[Wen :)]
Wen Ying (应雯)
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Virginia
Email: wy7yv@virginia.edu
Office: Rice Hall 020/532
Biography
I am a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Ultimate User Interface Lab at the University of Virginia, advised by Prof. Seongkook Heo. Previously, I worked with Prof. Mingli Song at Zhejiang University. My research explores enhancing interactions in Virtual Reality (VR) by making them more efficient and comfortable for creative and productive use. I also design and develop haptic devices to enrich immersive and professional experiences across both virtual and physical environments. [...]
I am actively seeking internship opportunities, feel free to reach out!
Research
@inproceedings{10.1145/3641825.3687714,
    author = {Ying, Wen and Heo, Seongkook},
    title = {Enhancing VR Sketching with a Dynamic Shape Display},
    year = {2024},
    isbn = {9798400705359},
    publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3641825.3687714},
    doi = {10.1145/3641825.3687714},
    abstract = {Sketching on virtual objects in Virtual Reality (VR) can be challenging due to the lack of a physical surface that constrains the movement and provides haptic feedback for contact and movement. While using a flat physical drawing surface has been proposed, it creates a significant discrepancy between the physical and virtual surfaces when sketching on non-planar virtual objects. We propose using a dynamic shape display that physically mimics the shape of a virtual surface, allowing users to sketch on a virtual surface as if they are sketching on a physical object’s surface. We demonstrate this using VRScroll, a shape-changing device that features seven independently controlled flaps to imitate the shape of a virtual surface automatically. Our user study showed that participants exhibited higher precision when tracing simple shapes with the dynamic shape display and produced clearer sketches. We also provided several design implications for dynamic shape displays aimed at enabling precise sketching in VR.},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 30th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology},
    articleno = {22},
    numpages = {11},
    keywords = {dynamic shape display, on-surface interactions, virtual reality},
    location = {Trier, Germany},
    series = {VRST '24}
  }
@inproceedings{10.1145/3613905.3648662,
    author = {Ying, Wen and Rahman, Adil and Heo, Seongkook},
    title = {Demonstrating VRScroll: A Shape-Changing Device for Precise Sketching in Virtual Reality},
    year = {2024},
    isbn = {9798400703317},
    publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3613905.3648662},
    doi = {10.1145/3613905.3648662},
    abstract = {Sketching precisely in Virtual Reality (VR) is challenging due to the lack of a physical surface for users to lean on, feel the contact and the movement of the pen, and constrain the pen movement. Using physical surface interfaces, such as a touch tablet, can improve sketching performance; however, they cannot replicate the diverse shapes of virtual objects. We present VRScroll, a novel shape-changing device equipped with a dynamic drawing surface to support high-precision sketching in VR. The device has seven motor-controlled flaps that can independently change the angles between them in real time to mimic the surface shape of a virtual object. Since the degree of freedom and resolution of VRScroll is limited, it cannot replicate the surface geometry of diverse types of virtual objects. To allow the device to closely mimic the shape of the virtual surface, we developed a shape approximation algorithm.},
    booktitle = {Extended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
    articleno = {398},
    numpages = {5},
    keywords = {dynamic shape display, shape approximation, sketching, virtual reality},
    location = {
    },
    series = {CHI EA '24}
  }
@article{10.1145/3698113,
  author = {Zhang, Peiyu and Ying, Wen and Riggs, Sara L and Heo, Seongkook},
  title = {Moir\'{e}Tag: A Low-Cost Tag for High-Precision Tangible Interactions without Active Components},
  year = {2024},
  issue_date = {December 2024},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  volume = {8},
  number = {ISS},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3698113},
  doi = {10.1145/3698113},
  abstract = {In this paper, we present Moir\'{e}Tag—a novel tag-like device that magnifies displacement without active components for indirect sensing of subtle tangible interactions. The device consists of two overlapping layers of stripe patterns with distinct pattern frequencies. These layers create Moir\'{e} fringes that can move faster than the actual movement of a layer. Using a customized image processing pipeline, we show that Moir\'{e}Tag can reliably detect sub-mm movement in real-time (mean error = 0.043 mm) under varying lighting conditions, camera angles, and camera distances. We also demonstrate five applications of Moir\'{e}Tag to showcase its potential as a low-cost solution to capture and monitor small changes in movement and other physical properties, such as force and volume, by converting them into displacement.},
