Tux Member Presentation
Speaker

George Fitzmaurice:
Tackling the User Interface Challenges of Today and Tomorrow

2016-01-26 12:30 at MaRS Multipurpose Room

In this talk, my group and I will present a variety of research projects undertaken by the User Interface Research Group at Autodesk Research. Our talk will reflect the diversity of research interests in the group, spanning the Internet of Things, wearable interaction techniques, human-robot interaction, software learning, information visualization, and dynamic sketching – we’ll even present a recent project that combined many of these themes together.

In addition to presenting individual projects, we will touch upon some of the unique challenges and opportunities that come out of working on research in an industrial setting, including productization of research projects, and using research to shape corporate strategy.

Bio

George Fitzmaurice, Ph.D. is a Director of Research and runs the User Interface Research Group for Autodesk Research. He has been with Autodesk (including Alias) for almost 20 years conducting research in 2D and 3D UIs including: input devices, large displays, two-handed interaction, multi-touch, pen-based UIs, recommender systems, spatially-aware displays, 3D navigation and tangible UIs. In the HCI community he established the field of Graspable UIs which is the pre-cursor to what is known as Tangible UIs.

Working with his colleagues he has helped to author over 90 HCI papers and over 50 patents. Notable product contributions include Maya 1.0 UI, SketchBook Pro UI design, ShowMotion™ for Showcase, and the 3D Navigation tools (ViewCube™ and SteeringWheels™) for Autodesk products. Recently his extended team has productize Chronicle (a research project that allows users to share their expertise by authoring videos with metadata) into Autodesk Screencast. Fitzmaurice received a B.Sc. in Mathematics with Computer Science at MIT, an M.Sc. in Computer Science at Brown University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Toronto.

About Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc., is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk continues to develop the broadest portfolio of 3D software for global markets.

Customers across the manufacturing, architecture, building, construction, and media and entertainment industries—including the last 19 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects—use Autodesk software to design, visualize, and simulate their ideas before they’re ever built or created. From blockbuster visual effects and buildings that create their own energy, to electric cars and the batteries that power them, the work of our 3D software customers is everywhere you look.

Through our apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Android, we’re also making design technology accessible to professional designers and amateur designers, homeowners, students, and casual creators — anyone who wants to create and share their ideas with the world.