I am currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. My advisors are Doug Bowman and Chris North. My PhD committee members include Ravin Balakrishnan (University of Toronto), Scott McKrickard, and Francis Quek. My research interests include human-computer interaction, input devices, and user interfaces. My research has included freehand gesture UI, mobile device UI, information presentation on large high-resolution displays, virtual environments, and information visualization.

In the winter 2008, I worked with Patrick Baudisch from Microsoft Research at his new lab at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. We explored the interaction issues on the very small mobile devices. And I've spent the summer 2007 working at Fuji-Xerox Palo Alto Lab (FXPAL) with Patrick Chiu on the spatially aware visualization in multi-display environments. In summer 2006 I worked with David Krum at Bosch Research Center on building a tiled LCD display driven by a Linux cluster.

I completed a B.S. with honored undergraduate thesis at Zhejiang University, China in June 2004.

projects

disappearing (ultra-small) mobile devices (coming soon) | rapMenu | spatially aware visualization in multi-display environments

interaction with large displays | large, high-resolution displays and user performance | navigation in multi-scale virtual environments

publications (click images for more information)

		8.		Tao Ni, Patrick Baudisch. (2009) Disappearing mobile devices. In Proceedings of ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) 2009. Victoria, British Columbia, October 2009. (Acceptance rate: 18%). pp. 101-110.
		7.		Tao Ni, Ryan McMahan, Doug Bowman. (2008). rapMenu: remote menu selection using freehand gestural input. Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI) 2008. Reno, Nevada, March 2008. (Acceptance rate: 23%). p. 55-58. A short video of the rapMenu in working.
		6.		Doug Bowman, Jian Chen, Chad Wingrave, John Lucas, Andrew Ray, Nicholas Polys, Li Qing, Yonca Haciahmetoglu, Ji-Sun Kim, Seonho Kim, Robert Boehringer, Tao Ni. (2006). New directions in 3D user interfaces. International Journal of Virtual Reality, 5(2), 2006. p. 3-14.
		5.		Robert Ball, Mike DellaNoce, Tao Ni, Francis Quek, Chris North (2006). Applying embodied interaction and usability engineering to visualization on large displays. Proceedings of British HCI Workshop on Visualization & Interaction 2006. London, England, September 2006. p. 57-65.
		4.		Tao Ni, Doug Bowman, Jian Chen. (2006). Increased display size and resolution improve task performance in information-rich virtual environments. Proceedings of Graphics Interface (GI) 2006. Quebec, Canada, June 2006. (Acceptance rate: 32%). p. 139-146. Video
		3.		Tao Ni, Greg Schmidt, Oliver Staadt, Mark Livingston, Robert Ball, Richard May. (2006). A survey of large high-resolution display technologies, techniques, and applications. Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality (VR) 2006. Alexandria, VA, March 2006. (Acceptance rate: 29%). p. 223-236.
		2.		Regis Kopper, Tao Ni, Doug Bowman, Marcio Pinho. (2006). Design and evaluation of navigation techniques for multi-scale virtual environments. Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality (VR) 2006. Alexandria, VA, March 2006. (Acceptance rate: 29%). p. 175-182. Video
		1.		Tao Ni. (2005). MUSA: a prototype for multiple-step aggregation visualization. Proceedings of IEEE Coordinated and Multiple Views in Exploratory Visualization (CMV) 2005. London, England, June 2005. p. 15-21.

patents

1. Tao Ni, Patrick Chiu, Don Kimber. System and methods for information visualization in multi-display environments. Pending.

theses

1. Tao Ni (2004). A comparison of hand gesture recognition algorithms based on template matching using Hausdorff distance (in Chinese). Honored Undergraduate Thesis. College of Computer Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.

others

2. Patrick Chiu, Tao Ni, Don Kimber. Spatially aware information visualization techniques for multi-display environments. FXPAL Tech Report (TR-08-025).

1. Brian Badillo, Doug Bowman, William McConnel, Tao Ni, Mara Silva. (2006). Literature survey on interaction techniques for large displays. Technical Report TR-06-21, Dept. of Computer Science, Virginia Tech.

work experience

11/2008 - 01/2009. Research Internship, Hasso Plattner Institute, mentor: Parick Baudisch.

05/2007 - 08/2007. Summer Internship, Fuji-Xerox Palo Alto Lab (FXPAL), mentor: Patrick Chiu.

05/2006 - 08/2006. Summer Internship, Bosch Research and Technology Center, mentor: David Krum.

professional activities

Conference & journal peer reviewer:

IEEE Transaction on Visualization and Computer Graphcis

ACM UIST 2007 - 2009

ACM CHI 2006 - 2010

IEEE Virtual Reality 2005 - 2008

Graphics Interface 2006 - 2009

IEEE 3DUI Symposium 2006 - 2009

IEEE Vis & InfoVis & VAST 2005 - 2006

Eurographics 2008

Student volunteer:

ACM UIST 2009

IEEE Virtual Reality 2006

IEEE Vis & InfoVis & VAST 2006

teaching

Courses that I have been a Teaching Assistant for:

CS 5754 Virtual Environments, Spring 2006.

CS 4634 Design of Information, Fall 2005.

CS 4204 Computer Graphics, Spring 2005.

contact

Mailing Address:

Tao Ni

Department of Computer Science

Virginia Tech

2202 Kraft Dr.

Blacksburg, Virginia 24060

Lab:

Center for Human Computer Interaction

2202 Kraft Dr.

Room 155/156

Blacksburg, Virginia 24060

last modified Oct 25, 2009.