Graphics Keynote: Dr. Alla Sheffer, University of British Columbia
Human-Centered Geometry Processing
Time and Location: Thursday, June 6th, 2:00 pm, Medjuck Auditorium.
Abstract: Humans can ubiquitously communicate and reason about both tangible and abstract shape properties. Artists can succinctly convey complex shapes to a broad audience using a range of mediums; and human observers can effortlessly analyze and agree on observed shape properties such as upright-orientation or style. While perception research provides some clues as to the mental processes humans employ when performing these tasks, concrete and quantifiable explanations of these actions are frequently lacking. Our recent research aims to quantify the geometric properties underlying human shape communication and analysis, and to develop algorithms that successfully replicate human abilities in these domains. In my talk I will survey our efforts in this space, focusing on ways to incorporate insights about human perception into algorithm design. My talk will include examples across a wide range of 2D and 3D geometry processing tasks, including shape orientation, VR interfaces for shape modeling, raw sketch consolidation; clip-art vectorization; clip-art reshaping; sketch-based 3D reconstruction; and style analysis and transfer for man-made shapes. The common thread in our proposed solutions to these problems is the use of insights derived from perception and design literature combined with derivation of quantitative properties via targeted human perception studies and machine learning from scarce data.
Bio: Alla Sheffer is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia and a Scholar at Amazon Inc. She received her BSc (1991), MSc (1995), and PhD (2000) from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. She investigates algorithms for geometry processing, focusing on fabrication and computer graphics applications. She is particularly interested in leveraging connections between geometry and perception to enable users to create and manipulate geometric content, including garments and 3D printable artifacts. Prof. Sheffer regularly publishes at selective computer graphics venues and has co-authored 52 papers published in ACM Transactions on Graphics, including numerous papers in SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia proceedings. She holds 6 recent patents on methods for garment grading, sketch analysis, and hexahedral mesh generation. Sheffer is a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of ACM, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of Eurographics, and a Member of the SIGGRAPH Academy. She is the recipient of the 2018 Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society Achievement Award. She was the Technical Papers Committee Chair for SIGGRAPH’23 and co-chaired the program committees for Eurographics’18, 3DV’18, PG’19, SGP’06 and IEEE SMI’13. She has served on the editorial boards of ACM TOG, IEEE TVCG, Computer Graphics Forum, Graphical Models, Computers & Graphics, and CAGD.
HCI Keynote: Dr. Daniel Vogel, University of Waterloo
Harder, Slower, and Less Useful: Making Interaction Worse to Make it Better
Time and Location: Tuesday, June 4th, 9:45 am, Medjuck Auditorium.
Abstract: The implicit goal of interaction design, and arguably much of human-computer interaction research, is to improve techniques and interfaces so people can easily accomplish useful tasks. But, what if a technique intentionally makes interaction harder? Or, if an interface forces you to slow down your interactions? And, could a system devoid of utilitarian purpose have some benefit? In this talk, I highlight examples from my research group that do these seemingly contrary things. I show how making interaction harder exploits manual dexterity and harnesses cognitive potential, how making interaction slower increases mindfulness and helps save the environment, and that deploying systems that solve no useful task stimulate reflection about phone addiction and promote emotional well-being in conventional desktop computing. I hope to convince you that approaching human-computer interaction research a bit like art can make interaction better in unconventional ways.
Bio: Daniel Vogel is an Associate Professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. He has published more than 100 papers in the area of Human Computer Interaction focusing on fundamental characteristics of human input and novel forms of interaction for current and future computing form factors. Topics include touch, tangibles, mid-air gestures, and whole-body input, for everything from on-body wearable devices and mobile phones, to large displays and mixed reality. In addition to earning a PhD from the University of Toronto, Dan holds a BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and he leverages his combined art and science background in his research. For example, he was awarded a major grant to build a $1.8 million facility to explore the intersection of HCI and Fine Art in spatial augmented reality. His 2004 paper on interactive ambient displays is one of the ten most cited papers in the history of the ACM UIST conference, and he has received multiple honours including: 12 paper awards at ACM CHI; the Bill Buxton Dissertation Award (2010); a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship (2011 – 2013), an Ontario Early Researcher Award (2017); the Faculty of Mathematics Golden Jubilee Research Excellence Award (2018); a CS-Can/Info-Can Outstanding Young Computer Science Researcher Award (2019); and was named a Cheriton Faculty Fellow (2019 – 2022) and ACM Distinguished Member (2023).
50th GI Plenary: Dr. Kellogg Booth, University of British Columbia (Emeritus Professor)
Reflections on the role of Graphics Interface in fostering Canadian graphics, visualization, and human-computer interaction
Time and Location: Wednesday, June 5th, 8:15 pm, Saraguay House.
