Villum Experiment grants to Zollmann and Gellersen
Associate Professor Stefanie Zollmann and Professor Hans Gellersen have each been awarded a prestigious Villum Experiment grant by Villum Fonden. The programme funds daring and unconventional research ideas that may be considered too risky in traditional funding schemes - but which hold the potential to create transformative breakthroughs.
Stefanie Zollmann: Foveated rendering based on a model of eye dominance
Stefanie’s research investigates how the human brain prioritizes input from one eye over the other – a process called eye dominance – and how this dynamic can be leveraged in Virtual and Augmented Reality. By adapting rendering techniques to the dominant eye, her project aims to make high-quality immersive experiences more efficient, visually realistic, and comfortable for users.
"By understanding how our brain prioritizes what we see with each eye, we can make virtual and augmented reality both more realistic and more efficient," says Stefanie Zollmann.
Hans Gellersen: Measuring intent in gaze attention
Hans’ project explores whether it is possible to distinguish between eye movements made deliberately versus those triggered by external stimuli. If successful, this will lead to the first-ever method to qualify attention shifts by intent. Such a breakthrough could have wide impact: from empowering users with attention feedback, to helping designers guide attention more effectively, to developing new tools for diagnosing and addressing attention deficits.
"With this project we want to discover whether computers can tell the difference between when we look at something intentionally – and when our attention is simply drawn," says Hans Gellersen.
About Villum Experiment
The Villum Experiment programme supports bold research ideas with high risk but potentially ground-breaking outcomes. This year, Villum Fonden awarded DKK 125.7 million to 52 projects out of 319 applications. For more information, see: https://villumfonden.dk/da/nyhed/fra-gennemsigtige-bananfluer-til-betydningen-af-babygraad
Congratulations to Hans and Stefanie for being selected among these outstanding projects!