The centre includes five research groups – Scientific Visualisation, Information and Geo Visualisation, Computer Graphics and VR, Structural and Civil Engineering and Visual Learning and Communication.

It should also be note that the Centre for Medical Image Science and Visualisation is based at the university teaching hospital and works closely with both VITA and the Norrköping Visualisation Centre.

Research projects include but are not limited to: Volumetric visualisation of large datasets, Data visualisation and Augmented Reality, Haptic Interaction with Deformable Objects, Visual Analytics, Photorealistic computer graphics for virtual and augmented reality, Town Planning, Civil and Structural Design, Learning through Scientific Visualisation.

The Centre for Visual Information Technology and Applications, along with the Centre for Medical Image Science and Visualisation worked in collaboration with the Interactive Institute on The Virtual Autopsy Table project.

The volumetric representation of data appears to have been drawn from the expertise of the Centre for Medical Image Science at Linköpings university . The interaction/installation/industrial design concept and production appears to be drawn from the expertise of the SII. These two elements of the project come together under the banner of the intriguing Visualisation Centre in Norrköping which includes presentations on Swedish innovation in visualisation, educational workshops, a cinema, and a dome projection system as well as providing an umbrella (in terms of funding and research) for visualisation projects. The Centre is closely associated with the  Visualisation Information Technology and Applications centre at inköpings university who is also involved in the development of the project.

Daniel Woo is  also associated with the iCinema project at UNSW a large scale hemispherical ‘cave’ style immersive environment although his work tends to focus of speech and natural languages and interface design and usability research.

Woo was central in establishing a HCI education at UNSW and is considered a leader in the field of HCI education and research. He has published widely on interface design, formal usability testing, speech synthesis and interface, spatial audio interfaces amongst other research interests.

Run Silent, Run Deep is the 2008 Singapore Iteration of the series and involved a mapping of the Marine environment of Singapore harbour onto an immersive and interactive sonic topology that the user can explore via a projected visual interface.

The Audio Nomad project involves the representation of geo-tagged, recorded, media including images, video, sound, juxtaposed with the sonification of geo-spatial information. This reconstitution of this collected data in a sonic topology allows a user to navigate a soundscape in which recorded histories, unseen ecological dynamics, and visceral field recordings are evocatively juxtaposed to reveal otherwise forgotten, marginalised, or assumed networks of relation.

Jonathan Duckworth is an interactive designer/artist based in Melbourne. He is part of the design company ZedBuffer, which occupies an interesting niche between interactive design and art.The objects and installations that he designs are embodied, aesthetic, interactive and functional. Some examples of his work include: ‘The ‘Embracelet’, a prototype  hand bracelet designed to develop and increase hand grip strength for patients recovering from Traumatic Brain Injury (ABI); and ‘Elements’, pictured above.

This latter work is one of his most interesting because he worked with Peter Wilson in Health Sciences at RMIT University, Melbourne. Elements is an interactive tabletop that they both produced in trial with patients suffering from ABI. It provides aesthetic visual, aural and tactile feedback to users, almost dynamically ‘rewarding’ them for skill, progress and level of movement in their upper limbs.

Jonathan’s work now seems to be moving toward the burgeoning field of art and health (See this interview here for his thoughts about working in this area). Interestingly, his background in the late 1990s was in virtual reality design, especially exploring the social interactions of people in VR spaces. He makes the comment in the above interview that: ‘‘I am interested in taking the virtual back into the physical.”. Something that carries over from his previous work in VR design, is to create interactive interfaces such as the tabletop and hand bracelet that leave the participant feeling physically unencumbered by the technology.

As the user goes about their day, the bio sensors capture real-time information on their physical states, including pulse, movement, skin temperature and galvanic skin response. At the end of the day, when the user syncs the collection devices to the tablet, the software interprets the bio data and represents the user’s emotional and physical states as colourful body shapes in positions ranging from fully reclined to upright. The colour of the shapes represent emotional states, with blue for the calm/rested end of the scale, red for the other aroused/agitated extreme, and gradations of purple for the states in between. Whether the shapes are more horizontal or vertical indicates that the user is moving around a lot or a little, respectively. Text messages that the user has received throughout the day, and photos they have taken are also uploaded to the diary from their mobile phone. All this bio and social data is then overlaid on a timeline of the user’s day.

