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Sean White |
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My current research interests are in human-computer interaction with emphasis on mobile computing, augmented reality, situated visualization, tangible user interfaces, sensing, and ecoinformatics. I've also spent time building art installations, developing renewable/alternative energy systems, growing carbon nanotubes, and making music. Most of my work has been done at Stanford University, Interval Research, WhoWhere?, Lycos, and Columbia University. Details are in my CV and my publications page.
Consider donating time or money to NYCares and NY Sun Works.
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Site Visit by Situated Visualization. We are exploring innovative ways to use visualization in urban design and urban planning site visits. The project explores situated visualization as the emergent product of the progress through site, data, and perception. For example, visualizing geocoded CO data in the physical world (image on left). In collaboration with faculty from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, we are developing prototypes for the Manhattanville site in New York City using augmented reality techniques. These ideas were initially explored during Spring 2007 and 2008 classes on 3DUI and at a CHI 2008 workshop. Our ongoing research expands situated visualization techniques developed in a prototype, called SiteLens. CHI 2008 poster and abstract |
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Crooked River Song Lines. At the Cleveland Ingenuity Festival 2008, in conjunction with Spurse and David Jensenius, we explored coauthoring with and giving voice to the Cuyahoga River and the multiple cultural, social, and physical histories of the river. Sensors were placed in 11 locations along the river to gather sounds which were then composed with stories about the river and played back using transmitters at the festival. Moving through the festival mirrored movement through the virtual space of the river. At the same time, a buoy progressed down the river, reflecting it's geolocated path which through images drawn from historical archives. As a third way of experiencing the river, participants could call into a shared audio space that reflected listening stations along the river. |
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Visual Hints. In the context of tangible augmented reality, we are investigating and evaluating a technique called visual hints, which are graphical representations in augmented reality of potential actions and their consequences in the augmented physical world. Visual hints enable discovery, learning, and completion of gestures and manipulation in tangible augmented reality. The example image on the left shows a ghosted visual hint of a reeling gesture. ISMAR 2007 pdf | YouTube video |
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LeafView is our initial prototype tablet-based user interface to the Electronic Field Guide. It has been field tested on Plummers Island with Smithsonian Institution botanists and at the National Geographic Rock Creek Bioblitz. The system incorporates a wireless camera which sends images to the tablet to be identified using a computer vision algorithm. Context information such as GPS location is stored with the image and the species identification results. Results are displayed using a zoomable user interface. We are currently iterating on a new portable prototype. CHI 2007 pdf | YouTube video |
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Augmented Reality Electronic Field Guides. In collaboration with UMD and the Smithsonian Institution, we are developing a mobile, augmented reality electronic field guide to assist field botanists in identifying and collecting plant specimens. The system uses computer vision to identify leaves and the user interface is provided by the mobile AR system. We have developed both tangible augmented reality and head movement controlled AR user interface technqiues. 3DUI 2006 pdf | YouTube video |
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Botica is an augmented reality game developed by Marc Eaddy to test the original Goblin v1 augmented reality 3D gaming infrastructure. I contributed to Goblin v1 and the excellent and revised Goblin XNA being developed by Ohan Oda as well as concept design for the AR Racing game. Goblin v1 poster | Botica video | ENTETAIN 2008 paper | AR Racing video |
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I wrote a cosmological visualizer for the "Fat of the Land" exhibit at Grand Arts 2007 with the artist collective, spurse. The system reads in text from speech or other sources and creates vectors across the canvas made from the words. Where vectors cross, a point in a constellation is created. The constellation then feeds into a larger interpretation that generates origami-like cosomologies. |
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The SOBA Server is a streaming audio server based
on the XESS XSB-300E FPGA board. The system encodes analog audio
input into 16-bit samples and streams the digitized audio out
the ethernet port in RTP packets, ready to be played in real
time by an RTP client anywhere on the Internet. The VHDL and
code are available in the write-up. |
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Multi-scale Fuel Cell Electrodes. In Jim Hone's Lab at Columbia University, I developed a number of system for fabricating multiscale fuel cell electrodes based on a combination of Toray paper, electrospun carbon fibers, and carbon nanotubes. The image to the left is carbon nanotube growth on electrospun fiber on top of Toray paper. Characterization of the system was done in collaboration with Yuhao Sun in Scott Barton's Lab. A poster describing early results is here(2.5 M) and an article describing the work from a biomimetic point of view in Ambidextrous Magazine is here(500K). |
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Ohmic Growth of Carbon Nanotubes.The image to the left shows carbon nanotubes grown on carbon paper. In the Hone Research Group at Columbia University, I developed a CVD based system for growing carbon nanotubes that used ohmic heating instead of a thermal reactor. The goal of the project was to investigate this new technique and see if the carbon nanotube clusters were better suited for multiscale fuel cell support electrodes. |
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Electrospinning Carbon Fibers. As part of the effort to develop multiscale fuel cell elecctrodes, I built a system to elecrospin carbon fibers. The system used a 30 kV electric field to extrude a fine jet of liquid that solidified in the air and created a fiber mesh under the force of gravity. The fibers were typcially 500 nm in diameter and the mesh looked like a very fine fabric made from white spide silk. A tech report on the subject can be found here. |
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Engineers Without Borders. Engineers without Borders is a national organization that provides engineering solutions in developing parts of the world. I have been a mentor with a group from the Columbia University chapter that is focused on wind and solar energy. They are currently working on a wind project on the Lakota Reservation in South Dakota. A simple visualization of the data is here. |
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Porosity in Dye Sensitized Solar Cells. Dye-sensitized Solar Cells are the product of biomimetic design with photosynthesis in mind. They hold the promise of inexpesnive and environmentally benign solar energy conversion. In collaboration with Jessika Trancik and Adam Hurst, we experimented with creating bimodal porous structures in the titanium dioxide component of the dsc using polystyrene microspheres. |
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Audio Traveler. While backpacking throught the Himalayas, India, and Southeast Asia, I wanted to meet other musicians and collect natural sounds and collaborations. In the process, I made a wearable recording device based on the fine work of an Indian tailor and a minidisc player. The results was a new design, a wonderful set of samples, and a some interesting mixes. |
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WhoWhere and Lycos. As the CTO of WhoWhere?, Inc. and the Vice President of Technology at Lycos, Inc., I was responsible for new (at the time) ways to access free email, search, and personal web site construction. We provided email to over 10 Million people. |
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VizWire. At Interval Research, we built a spatialized, multi-user, mixed-audio collaboration system called SomeWire. Vizwire, developed with Don Charnley, was an experiment using a spatial visual metaphor for arranging an individuals audio around them. A paper discussing this system is here. |
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CandleAltar. CandleAltar was part of a series of explorations in public installations that encouraged people to leave a message to be discovered by someone else. This particular exploration was done in collaboration with Oliver Bailey at Interval Research. A technical report on the project is here. The other projects in the series included Video Graffiti at the Electronic Cafe, Palo Alto, CA and Net Graffiti at the Electric Carnival within Lollapalooza 1994. |
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PlaceHolder. Placeholder was a Virtual Reality project produced by Interval Research Corporation and The Banff Centre for The Performing Arts, and directed by Brenda Laurel and Rachel Strickland, which explored a new paradigm for multi-person narrative action in virtual environments at the Banff Centre in 1992. I helped develop the system and improvisational use. There's a bittorrent of the documentary here. |