Research
City Science

Looking beyond smart cities
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Poetic Justice

Exploring new forms of social justice through art
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Fluid Interfaces

Designing Systems for Cognitive Support
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Tangible Media

Seamlessly coupling the worlds of bits and atoms by giving dynamic physical form to digital information and computation
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AttentivU

There are currently  UROP openings for this project. AttentivU is  a  device, in the  form factor of a pair of gla…
Research
Space Exploration Initiative

Space Exploration Initiative
Project Research

Using Shadows to See Behind Objects

The full text of our paper is available here.Sometimes the thing that we want to see is hidden behind something else. A neighboring vehicl…
Project Research

Wemoji

This project was produced as part of the   2021 Snap Creative Challenge, focused on "The Future of Co-located Social AR."Wem…
Publication Research

Wemoji: Towards Designing Complementary Communication Systems in Augmented Reality

Joanne Leong, Olivia Seow, Cathy Mengying Fang, Benny J. Tang, Rajan Vaish, and Pattie Maes. 2022. Wemoji: Towards Designing Complementary Communication Systems in Augmented Reality. In The Adjunct Publication of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST ’22 Adjunct), October 29-November 2, 2022, Bend, OR, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3 pages.
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Project Research

TangiBel Soundscapes

Words are fleeting. Moments come and go, and what we vocalize “disappears into thin air."In this project, TangiBel Soundscapes, we propose …
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Viral Communications

People and intelligent machines in a creative, symbiotic loop
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Personal Robots

Building intelligent personified technologies that collaborate with people to help them learn, thrive, and flourish.
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Responsive Environments

Augmenting and mediating human experience, interaction, and perception with sensor networks
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SensorNets

SensorNets: Towards Reconfigurable Multifunctional Fine-grained  Soft and Stretchable Electronic Skins.SensorNets is a bioin…
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Future Sketches

Exploring the essence of code as a creative medium
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Camera Culture

Making the invisible visible–inside our bodies, around us, and beyond–for health, work, and connection
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PsychicVR: Increasing mindfulness by using Virtual Reality and Brain Computer Interfaces

We present PsychicVR, a proof-of-concept system that integrates a brain-computer interface device and virtual reality headset to improve mi…
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ZoomADay - AI Synthesized Characters

#ZoomADay was a year long project exploring the creation and use of synthetic characters and deep fakes for use in online telepresence and …
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Open Ocean

Open Ocean
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Object-Based Media

Changing storytelling, communication, and everyday life through sensing, understanding, and new interface technologies
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ARTextiles: Promoting Social Interactions Around Personal Interests

Abstract data visualizations for enhancing social interactions through clothing and augmented reality.
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Inertia

Inertia is a platform for exploring physical interactions between real active agents and virtual elements in an augmented reality environme…
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Beyond the Cradle

Beyond the Cradle
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Bounce-Flash Lidar

In photography, illuminating a subject directly using an on-camera flash can result in unflattering photos. To avoid this, photographers o…
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Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Pilot Simulator

With the advent of real-time photorealism (RTPR), virtual environments are now able to achieve higher degrees of engagement than ever befor…
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Domain Randomization & Synthetic Data Generation for AUAVs - Reducing Perceptual Uncertainty of Sim2Real Navigation

Navigation for autonomous UAVS (unmanned aerial vehicles) is a complex problem and physical field testing of associated tasks introduces a …
Project Research

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous UAVs (AUAVs)

Many tasks are not easily defined and/or too complex for supervised machine learning approaches. For these reasons, a technique known as&nb…
Post Research

Hacking Reality

XR technology is becoming increasingly important in a world where the need to know intersects with the need to experience.
Article Research

A guide to cyberarts: From bots to glitch, an annotated glossary for an age of augmented reality

Check out this list of cyberart projects compiled by The Boston Globe, which includes work by alum Alexander Reben and Prof. Ekene Ijeoma.
Project Research

Living Observatory: Sensor networks for documenting and experiencing ecology

Living Observatory is an initiative for documenting and interpreting ecological change that will allow people, individually and collectivel…
Project Research

Dormio: Interfacing with Dreams

InspirationSleep is a forgotten country of the mind. A vast majority of our technologies are built for our waking state, even though a thir…
Publication Research

Exploring the Use of Real-Time Camera Filters on Embodiment and Creativity

Leong, Joanne, et al. "Exploring the Use of Real-Time Camera Filters on Embodiment and Creativity." Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2021.
Project Research

Physiophone: Electrophysiology Sonification

The human body produces a variety of different electrophysiological signals from brain-waves (EEG) to the electrical activity of the heart …
Project Research

E-maki: XR-enabled Scroll for Interactive Museum Artifacts

E-maki is a collection of ancient, painted scrolls accompanied by a cross-reality app that give contextual information and interactive expe…
Project Research

City Science Lab @ Hamburg

MIT City Science is working with HafenCity University to develop CityScope for the neighborhood of Rothenburgsort in Hamburg, Germany. The …
Article Research

ACM ByteCast: Ramesh Raskar

Camera Culture head Ramesh Raskar talks to Rashmi Mohan about his interdisciplinary research and entrepreneurial endeavors.
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Andorra | Dynamic Urban Planning

View the main City Science Andorra project profile.Research in dynamic tools, mix users (citizens, workers) amenities, services, and land u…
Project Research