Abstract: Graphics Interface prides itself on being the longest-running conference in the field, pre-dating all of the current conferences on computer graphics, visualization & human-computer interaction. Uniquely Canadian, the conference began as a forum for industry, government, and academic researchers and practitioners in the Canadian scientific and engineering community to exchange information about interactive computer graphics applications and techniques. The conference quickly attracted an international audience and established its reputation as an important publication venue for leading-edge papers and high-quality reviewing. It continues to play an important role in linking researchers across Canada in the highly interconnected fields of graphics, visualization & human-computer interaction — especially Canadian students and early career researchers. As the 50th conference in the series takes place, we can reflect on the forces that helped shape the community and the conference and celebrate some of the people who provided their leadership and wisdom, especially in the early years, to sustain and nurture the conference over more than five decades.
Bio: After growing up (to the extent he ever did) in California, attending Caltech (BS 1968 in mathematics), and then doing graduate work at UC Berkeley (MA 1970 and PhD 1975 in computer science) while working in computer graphics at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Kellogg Booth joined the University of Waterloo in 1977 as a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science, where he co-founded the Computer Graphics Laboratory and engaged in a variety of research projects focused on interactive graphics. In 1990 he moved to The University of British Columbia to join the Imager Laboratory for Computer Graphics, Human-Centred Technologies & Visualization where he was the founding director of the Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre. His initial involvement with Graphics Interface was in 1981, when he was local arrangements co-chair for the Seventh Canadian Man-Computer Communications Conference and a member of the program committee. He attended almost all of the subsequent conferences starting the following year when the conference was renamed Graphics Interface and became an annual event rather than biannual. He served as program co-chair in 1997, general co-chair in1992 (Vancouver), and general chair in 2005 (Victoria), and on the program committee in various years. He was president of the Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society from 2002-2008, past president from 2008-2014, and a member or chair of the awards committee off and on for many years. He retired in 2017.
Invited Talk: Dr. Karan Singh, University of Toronto
Expressive Facial Modeling and Animation
Time and Location: Wednesday, June 5th, 9:00 am, Medjuck Auditorium
Abstract: Humans are hard-wired to see and interpret minute facial detail. The rich signals we extract from facial expressions set high expectations for computer-generated facial imagery. This talk focuses on the science and art of expressive facial animation. Specifically, aspects of facial anatomy, biomechanics, linguistics and perceptual psychology will be used to motivate and describe the construction of geometric face rigs, and techniques for the animator-centric creation of emotion, expression and speech animation from input images, audio and video. In some measure the talk will reveal some of the technological innovation that enabled the design and creation of faces in games like Cyberpunk 2077 (Game of the year 2020), and films like Avatar: the way of water (Best VFX Oscar 2023).
Bio: Karan Singh is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. His research interests lie at the intersection of art, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer Graphics (CG) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI): spanning interactive modeling and animation, visual perception, visualization and Augmented/Virtual Reality. Karan has been a development lead on the technical Oscar (2003) winning modeling and animation system Maya. He has co-founded multiple companies, most recently JALI Research. He was the R&D Director for the 2005 Oscar winning animated short film Ryan. His recent research in facial animation has been used on characters in AAA games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare2, and films like Avatar: the way of water (Best VFX Oscar 2023).
Invited Talk: Dr. Rita Orji, Dalhousie University
Your Health in Your Pocket: Persuasive Technology for Health and Wellness
Time and Location: Wednesday, June 5th, 9:30 am, Medjuck Auditorium
Abstract: Advances in technology offer many opportunities to strategically design interactive systems that aid and motivate people toward behaviors and actions that are beneficial for them and their communities. Avoiding behaviors that pose health risks and promoting a healthy lifestyle can be facilitated by Persuasive Technologies (PTs). PTs can integrate into people’s daily lives and support them in achieving various self-improvement goals. In this talk, I will share case studies of persuasive systems for promoting health and wellness. Specifically, I will present our findings from the design and evaluation of the SmileApp and GratitudeApp systems to demonstrate that interactive systems can be strategically designed to promote various mental health objectives.
Bio: Rita Orji is a Canada Research Chair in Persuasive Technology and an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Dalhousie University where she directs the Persuasive Computing Lab. Her research at the intersection of technology and human behaviour focuses on designing interactive technologies to empower people, improve lives, and contribute to solving many societal problems. Specifically, technologies that integrate into people’s daily lives and support them to achieve various self-improvement goals. She applies her work to tackle real-life problems in various domains including improving a wide range of health and wellness objectives such as mental health, healthy eating, physical activity, smoking cessation, sexual and other health risk behaviours. She has received over 25 million dollars from competitive grant funding from agencies and governments around the world to support her work. With over 200 peer-reviewed papers, Dr. Orji has won over 60 prestigious awards and recognitions nationally and internationally in recognition of her work in this area. Recently, she received the Outstanding Young Computer Science Researcher Awards from Computer Science Canada and was named among the Top 150 Canadian Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), Top 60 African Women in STEM, Top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women, Top 100 Nigeria’s Leading Women, admitted into the Royal Society of Canada and the Global Young Academy. She was also a recipient of both Vanier Scholarship and Banting Fellowship. She is a renowned speaker who has delivered 26 keynotes and over 100 invited talks and other presentations.
