Talk Abstract:  Although there is currently no Augmented Reality (AR) headset that possesses all the desired specifications, such as high resolution, wide field of view, spacious eyebox, powerful sensing capabilities, compact size, and extended battery life, customized design choices can still be made to meet the specific needs of users in various applications. In this talk I will present our work on AR applications in medicine for guidance of medical procedures and in industry for guidance of frontline workers. Besides the different use-cases, I will focus on the users, how they use the headset and what headset features are important for the shown scenarios. Applications that focus on the real world require very different sensor and display specifications than applications that focus on the virtual content. And an application where a surgeon is treating a patient and errors have critical consequences has very different requirements than a virtual training application for students. By discussing these points I will then explain the reasons for our desired headset choices and recommended design choices for future headset generations. After the talk in-person attendess will have the opportunity to try our software demo on the Hololens 2 where we leverage sensor data to make creation of virtual instructors as easy as taking a video.

Speaker Biography:   Dr. Christoph Leuze is director of the Visualization Core at the Stanford Wu Tsai Institute where his research focuses on virtual and augmented reality technologies for medical applications, and founder of Nakamir, a startup creating Augmented Reality training and guidance solutions for frontline workers. He has published one of the first virtual reality viewers for MRI data where over 40,000 users have been taken through a virtual tour through his own brain. He has received multiple prizes for his work in Augmented Reality including the IEEE VR People’s choice award for the best AR demo, the TechConnect Award for one of the most promising technological innovations for national security and the prize for the best 3D video at the Ars Electronica Art and Science Festival. Dr. Leuze has studied at Leipzig University, Germany and Chiba University, Japan and received the Otto Hahn medal of the Max Planck Society for his PhD thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig.