representation. The project was developped in Unity3D, using Faceshift and the experience was evaluated through subjective responses and physiological methods.
Movement vs. tactile feedback (PhD Project): an immersive VR experience where participants move their legs and feed tactile feedback through a virtual body. This project was trying to assess the importance of the two stimuli (movements and tactile) on the feeling of embodiment in VR. The project was developped in Unity3D and the experience was evaluated through subjective responses and physiological methods.
Amplified arm movements (PhD Project): an immersive VR experience where participants feel that are producing amplified arm movements through a virtual body. This project was trying to tackle the contrains of small physical spaces, while immersed in VR. The project was developped in Unity3D and the experience was evaluated through subjective responses and psychophysical methods.
Illusory Walking (PhD Project): an immersive VR experience where participants feel that they are walking through a virtual body, while in reality they are sitting on chair. The project was developped in Unity3D and the extent of the illusion was evaluated through subjective and physiological responses.
Modelling selective visual attention for autonomous virtual characters (MSc Dissertation): a model that applies attention features to virtual characters, such as gaze, head and locomotion. The model has been evaluated in Second Life (SL), by integrating a Saliency-Based Method of Simulating Visual Attention in the SL viewer source code.
Auto-creation of an Urban Environment (BSc Dissertation): an OpenGL application that creates a 3D layout of buildings, streets and squares, in a specific arrangement based on an exclusive sorting algorithm. The sorting algorithm was devised specifically for this application. The technologies used were C++ and GLUT OpenGL libraries
Other
MSc Projects:
Computer Graphics: Ray Tracing, Animated OpenGL Robot, Monte-Carlo Path tracing, Particle and Boids Simulation
Virtual Environments: VE training application in CAVE, seminar presentation in Augmented Reality
Image processing: Image Segmentation, Optical Character Recognition, Edge Detection, Color Imaging
Computational Photography and Capturing: Restoration of old films, Controllable Heliotrope Video
BSc Projects:
Implementation of a miniJava compiler; 3D computer game programming using OpenGL; Implementation of a Java Analog Synthesizer using Jsyn; design and implementation of a mySQL Database for personalized online order handling; Implementing heuristic AI opponent in a Score-4 game; k-NN classification of period punctuation points in text; Text encryption and decryption generation