  journal = {Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.},
  month = oct,
  articleno = {525},
  numpages = {19},
  keywords = {Moir\'{e} pattern, displacement magnification, force sensing, force visualization, tangible interface, wearable sensor}
}
@inproceedings{10.1145/3544548.3581148,
    author = {Hu, Erzhen and Gr\o{}nb\ae{}k, Jens Emil Sloth and Ying, Wen and Du, Ruofei and Heo, Seongkook},
    title = {ThingShare: Ad-Hoc Digital Copies of Physical Objects for Sharing Things in Video Meetings},
    year = {2023},
    isbn = {9781450394215},
    publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581148},
    doi = {10.1145/3544548.3581148},
    abstract = {In video meetings, individuals may wish to share various physical objects with remote participants, such as physical documents, design prototypes, and personal belongings. However, our formative study discovered that this poses several challenges, including difficulties in referencing a remote user’s physical objects, the limited visibility of the object, and the friction of properly framing and orienting an object to the camera. To address these challenges, we propose ThingShare, a video-conferencing system designed to facilitate the sharing of physical objects during remote meetings. With ThingShare, users can quickly create digital copies of physical objects in the video feeds, which can then be magnified on a separate panel for focused viewing, overlaid on the user’s video feed for sharing in context, and stored in the object drawer for reviews. Our user study demonstrated that ThingShare made initiating object-centric conversations more efficient and provided a more stable and comprehensive view of shared objects.},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
    articleno = {365},
    numpages = {22},
    keywords = {augmented communication, collaborative work, object-centered meetings, shared task space, video-mediated communication},
    location = {Hamburg, Germany},
    series = {CHI '23}
  }
@INPROCEEDINGS{10160313,
  author={Hildebrandt, Carl and Ying, Wen and Heo, Seongkook and Elbaum, Sebastian},
  booktitle={2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)}, 
  title={Mimicking Real Forces on a Drone Through a Haptic Suit to Enable Cost-Effective Validation}, 
  year={2023},
  volume={},
  number={},
  pages={10518-10524},
  keywords={Propellers;Shape;Wind tunnels;Synthesizers;Transforms;Haptic interfaces;Behavioral sciences},
  doi={10.1109/ICRA48891.2023.10160313}
}
@INPROCEEDINGS{10108764,
  author={Ying, Wen and Heo, Seongkook},
  booktitle={2023 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW)}, 
  title={VRScroll: A Shape-Changing Device for Precise Sketching in Virtual Reality}, 
  year={2023},
  volume={},
  number={},
  pages={815-816},
  keywords={Performance evaluation;Solid modeling;Three-dimensional displays;Shape;Conferences;Virtual reality;User interfaces;Human-centered computing-Human computer interaction (HCI)-Interaction devices-Haptic devices},
  doi={10.1109/VRW58643.2023.00250}
}
@inproceedings{10.1145/3526114.3558706,
  author = {Zhang, Peiyu and Ying, Wen and Heo, Seongkook},
  title = {Fringer: A Finger-Worn Passive Device Enabling Computer Vision Based Force Sensing Using Moir\'{e} Fringes},
  year = {2022},
  isbn = {9781450393218},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3526114.3558706},
  doi = {10.1145/3526114.3558706},
  abstract = {Despite the importance of utilizing forces when interacting with objects, sensing force interactions without active force sensors is challenging. We introduce Fringer, a finger sleeve that physically visualizes the force to allow a camera to estimate the force without using any active sensors. The sleeve has stripe-pattern slits, a sliding paper with stripe pattern, and a compliant layer that converts force into sliding paper movements. The patterns of the slit and the paper have different frequencies to create Moir\'{e} fringes, which can magnify the small displacement caused by the compliant layer compression for webcams to easily capture such displacement.},
  booktitle = {Adjunct Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology},
  articleno = {20},
  numpages = {3},
  keywords = {Moir\'{e} patterns, force sensing, force visualization, wearable sensor},
  location = {Bend, OR, USA},
  series = {UIST '22 Adjunct}
}
Education
Ph.D. in Computer Science
Sep. 2020 - Present
M.S. in Computer Science
Aug. 2018 - Jul. 2020
Charlottesville, VA
B.S. in Computer Science
Sep. 2014 - Jun. 2018
Hangzhou, China
Experience
Research Assistant | With Prof. Seongkook Heo
Sep. 2020 - present
Charlottesville, VA
Research Assistant | With Prof. Lanfei Shi
Sep. 2019 - Jan. 2021
Charlottesville, VA
Teaching Assistant | Human Computer Interaction (CS 6501)
Teaching Assistant | Engineering Interactive Technologies (CS 4501/6501)
Aug. 2021 - Dec. 2023
Charlottesville, VA