Last Fridays Talks: eXtended Reality

Last Fridays Talks

Each last-Friday-of-the-month, we are hosting the Last Fridays Talks, where one of our seven Collaboratories will present insights from their current work.

Join us for a discussion on results and recent papers, followed by some socializing afterwards for everyone who wish to attend. 

Title

Augmenting Human Vision: Augmented Reality at the Intersection of Accessibility and Vision Enhancement

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) has traditionally focused on overlaying digital information onto the physical world with the underlying hope for a more natural information interface. However, emerging applications increasingly position AR as a tool for vision augmentation - directly modifying the user’s visual experience of the real world in ways that extend beyond information display. In this talk, I present some of my research that reimagines head-mounted displays, not merely as AR devices, but as platforms for augmenting human visual perception itself. Through examples from my team’s work, I will demonstrate how this shift enables new forms of visual assistance and vision enhancement. These include visual overlays that compensate for the effect of colour vision deficiency, explorations into visual noise cancellation, and visual guidance. In addition, I will briefly introduce other XR-related research within the Human-Centred Computing Section at Aarhus University.

Bio

Tobias Langlotz is a Professor at Aarhus University, where he teaches and conducts research at the intersection of Computer Graphics, Vision, and Human-Computer Interaction (Visual Computing). He is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His long-term research interests span all forms of Mixed, Extended, Augmented, and Virtual Reality. Tobias is mainly interested in Computational Glasses and Vision Augmentations, and their potential to compensate for vision impairments or enhance human perception. He is also working on nomadic, highly mobile and wearable telepresence solutions that allow people to share their environment with remote users. Here, he is particularly interested in new forms of tourism using virtual and augmented reality technologies. Finally, Tobias explores challenges and technologies for the continuous use of Augmented Reality technology (Pervasive Augmented Reality). He was General Chair for IEEE VR 2022 (Christchurch/Online) and IEEE VR 2023 (Shanghai). He is also a frequent member of organizing and program committees for leading venues such as ACM CHI, ACM UIST, ACM TOCHI, IEEE VR, IEEE ISMAR, and IEEE TVCG. Throughout his career, his team’s work has received best paper awards, nominations, and honorable mentions at premier conferences including IEEE VR, ACM CHI, and IEEE ISMAR. Their work has also been recognized among the best PhD theses by the IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Community (IEEE VGTC). In 2017, he received the Early Career Award for Distinction in Research from the University of Otago and was a finalist for the Supervisor of the Year Award in 2016.