Frederick Thompson – virtual reality – mixed reality – usability

Tablet Research and Design for Optionally Piloted Aircraft

I cant share much about this, but I’m involved in the research and design of a new optionally piloted flight control system for Sikorsky Aircraft. Aviation safety is taken very seriously, so the touchscreen interfaces that allow the aircraft to be controlled from a tablet on the aircraft or on…

Quantifying Your Behavior with a Smartphone App

The CHI Student Design Competition is an annual event where teams of students from around the world develop solutions to a defined challenge in the domain of human-computer interaction. The 2014 challenge asked teams to find a way to improve one’s self-awareness through the use of sensor data collected through…

Star Wars Lightsaber Training on HTC Vive

A quick demo of lightsaber training I made with the HTC Vive and Unity 3D. The prequels taught us that every single jedi is trained with this technique, right? It’s not like Luke training with a remote on the Millennium Falcon in Episode IV was just an improvised exercise that…

Pratt & Whitney VR Demo for Sustainable Brands 2016 San Diego

An immersive VR demo I designed and developed for public release at the Sustainable Brands San Diego 2016 conference. This demo briefly touches on Pratt & Whitney’s long history as an aviation leader and shows the benefits of the new line of PurePower geared turbofan engines. Most of the VR…

Oculus Rift VR Hang Glider

The VR Hang Glider is an immersive application that provides users with the experience of piloting a hang glider. Users explore a tropical island full of calm beaches, palm trees, sandbars, and a smoking volcano. It was built to demonstrate principles of VR immersion and to test out the Oculus…

Interactive Kiosk User Study

This was a brief study on an informational kiosk that acted as an interactive map. Users can find routes to offices, classrooms, and conference rooms. If the user doesn’t know the particular room number they need, the they can use advanced search features to categorically browse rooms. Additionally, it could…

Gestural Interaction for Desktop Software

Designers and engineers working in the computer-aided drafting (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) domains routinely interact with specialized computer software featuring three dimensional (3D) work environments. These professionals must manipulate virtual objects or components within this 3D work environment, but typically use traditional interaction devices with outdated technology that are…

Augmented Reality Interface User Study

To manufacture a product quickly and accurately, you need to consider the work instructions used by your assembly workers. Are the work instructions understandable? Does the format and software interface overwhelm the worker’s cognitive load, causing confusion and forcing them to verify the contents before taking action? These are the…

OpenGL Programming

I took an OpenGL class a few years ago, building 3D applications from the ground up. This knowledge really helps with understanding the workflow with OpenSceneGraph and what’s going on behind the scenes in game engines like Unity3D. Here’s a few screenshots of my work. We started out with simple…