Essence Wearables: Biometric Olfactory Interfaces for Day and Night

Human-computer interaction (HCI) has traditionally focused on designing and investigating interfaces that provide explicit visual, auditory…
Project Research

Deep Reality: An underwater VR experience to promote relaxation by unconscious HR, EDA, and brain activity biofeedback

We present an interactive virtual reality (VR) experience that uses biometric information for reflection and relaxation. We monit…
Publication Research

Imaging Behind Occluders Using Two-Bounce Light

Henley, C., Maeda, T., Swedish, T., & Raskar, R. (2020). Imaging Behind Occluders Using Two-Bounce Light. Computer Vision – ECCV 2020 Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 573-588. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-58526-6_34
Article Research

Bringing the benefits of in-person collaboration to the virtual world

The startup Spatial uses an augmented reality platform to make people feel like they’re working side by side.
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Modeling Auditory Memory

When we form memories, not everything that we perceive is noticed; not everything that we notice is remembered. Humans are excellent at f…
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Funnel Vision

MotivationThe need for inexpensive, reliable, 3D, 360-degree display technologies grows as augmented reality applications continue to incre…
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Virtual Regalia

COVID-19 and virtual commencements around the world were not what many universities had planned for the graduating class of 2020. Walking a…
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Project Research

Theme | CityScope

City Science researchers are developing a slew of tangible and digital platforms dedicated to solving spatial design and urban planning cha…
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Micronauts

Microbes are the foundation upon which life on Earth depends: they set the boundaries of habitability for all plants and animals and create…
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LUI: Large User Interface with Gesture and Voice Feedback

LUI is a scalable, multimodal web-interface that uses a custom framework of nondiscrete, free-handed gestures and voice to control modular …
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Connected Coral

Connected Coral integrates physical and digital elements in a visualization of the environmental impacts on reefs. This complex projection …
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AR Enhanced Wall Plants: Escape Pod

An environment of plants and mirrors that extends beyond the terrarium walls. 
Project Research

Taking a line on a walk

Bauhaus artist Paul Klee considered a line to be  one of the atomic elements of art and architecture. He famously described a line dra…
Project Research

Designing robots in mixed reality

This is a joint proposal from graduate students Vik Parthiban (Media Lab) and Andrew Spielberg (MIT CSAIL, Distributed Robotics Laboratory)…
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Holographic Glasses for Augmented Reality

For my "How to Make Almost Anything" [HTMAA] class,  I attempted to build holographic glasses for augmented reality. These glasses wou…
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Article Research

Touchless gesture controls on phones? Think bigger

Vik Parthiban and other AR/VR researchers talk to Wired about the future potential of gesture control for interaction design.
Publication Research

Experimental characterization of leaky-mode spatial light modulators fabricated via direct laser writing

Sundeep Jolly, Bianca Datta, Vik Parthiban, Daniel Smalley, and V. Michael Bove Jr. "Experimental characterization of leaky-mode spatial light modulators fabricated via direct laser writing", Proc. SPIE 10944, Practical Holography XXXIII: Displays, Materials, and Applications, 109440V (1 March 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2510174
Publication Research

Experimental demonstration of precise holograms using complex light modulation

Vik Parthiban, Rudolph N. Kohn Jr., Jinyang Liang, and Michael F. Becker "Experimental demonstration of precise holograms using complex light modulation", Proc. SPIE 9761, Emerging Digital Micromirror Device Based Systems and Applications VIII, 97610M (15 March 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2208316
Article Research

Siggraph 2019 offers a sneak peek into what’s next for AR, VR, and CG

Held this week at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Siggraph 2019 is all about the future of 2D and 3D digital worlds.
Article Research

Augmented reality changing the factory landscape from PTC's room with a view

Valentin Heun describes his work with the PTC Reality Lab to transform factory operations by using augmented reality.
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Project Research

Living Observatory Installation: A Transductive Encounter with Ecology

In the Living Observatory installation at the Other Festival, we invite participants into a transductive encounter with a wetland environme…
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Project Research

HeartBit

HeartBit is an interface designed for haptic heart rate biofeedback. A handheld heart beats alongside your own, mirroring the size, weight,…
Project Research

NeverMind: Using AR for memorization

NeverMind is an interface and application designed to support human memory. We combine the memory palace memorization method with augmented…
Article Research

Augmentation vs Distraction

Pattie Maes discusses her group’s approach to bridging this divide and improving our relationships with technology.
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Broadercasting

Ditch the truck. Live, collaborative broadcasting through mixed reality.
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Mathland: Play with math in mixed reality

Mathematical experiences are intrinsic to our everyday lives, yet mathematics education is mostly confined to textbooks. Seymour Papert use…
Project Research

CityScope PlayGround: MIT East Campus

This project depicts the design, deployment and operation of a Tangible Regulation Platform, a physical-technological apparatus made for th…
Article Research

Live-streaming a marshland for fun—and science

Researchers live-stream data in Tidmarsh Wildlife Sanctuary with the hopes of better understanding wildlife restoration techniques.
Article Research

Art, Science, Technology Inspires Walt Disney Imagineers at MIT Media Lab Event

“Happiness makes the world go round."
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Project Research

Tree

Tree is a virtual experience that transforms you into a rainforest tree. With your arms as branches and body as the trunk, you experience t…
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Project Research

RFind: Extreme localization for billions of items

Presenting RFind, a new technology that allows us to locate almost any object with extreme accuracy by transforming low-cost, battery-free …