HIT Lab NZ

07/10/2026

🎮 Multiplayer AR research takes the stage at NZGDC 2026

Dr Yasas Wickramasinghe from HIT Lab NZ delivered an insightful talk at the NZ Game Developers Conference (30 Sept – 3 Oct, Auckland) exploring the fascinating intersection of multiplayer games and augmented reality.

His presentation, "Designing Shared Worlds Across Distance: What Multiplayer AR Research Taught Me", shared real-world insights from designing, developing, and testing multiplayer AR games built around physical locations. The research showcased innovative experiences that connect remote players in real time—from remote AR hide-and-seek games to shared AR environments that visualise distant locations.

Drawing on his research, he revealed what worked, what didn't, and what surprised the research team along the way. The audience—an engaged mix of game designers, XR developers, UX researchers, gameplay programmers, and students—got a glimpse into the challenges and opportunities of creating immersive multiplayer experiences across distance.

Further conference highlights Dr Wickramasinghe noted were:
⭐Making many new connections, particularly with people working in the game industry.
📊 NZ Game Development Industry Milestone announcement. The NZ game development industry has now surpassed NZ$1 billion in annual revenue. See https://www.nzgda.com/blog/new-zealand-game-development-industry-surpasses-1-billion-in-revenue
💰 Updates from Government representatives about future support for the industry. For every dollar claimed through the Game Development Sector Rebate (GDSR), the Government receives approximately $9.73 back through the wider economic activity generated by the industry. The Government is considering increasing the rebate further in their next term.

There's lots to be excited about in the future of game development research in New Zealand!

UC Engineering University of Canterbury

02/10/2026

📢New Publication!
Masoumehsadat Hosseini, Dimitar Valkov, Donald Degraen, Heiko Müller, Marion Koelle, and Susanne Boll. 2026. MAGIC: A Dataset Capturing Mid-Air Gesture Performance for Interaction and Feature Analysis. Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol. 10, 3, Article 106 (September 2026), https://doi.org/10.1145/3831634.

Mid-air gestures are increasingly used as a natural modality in interactive systems, ranging from smart home controls and automotive interfaces to augmented reality and public displays. Despite their growing adoption across diverse domains, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of what makes gestures effective, expressive, and robust across participants and application domains. We conducted a data collection study in which we captured a novel dataset of 18 widely used mid-air gestures, each performed by 42 participants. A total of 4,265 gesture samples were recorded using synchronized electromagnetic sensors and depth cameras. We analyzed gestures using kinematic and geometric measures, and quantified consistency in terms of hand shape and palm trajectory using Multidimensional Dynamic Time Warping. We further trained LSTM-based classifiers as recognition baselines and computed a deep-feature consistency measure from their learned embedding space. Results revealed that consistency and recognizability vary substantially across gesture types, and consistency scores were positively associated with recognition performance. These findings provide empirical guidance for the design and selection of mid-air gesture vocabularies in real-world interaction systems.
👉Dataset: https://doi.org/10.57782/ACBGC8
UC Engineering

Mid-air gestures are increasingly used as a natural modality in interactive systems, ranging from smart home controls and automotive interfaces to augmented reality and public displays. Despite their growing adoption across diverse domains, we still lack ...

02/10/2026

💐⭐We celebrate Elliot Chiu (Jichun Zhao) who achieved his PhD Confirmation milestone this week!
His research title is, “Designing Accessibility-Oriented Interaction for Handheld AR to Support Aging Users in Cultural Heritage Contexts,” and he is working with Prof Rob Lindeman and Prof Heide Lukosch as his supervisory team.
We wish him well on his continuing PhD journey!!

01/10/2026

HIT Lab NZ’s annual Open House was a great success last Friday, 25 September 2026. 🎉

The event welcomed visitors to explore more than 20 research exhibits and interactive demonstrations spanning virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, applied games, immersive simulation, haptic design, and human-centred technology.

Visitor favourites included the NOVA Ball, Melbourne Grand Prix Simulation, Olympic downhill skiing, the VR Baby and the VR Flying Broomstick. Guests also had the opportunity to meet academic staff and students, learn about postgraduate study opportunities—including the Master of Human Interface Technology—and discover how HIT Lab NZ research is addressing real-world challenges and shaping the future of digital experiences.

Thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to such an engaging and memorable event. 💐😍

University of Canterbury UC Engineering

30/09/2026

💥NEW PUBLICATION💥
Hossain, M. T., Lindeman, R. W., Ingram, M. & Lukosch, S. (2026). Augmenting rhythm: A scoping review of technologies and feedback modalities in elite sport. Sports Engineering, 29, 32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12283-026-00562-7

Rhythm—the precise timing and harmonious flow of movement—is a determinant of success in elite sports but remains difficult to train using traditional, subjective coaching methods. Human augmentation technologies offer a pathway to objectify and train this complex skill through real-time feedback. This scoping review, conducted in line with the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews and the Joanna Briggs Institute Population–Concept–Context framework, maps a segment of the sports-engineering and human-augmentation technology literature (2000–2025) to identify technologies and feedback modalities that show potential for supporting rhythm training in high-performance contexts. Synthesizing data from 129 technology-focused studies retrieved from Scopus, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore, the review characterizes how rhythm-relevant information is currently operationalized within this literature, which is defined by the ubiquity of wearable sensing and the rapid emergence of immersive technologies. Across the included studies, the corpus skews towards wearable sensors (48.8% of studies) and visual feedback displays (81% of studies). Within this technology-focused corpus, a notable disconnect is observed: most reported systems target novice populations using discrete kinematic metrics rather than the holistic temporal parameters relevant to elite performance. Furthermore, while reporting quality is generally high (e.g., > 93% of studies clearly state aims), a validation challenge persists, with nearly 20% of included works lacking formal evaluation. This paper articulates four challenges in this technology-focused literature—including the scarcity of elite-context evidence and limited alignment between sensory modality and task demands—and outlines exploratory, hypothesis-generating directions for future human augmentation technologies in sports engineering.

