Join the Goergen Institute for Data Science and Studio X at the River Campus Libraries for Next Generation Display Technologies for Virtual and Augmented Reality Applications, a conversation with Kaan Akşit.

View the recording here. 

Abstract: Next generation display technologies expected to enhance our lives with Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications, which will revolutionize entertainment, healthcare, communication, and manufacturing industries among many others. In this talk, I will introduce the key challenges in designing near-eye VR/AR displays to meet the requirements of the human visual system. I will describe how we can address those challenges with our novel varifocal near-eye display designs. Key to our efforts is a novel see-through rear-projection screen. An image is projected to the see-through screen using an off-axis path, which is then relayed to the user’s eyes through an on-axis partially reflective magnifying surface. I will conclude by showing that this work forms a basis for new near-eye display designs that can meet human visual system's resolution capabilities.

Bio: Kaan Akşit is an associate professor at University College London in the UK. Kaan conducts research at the intersection of light and computation. Kaan's research includes computational approaches in imaging, fabrication, mobility, and displays dedicated to virtual reality, augmented reality, 3D with glasses and 3D without glasses applications. Kaan received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at Koç University, Turkey in 2014, his M.Sc. degree in electrical power engineering from RWTH Aachen University, Germany in 2010, and his B.S. degree in electrical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Turkey in 2007. Kaan was a senior research scientist at NVIDIA Research, US in between 2014 and 2020.  Kaan also worked as a research intern in Philips Research in the Netherlands, and Disney Research in Switzerland in 2009 and 2013, respectively. He is the recipient of Emerging Technologies best in show award in SIGGRAPH 2019 and SIGGRAPH 2018, DCEXPO special prize in SIGGRAPH 2017, and best paper award in IEEEVR 2019, ISMAR 2018 and IEEEVR 2017. For more, please visit Kaan's website at https://kaanaksit.com and follow his updates on twitter at https://twitter.com/kaanaksit.

Relevant Papers:
Near-Eye Varifocal Augmented Reality Display using See-Through Screens, https://kaanaksit.com/portfolio/near-eye-varifocal-augmented-reality-display-using-see-through-screens/

Foveated AR: Dynamically-Foveated Augmented Reality Display, https://kaanaksit.com/portfolio/foveated-ar-dynamically-foveated-augmented-reality-display/

Manufacturing Application-Driven Foveated Near-Eye Displays, https://kaanaksit.com/portfolio/manufacturing-application-driven-near-eye-displays/

Voices of XR is a Studio X speaker series, presented in collaboration with the Goergen Institute for Data Science. Speakers are scholars, artists, and extended reality professionals who discuss their work with immersive technologies across disciplines and industries. All talks are free and open to the general public. See the full spring 2021 series. 

Register: bit.ly/XRVoices

This series is generously supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Traineeship (NRT) program as part of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Training in the Science, Technology, and Applications of Augmented and Virtual Reality at the University of Rochester (#1922591).