Alejandro Rey 👑

About me

Ph.D. student 👨🏻‍💻 and former professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
B.Sc. in Computer Science (Bilingual) and M.Sc. in Computer Science and Technology.
Currently working on Multisensory Immersive Analytics , i.e., immersive data visualization applications involving senses beyond sight (🕶️+🖐🏻👂🏻👁️+📊 ).

As a professor, I have taught several programming courses, from basic programming (Matlab and Python) to more advanced topics such as web development and game development.

I have participated in scientific dissemination programs such as #uc3mEnTuAula and t3chfest, bringing VR and the metaverse closer to the general public.

Interested in Immersive Technologies (VR/AR/XR), game development, Human Computer Interaction and Computer Graphics. I have designed and developed several immersive serious games targeted at learning and/or scientific dissemination. Additionally, I have experience carrying out VR usability studies, implementing data visualization interfaces as well as I/O tangible prototypes for immersive systems. Moreover, I have supervised a large number of bachelor theses related to web and game development.

Projects

IXCI

IXCI: the Immersive eXperimenter Control Interface,is a toolkit targeted at HCI researchers that consists of a set of components that provide them witha (web-based) visual interface to control and monitor immersive applications.

It aims to provide readily available functionality that supports researchers in the process of designing/prototyping a virtual scenario, testing and ultimately experiment execution. Currently, it is being updated to incorporate gRPC and add support for more customizability of the functionality.

#webdev
#javascript
#remote-control
#HCI
#WoZ
#websockets
#integration

MSIII

MultiSensory Immersive Information Interaction

As part of my PhD I am actively developing a Unity project that aggregates all the user studies I have designed and carried out, all of them exploring the addition of multisensory and embodied interaction to the world of Immersive Data Visualization (Immersive Analytics). The code is private for now but I will release it as soon as my latest paper gets accepted.

#immersive-analytics
#virtual-reality
#multi-sensory-interaction
#co-encoding
#c-sharp
#unity

CHIC-Farmlab

Augmented Reality Game targeted at Hololens 1/2 designed to teach adolescents about NPBTs (New Plant Breeding Techniques editing).

The game was part of the dissemination program involved in the chic.eu project.
CHIC was a project that revolved around the Chicory plant, which has the very characteristic flower that you can see in all its branding and subordinate projects.

#augmented-reality
#serious-game
#hololens
#unity

VR-Drums

As part of my Bs.C. Thesis I developed a prototype for a tangible virtual reality drumset that combined Arduino-based hardware with tethered. I programmed and designed the whole thing, also 3D modeling the virtual drumset in Blender.

This can also be considered my first research work, since I did a quite comprehensive State-of-the-Art of existing solutions and tangible/immersive musical interfaces back in the day.

#unity
#tangibles
#VR
#arduino
#DIY
#MIDI
#BsC-Thesis

Research work

Dissemination

Virtual Reality & The Metaverse. A distopic future?

Informative talk (approximately 45 minutes) about the Metaverse aimed at Secondary and High School students associated with the UC3M program 'UC3M in your classroom'. The talk aims to bring the concept of the metaverse closer to the students from a scientific-technological development perspective, present the potential of this new paradigm, and open a discussion on ethical issues that may arise in a possible science fiction future.

Contents

Brief panoramic view of the evolution of technology in the last decades
What is the metaverse?... and what it is NOT.
Which are the technologies that the metaverse builds upon?
The metaverse and its applications.
State of the Art of the metaverse. Contain your hype?
Challenges.
Black mirror or wonderland?