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UIST 2020 full paper

Haptic PIVOT: On-Demand Handhelds in VR

Robert Kovacs, Eyal Ofek, Mar Gonzalez Franco, Alexa Fay Siu, Sebastian Marwecki, Christian Holz, Mike Sinclair
(Microsoft Research)

PIVOT is a wrist-worn haptic device that renders virtual objects into the user’s hand on demand. Its simple design comprises a single actuated joint that pivots a haptic handle into and out of the user’s hand, rendering the haptic sensations of grasping, catching, or throwing an object – anywhere in space .

main research focus: large-scale personal fabrication

TrussFormer: 3D Printing Large Kinetic Structures

UIST’18
Robert Kovacs, Alexandra Ion, Pedro Lopes, Tim Oesterreich, Johannes Filter, Philip Otto, Tobias Arndt, Nico Ring, Melvin Witte, Anton Synytsia, and Patrick Baudisch TrussFormer is an integrated end-to-end system that allows users to 3D print large-scale kinetic structures, i.e., structures that involve motion and and are subject to inertial forces.

CHI’19  Video Showcase: Best Visual Communication Award

TrussFab: Fabricating Sturdy Large-Scale Structures on Desktop 3D Printers

CHI’17Robert Kovacs, Anna Seufert, Ludwig Wall, Hsiang-Ting Chen, Florian Meinel, Willi Müller, Si-jing You, Maximilian Brehm, Jonathan Striebel, Yannis Kommana, Alexander Popiak, Thomas Bläsius, and Patrick Baudisch TrussFab is an integrated end-to-end system that allows users to fabricate large scale structures that are sturdy enough to carry human weight. TrussFab achieves the large scale by complementing 3D print with plastic bottles.

Protopiper: Physically Sketching Room-Sized Objects at Actual Scale

UIST ‘15 (Best Demo Award)

Harshit Agrawal, Udayan Umapathi, Robert Kovacs, Johannes Frohnhofen, Hsiang-Ting Chen, Stefanie Mueller, Patrick Baudisch Protopiper is a computer aided, hand-held fabrication device that allows users to sketch room-sized objects at actual scale. The key idea behind protopiper is that it forms adhesive tape into tubes as its main building material, rather than extruded plastic or photopolymer line.

Kyub: a 3D Editor for Modeling Laser-Cut Objects

CHI‘19 Patrick Baudisch , Arthur Silber, Yannis Kommana, Milan Gruner, Ludwig Wall, Kevin Reuss, Lukas Heilman, Robert Kovacs, Daniel Rechlitz, and Thijs Roumen Kyub is an interactive editing system for laser cutting. Unlike earlier systems, kyub affords constructing closed box structures by stacking cubic shaped primitives –boxels. This interaction provides the strong affordance and ease of use of a voxel-based editor, while building with boxels ensures the structural stability.

FormFab: Continuous Interactive Fabrication

TEI‘19 Stefanie Mueller, Anna Seufert, Huaishu Peng, Robert Kovacs, Kevin Reuss, François Guimbretière, Patrick Baudisch FormFab is an interactive fabrication system that can change a workpiece’s shape continuously while the user is interacting. This enables users to explore different sizes of a shape with a single interaction rather than in multiple turns. We accomplish this using a process called formative fabrication, which rather than adding or subtracting, reshapes the existing material. In our system, users interactively control a pneumatic air pump that applies either pressure or vacuum to a compliant thermoplastic sheet, thereby pushing the material outwards or pulling it inwards.

Metamaterial Textures

CHI‘18 Alexandra Ion, Robert Kovacs, Oliver S. Schneider, Pedro Lopes, and Patrick Baudisch Metamaterial textures are 3D printed surface geometries that can perform a controlled transition between two or more textures. Metamaterial textures are integrated into 3D printed objects and allow designing how the object interacts with the environment and the user’s tactile sense.

Digital Mechanical Metamaterials

CHI‘17
Alexandra Ion, Ludwig Wall, Robert Kovacs, and Patrick Baudisch In this paper, we explore how to embody mechanical computation into 3D printed objects, i.e., without electronic sensors, actuators, or controllers typically used for this purpose.

