CS Forum: "User-in-the-loop Trajectory Optimization for Aerial Videography" Christoph Gebhardt, ETH Zürich

CS department's public guest lecture, open to everyone free-of-charge.

Christoph Gebhardt
ETH Zürich

Host: prof. Antti Oulasvirta
Time: 14:15 (coffee at 14:00)
Venue: T5, CS building

User-in-the-loop Trajectory Optimization for Aerial Videography

Abstract:

In recent years, drones became popular on the consumer market particularly for their ability to record aerial videos.  What a few years ago was only possible with professional movie equipment like a crane or a helicopter, can now, in principle, be done by end-users with a quadrotor and a camera. However, creating high-quality video remains a difficult task since users need to control the drone and the camera simultaneously, while trying to realize their creative intentions. To help users in the creation of aerial footage, we propose a computational design tool to plan shots by defining keyframes in a virtual environment. Using these as input, an optimization scheme generates smooth quadrotor trajectories that respect the physical limits of the robot. We developed this tool in several iterations of a user-centered design process. In this talk, I am presenting the insights we gained during this process as well as the resulting adaptions of the UI/interaction design of the tool and the optimization problem formulation. In particular, I am talking about our trajectory optimization method that optimizes positional and temporal reference fit jointly to generate globally smooth trajectories, while retaining user control over reference timings, running at interactive rates. A lab study indicates that this formulation improves the usability of quadrotor camera tools and the perceived preference of generated videos.

Christoph Gebhardt is a PhD student in the Advanced Interactive Technologies group of the Institut of Pervasive Computing at ETH Zurich. His PhD supervisor is Professor Otmar Hilliges. He received a Master in Information Engineering from University of Konstanz with a focus on interactive systems. Before joining the Advanced Interactive Technologies Lab he worked as a research assistant at the HCI group of University of Konstanz.

Christoph is visiting Professor Antti Oulasvirta and his research group User Interfaces. Christoph is available for discussion after the talk.