The user can then navigate their diary by scrolling through this timeline and looking at sections of their day and the data associated with it. Photos they have taken are displayed in stacks according to their timestamp, and circular symbols that represent text messages received can be clicked on to reveal their contents. The user also has the ability to write or draw on these sections – perhaps notes on where they were, who they were talking to – adding another layer of narrative.

High-res screen captures can be viewed here and there is a video with more information on how to use the system here.

Affective Diary was developed in the Interaction Lab at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) in cooperation with Microsoft Research. Participants in the project are: Kristina Höök, Martin Svensson, Anna Ståhl, Petra Sundström and Jarmo Laaksolathi, SICS, Marco Combetto, Alex Taylor and Richard Harper.

Edmonds is currently Professor of Computation and Creative Media in the Faculty of IT at the University of Technology, Sydney, and Director of the Creativity and Cognition Studios (CCS). The origins of CCS derived from his unique research, which spawned a conference series under the similar title of Creativity and Cognitions. A regular headliner from 1993 onwards on the Association for Computing Machinery’s SIGCHI calendar, concepts explored in these meetings developed into an artist-in-residency program (COSTART) at Loughborough University (UK) from 1996 before CCS was established in its present location at UTS in 2003.

Toni Robertson established the Interaction Design and Work Practice Lab at the University of Technology, Sydney, in 2002. Robertson’s interest in technology design was born out of her earlier career as an artist, printmaker and graphic designer. Today her research interests include understanding how actual work practices can be developed and then used to design information systems that appropriately service their situation of use, and exploring how different metaphors for human cognition and work can affect the design of technology.

Robertson is presently chief investigator in an Australian Research Council funded project that is seeking to establish an empirical framework for designing usable and useful wireless mobile computing applications. Based on the premise that the technological challenges presented in the development of mobile computing devices have overshadowed attention to issues of use and usability that ultimately determine technologies’ success in real environments, the project aims to shape the findings of its ethnographic studies into a reliable conceptual framework that will increase the successful utilization of mobile technology by Australian industries.

Under Robertson’s directorship the Interaction Design and Work Practice Lab is currently committed to two other main projects. The Bystander Field aims to stimulate unprecedented understanding of narrative and affective patterns in our past through investigating new systems for interactive and immersive display of contentious stories found in imagery from heritage collections.  Understanding Quality of Experience in Experience Enrich (Next Generation) aims to provide an approximation of what the phrase ‘quality of experience’ could imply for future networked environments, and how its criteria could be utilised to assist with the beneficial design of network related technology, as well facilitate a decrease of the risks in developing inappropriate products and services.

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The Australasian Cooperative Research Centre for Interaction Design (ACID) is a leading innovator within the realm of experience design. In developing new platforms for human interaction via communication technologies and new media, ACID is committed to helping people participate in an increasingly digital world. The centre houses a multi-disciplinary team of ethnographers, designers, computer scientists and software developers who utilize their expertise to provide solutions for clients who wish to use technology to get closer to their users or customers.

The strength of the centre’s research derives from its extensive investigation into new ways to facilitate collaboration and develop social capital in various communities via technological intervention. In creating versatile digital media content, ACID aims to develop methods and tools that emphasise automation, generation and adaptation, thus enhancing creative potential for individual users.

ACID’s unique propriety research methodology follows a process that begins with careful determination and understanding of case-specific human interaction needs, followed by the formulation of initial designs for an appropriate digital interface. Each project’s prototype subsequently undergoes extensive testing and evaluation before a solution is obtained, carried out with the aid of genuine subjects in living laboratories.

Since 2007 ACID has provided technology-based resolutions to human problems in a number of real-world contexts. The broad spectrum of the centre’s research encompasses services to education, tourism, local government, electronic entertainment, indigenous communities, artistic practitioners and telecommunication networks.