Perception Meets Graphics in the XR Pipeline: From Displays to Generative Models and Beyond
Qi Sun
New York University, USA

Extended Reality (XR) offers groundbreaking opportunities for rendering virtual content, sensing physical environments, and precisely tracking human behavior. With the current advancements in display systems and generative AI models, the hardware-software pipeline of XR is poised for transformation. In this talk, I will present our recent research on modeling visual perception and behavior to develop efficient and user-centric XR display hardware and content generation models.

Qi Sun is an Assistant Professor at New York University. Before joining NYU, he was a research scientist at Adobe Research. He received his PhD at Stony Brook University. His research interests lie in VR/AR, perceptual computer graphics, computational display, and applied perception. He is a recipient of the IEEE Virtual Reality Best Dissertation Award. With colleagues, his research has been recognized as several best paper and honorable mention awards at ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE ISMAR, IEEE VR, IEEE VIS, and ACM SAP.

 

Understanding User Behavior and Attention in Immersive Environments
Ana Serrano
Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain

Understanding and predicting human attention is key to creating engaging and efficient XR experiences. This talk explores how users allocate attention and direct their gaze in immersive 360º environments, providing insights for saliency modeling and gaze prediction.

Ana Serrano is an Assistant Professor at Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain. Previously she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute for Informatics working with Prof. Karol Myszkowski. She obtained her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Diego Gutierrez and Prof. Belen Masia at the Graphics & Imaging Lab (Universidad de Zaragoza). During her PhD she was the recipient of an Adobe Research Fellowship (honorable mention) in 2017, and a NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship in 2018. Her thesis was awarded with one of the Eurographics 2020 PhD awards. Recently, she received the Eurographics 2023 Young Researcher Award and the VGTC VR 2024 Significant New Researcher Award.