This course concentrates on the application of human computer interaction via natural user interfaces (NUI) to practical problems. The recent advance in the software and hardware for the sensing of the physical world brings rich applications and opportunities to NUI designs, allowing users to utilize themselves or physical objects as a more intuitive interactivity metaphor to interact with computers. This course introduces the fundamental and state-of-the-art NUI techniques, and focuses on hands-on works. The topics include interaction with multitouch, real-world 3D objects/scenes, 3D human body posture and shape, 3D motion, gesture, etc. The students will gain practical experience through the application of such techniques to various interactivity scenarios.

The Microsoft Kinect is adopted as the main development platform. This course assumes no prior knowledge of the Kinect system or 3D programming experience, but requires fundamental programming skills (e.g., in C/C++, or Java, Processing, ActionScript etc.). The students will learn how to apply their programming and/or UI design knowledge to NUI applications.