University of Canterbury UC Engineering

29/09/2026

👷🏾ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS NEEDED!

Are you an engineering or architecture student? 🏗️
Do you love board games? 🎲

Participate in our study looking at how digital and physical components impact your experience of a game. You’ll play a game where your mission is to design a sustainable building with your team members

To take part you’ll need to meet the following criteria:
✅ Be 18+ years old
✅ Be a student in student in civil, electrical, mechanical, or architectural engineering

🍕Participants will be offered a gift voucher and pizza as a thank you for taking part (UC staff are not eligible to receive a gift voucher)
📍Location: HIT Lab NZ, Level 2, John Britten Building, 69 Creyke Road, University of Canterbury

If you are interested in participating:
📅 Find out more and register at http://bookwhen.com/asha-pandya
or
✉️ Contact Asha Pandya at [email protected]

University of Canterbury UC Engineering

23/09/2026

⭐⭐ Professorial Lecture – Professor Heide Lukosch ⭐⭐

On Tuesday 22 September, the DVC Research & Innovation hosted the Professorial Lecture of Professor Heide Lukosch from the Human Interface Technology Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering.

Titled “Playful Impact in a Complex World,” the lecture reflected on Professor Lukosch’s 20-year research journey exploring how games and play can help address complex real-world challenges across transport and logistics, disaster resilience, policing, healthcare, and education.

Her work brings together simulation gaming, digital games, and extended reality technologies—developed initially at TU Delft and further advanced at HIT Lab NZ.

A defining feature of her research is its collaborative and ethically grounded approach. Policymakers, practitioners, educators, and communities—including those engaged in Aotearoa New Zealand’s bicultural context—are involved as genuine co-design partners.

The lecture also explored the future of applied games in a rapidly evolving landscape shaped by artificial intelligence, extended reality, and data-driven technologies.

Professor Lukosch further marked the milestone by hosting a lunch for HIT Lab staff and students, who acknowledged her sustained mentorship, inclusive leadership, and dedication to fostering belonging within the lab — sentiments echoed in a congratulatory message from Professor Rob Lindeman, currently on sabbatical in the UK.

Congratulations, Professor Lukosch, on this important milestone. 💐💐

University of Canterbury UC Engineering

21/09/2026

📣 USER STUDY VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!
Participate in our study exploring how people experience and learn about earthquake preparedness through a scenario-based game.

📍 Location: HIT Lab NZ, Level 2, John Britten Building, 69 Creyke Road, University of Canterbury
👉 Find out more and book a session: https://bookwhen.com/72hours
📩 Contact: [email protected]

Who can participate?
✅ Aged 18 years or older
✅ Able to understand English
✅ Self-identify with an Asian or European background

University of Canterbury UC Engineering

11/09/2026

🎉 Congratulations to Dr Donald Degraen on securing a Royal Society Te Apārangi Catalyst: Seeding Fund grant for a 2-year funded project!

This project - Establishing a Collaborative Network for Somaesthetic Interaction Design and Embodied Sensemaking in Extreme Environments - will explore a novel design methodology using immersive Virtual Reality (VR) to simulate the physical and sensory realities of ICE environments. By enabling designers to experience these constraints in the laboratory, the project aims to support the development of technologies that are more usable, meaningful, and responsive to the embodied realities of fieldwork.

Researchers working in isolated, confined, and extreme (ICE) environments — from Antarctic fieldworkers handling wildlife in sub-zero temperatures to researchers operating in other challenging environments — face unique physical and sensory constraints that conventional technology design methods often struggle to address.

Building on Somaesthetic Interaction Design, the project will bring together expertise across institutions and countries to co-design and validate a VR framework with expert ICE fieldworkers.

The collaboration combines:
🔹 World-leading VR simulation expertise from the University of Canterbury
🔹 First-hand ICE fieldwork knowledge from Lincoln University
🔹 Pioneering soma design methodology from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

The Catalyst Seeding Fund supports new small and medium pre-research strategic partnerships, with the goal of developing enduring international research collaborations.

This project is an exciting opportunity to connect expertise across New Zealand and Sweden and contribute to new approaches for designing technology that supports researchers working at the frontiers of climate and conservation science.

Project collaborators are:
🔹 Professor Michelle LaRue, University of Canterbury
🔹 Professor Amanda Black, Lincoln University
🔹 Professor Kristina Höök, KTH - Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden)

👏 Congratulations to Donald and all collaborators on this exciting achievement!

University of Canterbury UC Engineering

07/09/2026

📣 USER STUDY VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!
Participate in our study exploring how VR can be used to reduce the pain people feel.
❓ See advertisement below for specific eligibility criteria.
👉 Find out more and book a session at https://bookwhen.com/jacksonlnjx
📍 Location: HIT Lab NZ, Level 2, John Britten Building, University of Canterbury, Ilam Campus.
📩 Contact: [email protected]

University of Canterbury UC Engineering