Connor DeFanti

One of my favorite components of research is learning about the mathematics behind the algorithms I’m implementing. I might be an odd one out — many programmers I’ve talked to tend to focus on how to use their tools best, skimming over exactly how their tools work in the first place. But for me, I […]

Yesterday, Ken and I were discussing the goals, ideas, and philosophies that drive the lab. In that discussion, there were two ideas that kept on coming up in our conversation: The Death Star and the Jedi Council. Before you get worried (or excited), no, we are not planning to build a planetary destroyer. Nor are

Happy Halloween from the FRL! To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to talk about masks and avatars in the virtual world. I’ve always found the idea of choosing your appearance to be interesting. In online games and forums, people have been choosing avatars to represent themselves for decades. Sometimes, people will attempt to

I’d like to take today to invite everyone to the second “Concert on the Holodeck,” an exploration into the possibilities of networking and distributed performance.   Here’s a brief blurb from the NYU Immersive Audio Group website: The NYU Immersive Audio Group and Future Reality lab present the second HoloDeck concert. This unique event explores

In my very first post, I talked about Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and their eventual merge. A couple weeks ago, I learned that “eventually” was coming sooner than I originally thought. Google has announced that they will be supporting “See-Through Mode” on their standalone HMDs, allowing you to wear a headset, be aware of your environment,

I’m a bit busy today with a paper deadline, so I’ll just leave you with a thought I had this morning. I tried out the best piece of AR hardware a little over a year ago; I started wearing glasses and saw the world like I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. I don’t

This week is the first week of my last academic year in the FRL. It’s been four years since I first started as a Ph.D. student, and it both feels like I’ve been here forever and like I just started yesterday. So, I’ve been thinking a lot about where we are, how we got here,

I’m currently in the airport, doing some post-SIGGRAPH travel to recharge, so this post will have to be brief. But, I figure I should write down some thoughts I had on the conference before they escape me. So, here’s a quick list of things I particularly enjoyed or noticed at SIGGRAPH 2018: Machine Learning continues

I’m going to take a break from talking about my research goals today, and instead focus on the thing that’s on our lab’s mind: SIGGRAPH! If you are unfamiliar with SIGGRAPH, it is the largest annual conference focused on Computer Graphics. Unsurprisingly, as CG affects practically every industry today, you will see a very wide

“The Holodeck is Other People” was one of the first things Ken Perlin told me when I joined this lab, well before it was the Future Reality Lab. If you’ve listened to him or read his blog, you’ve probably heard it as well. It’s a statement that has driven many of the projects at our