D-INFK news channel

The seventh edition of the Informatiktage will take place from 18 to 23 March 2024. The Department of Computer Science and the IT Services of ETH Zurich are once again participating as partners this year. The carefully curated programme offers something for everyone – from curious beginners to experienced experts.

Research News: Professor Christian Holz and his research group have developed a new teleconferencing system called ViGather. The System enables participants across all devices – VR/XR devices and traditional laptops, tablets, or PCs – to participate in immersive 3D meetings as avatars. 

Two new projects from the Sensing, Interaction & Perception Lab of Professor Christian Holz advance the versatility of today’s Virtual Reality (VR) platforms, taking advantage of common devices such as a fitness watch or a smartphone. By developing novel AI frameworks, they allow VR users to freely interact in 3D space and grab objects that are out of sight, or even play in places as small as a car, a train or an airplane seat.

Johanna Pirker, Assistant Professor at Graz University of Technology, spent September and October as a visiting professor at the Game Technology Center (GTC) of ETH Zurich. In this interview, she explains what we can learn from video games and why our image of gamers does not correspond to reality.

The ETH Global Lecture "The Wild, Unexpected, Exponential Ride Through Computer Graphics" by Ed Catmull (Pixar / Walt Disney Animation Studios) will take place on November 2. 

Game developers from the ETH Game Technology Center have created an app that explains bone remodelling in a playful way. If students point the camera of their mobile device at the textbook, they find themselves transported to the bone’s surface, where they help cells break down bone tissue.

A new ETH laboratory makes high-​resolution 3D recordings possible, enabling researchers to animate avatars or train robots, for example. Professors Otmar Hilliges, Marc Pollefeys, Markus Gross and Stelian Coros are involved in this project.

Did you miss an important moment? Professor Christian Holz and his postdoc Andreas Rene Fender have developed a system that can record and later replay events in a room in 3D.

Modelling a human being in detail and in motion is a task that continues to challenge developers. Researchers led by Otmar Hilliges, Professor at the Department of Computer Science, showed how to do this more easily: Instead of modelling every last detail, they use intelligent algorithms that learn to automatically render animated avatars in every conceivable pose by observing 3D images of humans in just a few poses.

When a person taps with their fingers, each finger generates a different vibration profile propagating to the wrist through bones. Researchers around Professor Christian Holz have now leveraged this discovery in the development of a dual-​sensor wristband that brings intuitive free-​hand interaction to virtual productivity spaces.

An app created by the Game Technology Center at ETH Zurich lets visitors experience the new exhibition at the Graphische Sammlung in an interactive way.

A step towards new media worlds: The Media Technology Center at ETH Zurich is researching how Augmented Reality can be applied to everyday life and supports media companies on their path to the future.

Computational thinking and programming skills are likely to become even more essential in the future. Dr Stéphane Magnenat and the Game Technology Center team at ETH Zurich are working on new ways to teach programming to children and make the experience enriching, creative and playful.

On March 19, 2019, ETH Zurich presented the Spark Award 2019. The award recognizes the most promising invention that ETH transfer filed for a patent in 2018. Two of the nominated projects came from D-​INFK.

Electronic devices can spark kids’ creativity, says Stéphane Magnenat from the Game Technology Center. But doing so requires apps that bridge the real and virtual worlds.

In future, patients will be able to see the outcome of dental treatment even before the dentist starts working on their teeth. This is made possible by a “virtual mirror” developed by an ETH spin-off.

Reminding us of the intrinsic need for play, ETH Zurich researchers in game technology collaborate with Disney Research Zurich to provide novel digital technologies to enhance traditional experiences in a new realm called, "augmented creativity".

Augmented creativity can encourage children towards a new-​found sense of creativity, cooperation and interaction with their environment. ETH Zurich’s Game Technology Center will present its latest apps in the field at the CeBIT computer expo.

ETH Zurich’s new Game Technology Center in the Department of Computer Science will pool Swiss know-​how in the development of computer games. This was announced on Wednesday as part of the final presentation of the Game Programming Laboratory.