HCAT lab goes to Sundance Film Festival every year. It’s a wonderful chance to see films, interact with media professionals, learn about emerging technologies, and cultivate relationships with talented individuals working in AR/VR content creation. In 2021, most film festivals were either partially or entirely virtual. We started the year with Sundance and Ended with…
Both Kevin John and I bought drones recently with an eye toward developing novel content and experiences for experimental research. Kevin’s drone was fast – perhaps too fast – as it ended up crashing into a tree branch one day. It spiraled out of control and was never seen again. But he was not deterred:…
Led by Yelena Wu, we recently won an NIH R01 grant to support a 5 year health intervention targeting sun safe behavior in Utah adolescents. The goal of the grant is to evaluate a multi-school intervention designed to decrease skin cancer. The study will run from 2020 through 2025. The intervention includes multiple components including…
Every year, NIH New Innovators are invited to Bethesda to present our research. This year, I presented some of our work on UV photography. We were the first poster visible through the door of the session. The face of the symposium, if you will. 🙂
We love to go to Sundance Film Festival each year because (1) it is awesome, (2) it is nearby – Park City, UT), and (3) it is a wonderful opportuunity to learn about cutting edge communication technology (e.g., VR and AR). Sundance is approximately 11 days long and the lab was out and about the…
The lab just purchased a 16 lens Light camera. We were on the waiting list for about 2 years. This camera takes 16 shots at once so it is a cutting edge item. It might be the solution to several key problems facing our research. Fingers crossed. Excited to see what it can do.
Utah has the highest rate of melanoma in the U.S. Given that, Deseret News recently published a long-form story about melanoma in the…
The first article from Kevin John’s dissertation was just published in the Journal of Health Communication. In that article, Kevin articulates a framework for studying how visual images might impact visual skill (what he labels the visual skill acquisition model). He then demonstrates how the…
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=42993197&nid=148&title=u-researchers-can-study-inversions-year-round-with-60k-camera Our Immersion Lab was featured on KSL. They visited the lab to view our Ozo, and learn more about our air quality video.
Our lab has been with ultraviolet (UV) imagery for several years. We are currently conducting several studies were we study public reaction to these images. Here is a photo of me in visible light. And here is a photo in UV light.
My lab recently purchased a Nokia Ozo pro grade immersive camera. As a test of the camera, we decided to film both a good air quality day in the valley (August 30th, 2016 – a green day), and a bad air quality day (January 1, 2017 – an orange day). We filmed the valley from a trail just below the H Rock. The video begins with a good air quality day (August 30th) and then transitions to a bad air quality day (January 1st).
The Sundance Film Festival just launched a new initiative focused on climate change and environmental awareness. The 2017 festival showcases 14 innovative projects devoted to this theme, including An Inconvenient Sequel (which HCAT members attended last night!). Our air quality immersive video parallels Sundance’s initiative as well as their groundbreaking work in VR.
Click here to view our video on YouTube. Make sure you have the YouTube app downloaded in advance:
The Sundance Film Festival is a wonderful gathering of media and communication professionals in Park City, UT. As such, HCAT lab spends quite a bit of time going to shows, meeting with industry folks, and checking out the latest gadgets. For example, last year we were introduced to the Nokia Ozo camera at Sundance, and…
In Fall 2016 I taught a 7000-level grad seminar called Communication Theory. Ten wonderful grads were in the class, including MA and PhD students. We spent the semester exploring constructs and practicing how to think more abstractly. I used immersion as a practice construct as it is both timely and enduring. The students learned how…
Mindy Krakow and I traveled to BEA this year to present research and receive a few awards. Mindy received an award for her dissertation (congrats Mindy!) and we won a top paper in the research division (congrats us!). We also enjoyed stopping by NAB and learning more about VR equipment. Nokia was there, so it was a great opportunity to chat with them about our new camera.
Plus we went to two great shows: La Reve and Ka.
We have developed a high performance, monochrome UV camera to advance research in dermatology, public health, and (interestingly enough) the documentation and discovery of historical artifacts. HCAT lab is working with several faculty on the latter initiative, including Professor Rory Becker from Eastern Oregon University. We recently used the camera to photograph specimens at the Utah Museum of Natural History, including scorpions (who glow when exposed to UV)! Rory has also used our UV camera to photograph Neanderthal caves in Croatia (photos to come).
