Interactive Media & Game Development
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

IMGD
Course Title: Immersive Human-Computer Interaction
Course Number: IMGD 5100
Semester Fall 2014

Description: Immersive environments are those which give the user the feeling of occupying a space different from their current physical space. They are created in the mind of the user by careful selection of sensory stimuli and support for natural interaction. This course focuses on the design and evaluation of user interfaces that support user immersion in several contexts, including desktop, head-mounted display, large-screen, and mobile situations. Through a combination of traditional lecture, literature review, and hands-on work, students will learn to critically evaluate different alternatives, build prototype systems, and design comparative evaluations to test the effectiveness of various techniques. Students will be expected to implement several techniques as part of this course.

Prerequisites: A demonstrated proficiency to program. A course on traditional human-computer interaction is recommended.


Meeting Info: Mondays 6:00-8:50,
Salisbury Labs (SL), Room 011

Instructor: Prof. Robert W. Lindeman
E-Mail: gogo at wpi.edu
Telephone: x6712

Textbooks: 3DUI: 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice, Bowman, Kruijff, LaViola, Poupyrev, 2005, Addison Wesley, ISBN: 0-201-75867-9

DOET: The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition, Norman, Donald A., 2013, Basic Books, Print-ISBN-13: 978-0-465-05065-9, Web ISBN-13: 978-0-465-07299-6
Available in electronic format from any WPI computer here.


Papers: Here is a link to the papers we will be reading for this course.

General:

Questions and discussion are highly encouraged throughout the class meetings. It is hoped that the work done in this course will lead to the design of novel and interesting approaches to immersive user interfaces, the development of studies, and eventally submissions of results to appropriate venues.

Course Schedule:

Week Dates Class Topics Readings/Summaries/Projects
1 09/08 Introduction to 3D User Interfaces
2 09/15 What is Immersion? 3DUI: Ch. 1 & 2
The Rise and Fall and Rise of Virtual Relaity, The Verge,
The Psychology of Immersion in Video Games, Jamie Madigan, 2010.
3 09/22 What is Immersion? DOET: Parts 1, 2, & 4
Sadowski, W., Stanney, K. (2002) Presence in Virtual Environments, Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design, Implementation, and Applications, K. Staanney (Ed.), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 791-806.
4 09/29 Input Devices Ch. 3 & 4
Takala, T.M., Rauhamaa, P., Takala, T. (2012). Survey of 3DUI applications and development challenges, Proceedings of IEEE 3DUI, pp. 89-96.
5 10/06 MOVIE NIGHT: eXistenZ Ch. 5
Mine, M., Brooks, F.P., Sequin, C. (1997) Moving Objects in Space: Exploiting Proprioception in Virtual-Environment Interaction, Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH '97, pp. 19-26.
6 10/13 Input Devices
7 10/20 NO CLASS: SEMESTER BREAK!
8 10/27 Visual Displays Flow (the concept)
Jenova Chen wrote an MFA Thesis
(Online Thesis Page)
Play the Game flOw
Flow Questionnaire
9 11/03 Expressive Musical Interaction Here is a link to a music software project that will be discussed in class by our guest speaker, Prof. VJ Manzo.
You can also access his book Max/MSP/Jitter for Music at the WPI Library.
Prof. Manzo also has a forthcoming book on Interactive Composition.
10 11/10 Selection & Manipulation;
Moving Around 		ASSIGNED: Project 1
11 11/17 HIVE Field Trip DUE: Project 1
12 11/24 Wayfinding: Knowing where you are ASSIGNED: Final Project
13 12/01 Non-visual Feedback;
Augmenting Reality
14 12/08 Symbolic Input
15 12/15 Final Project Presentations DUE: Final Project

Videos from Projcts from Previous Years:

Main Web Resources