Metamaterial Mechanisms

UIST ‘16 ( best paper honorable mention)
 
Alexandra Ion, Johannes Frohnhofen, Ludwig Wall, Robert Kovacs, Mirela Alistar,  Jack Lindsay, Pedro Lopes, Hsiang-Ting Chen, and Patrick Baudisch So far, metamaterials were understood as materials—we want to think of them as machines. We demonstrate metamaterial objects that perform a mechanical function.

Virtual Reality Without Vision: A Haptic and Auditory White Cane to Navigate Complex Virtual Worlds 

CHI‘20  (best paper honorable mention)

Alexa F. Siu, Mike Sinclair, Robert Kovacs, Eyal Ofek, Christian Holz, Ed Cutrell How might virtual reality (VR) aid a blind person in familiarization with an unexplored space? Exploring the design of immersive VR experiences accessible to blind people with the goal of facilitating orientation and mobility training.

DualPanto: a Haptic Device That Enables Blind Users to Continuously Interact with Virtual Worlds

UIST ‘18 Oliver Schneider, Jotaro Shigeyama, Robert Kovacs, Thijs Jan Roumen, Sebastian Marwecki, Nico Boeckhoff, Daniel Amadeus Gloeckner, Jonas Bounama, Patrick Baudisch DualPanto is a haptic device that enables blind users to continuously track the absolute position of moving objects in spatial virtual environments, as is the case in sports or shooter games.

Linespace: a Sense Making Platform for the Blind

CHI‘16 Saiganesh Swaminathan, Thijs Roumen, Robert Kovacs, David Stangl, Stefanie Mueller, Patrick Baudisch Linespace is a tactile display system for blind users. The foundation of our system is a large 140x100cm display area, on which the system creates raised tactile lines with the help of a 3D printer. The foot switch allows users to enter text and issue commands by talking to the computer.

Level-Ups: Motorized Stilts that Simulate Stair Steps in Virtual Reality

CHI‘16 (note paper) Dominik Schmidt, Robert Kovacs, Vikram Mehta, Udayan Umapathi, Sven Köhler, Lung-Pan Cheng, Patrick Baudisch “Level-Ups” are computer-controlled stilts that allow virtual reality users to experience elevation in real-walking environment.

TurkDeck: Physical Virtual Reality Based on People

UIST‘15 Lung-Pan Cheng, Thijs Roumen, Hannes Rantzsch, Sven Köhler, Patrick Schmidt, Robert Kovacs, Johannes Jasper, Jonas Kemper, and Patrick Baudisch TurkDeck is an immersive virtual reality system that reproduces not only what users see and hear, but also what users feel. TurkDeck creates these physical representations on the fly by making a group of human workers present and operate the props only when and where the user can actually reach them.

PLC Guard: A Practical Defense Against Attacks on Cyber-Physical Systems

CNS‘15 Jan-Ole Malchow, Daniel Marzin, Johannes Klick, Robert Kovacs, and Volker Roth Adversaries can then analyze and modify the code and load it back onto the PLC in order to perform sabotage. This process can be performed online or it can be automated by means of malware that infects engineering workstations, similar to Stuxnet.

ad infinitum: a parasite that lives off human energy

exhibited at Ars Electronica [2017, Linz]
Pedro Lopez, Robert Kovacs, Alexandra Ion, David Lindlbauer, and Patrick Baudisch 
Ad infinitum is a parasitical entity which lives untethered and off the grid. This parasite reverses the dominant role that mankind has with respect to technologies: the parasite shifts humans from “users” to “used” .

pendulum tuning

Museum Kiscell, Budapest, Hungary. 2013. Turcsany Villő - artist, Robert Kovacs - motion system
The installation makes an attempt to change the personal perception of time. Four kinetic sculptures are suspended at the highest point of the temple space, allowing them to make pendulum movement. Their design represents advancement against the physical drag. The pendulums’ paths develop a moving structure and create a rhythm; they are constantly changing and thus re-tuneing the space of the viewer.