Human-Computer Interaction | Étienne Peillard

CEXI-HA

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A shared environment for designing, prototyping, and evaluating interactions between people and immersive technologies.

CEXI-HA is an IMT Atlantique shared experimental platform dedicated to the study and evaluation of interactions between people and immersive technologies. It brings together the facilities and expertise needed to design, prototype, and analyze Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality systems, as well as research in human factors, perception, cognitive ergonomics, and neurotechnology.

The platform connects several IMT Atlantique teams and departments to support interdisciplinary research on augmented humans, human–machine collaboration, and the evaluation of interactive systems.

Shared infrastructureFacilities, equipment, and expertise pooled across teams.

Human-centered studiesControlled experiments with rigorous methodological and ethical support.

Open collaborationAcademic projects, international partnerships, industrial research, and services.

Mission

CEXI-HA has four complementary objectives:

support experimental research on immersive interaction and human-assistance technologies;
pool technical and scientific resources for studies involving human participants;
promote methodological and ethical rigor throughout the experimental process;
turn research into demonstrators and interactive prototypes.

Research areas

The platform supports projects spanning:

Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality;
brain–computer interfaces, neurotechnology, and wearable systems;
perception, cognition, and experimental neuroscience;
ergonomics and human factors;
human–human and human–system collaboration;
augmented health, simulation, and immersive training.

Facilities and experimental capabilities

CEXI-HA provides controlled immersive environments and a modular experimental stack. Depending on the project, teams can combine:

immersive headsets, large interactive displays, and collaborative XR systems;
optical motion capture and body tracking;
eye tracking and physiological or neurophysiological sensing;
physical props, tangible interfaces, and spatially registered virtual content;
software for experimental control, data acquisition, synchronization, and analysis.

These capabilities support work ranging from embodied interaction and altered body perception to attention studies, neurofeedback, remote collaboration, and augmented supervision of complex systems.

Immersive experiments can combine virtual content, tracked physical props, and controlled observation.

Mixed-reality prototyping and evaluation integrate sensing, visualization, and interaction.

The platform also supports demonstrators, knowledge transfer, and research outreach.

Activities and services

CEXI-HA helps teams to:

design and run studies with human participants in controlled immersive environments;
measure and analyze behavior and performance using motion capture, eye tracking, and physiological monitoring;
prototype, test, and evaluate immersive, interactive, or collaborative systems;
prepare experimental protocols, ethics-review applications, consent procedures, and data-management plans.

Who can use the platform?

The platform is open to IMT Atlantique researchers, faculty, doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, and students involved in experimental work. It also supports academic consortia, international collaborations, and industrial partners through collaborative research projects, contracts, or services.

A common framework for responsible human-centered research

CEXI-HA helps structure a shared approach to studies involving people at IMT Atlantique. In coordination with teams working in cognition, health, and user-centered design, it contributes to harmonizing:

participant recruitment, information, and consent;
ethics-review and GDPR-compliance practices;
responsible experimental methods and data management.

Governance and scientific positioning

The platform is scientifically led by Étienne Peillard in the Computer Science Department. It is jointly supported by the INUIT (natural interaction and mixed reality), P4S (Industry of the Future), BRAIN (neurocognitive modeling and brain–computer interfaces), and DECIDE (decision, cognition, and ergonomics) teams, together with the Optics Department.

CEXI-HA contributes to IMT Atlantique’s Augmented Human scientific strategy.

Contact

For a research project, collaboration, or service request, contact the platform administration:

CEXI-HA administration
cexiha-admin@imt-atlantique.fr

IMT Atlantique — Brest campus, Computer Science Department
Technopôle Brest-Iroise — CS 83818
29238 Brest Cedex 03, France

View the official CEXI-HA page on the IMT Atlantique website.

Perception and Representation of Urban Night Lighting Ambiances in Virtual Reality

Mon, 19 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

Urban-lighting projects are often assessed through quantitative standards and energy targets, while their effects on the human experience of the night, biodiversity, and light pollution receive less attention. They are also difficult to discuss with decision-makers when meetings take place during daytime and proposed nocturnal ambiances cannot be experienced directly.

This PhD project develops immersive tools for representing and evaluating urban night lighting. Virtual-Reality simulations, perceptual studies, and photometric models are combined to help stakeholders compare lighting scenarios, understand their environmental effects, and make more informed decisions about sustainable lighting design.

Research challenges

Perceiving nocturnity — characterize the scene-dependent sense of being at night beyond a simple reduction in brightness.
Low-light vision — study how mesopic and scotopic visual effects influence the perception of virtual nocturnal environments.
Representing light pollution — calculate and visualize direct, reflected, and scattered light so that environmental impacts can be considered during the design phase.
Supporting decisions — develop realistic, schematic, and false-colour representations adapted to the needs of urban-lighting professionals, public authorities, and other stakeholders.

Current research

The project has introduced the concept of nocturnity, defined as the feeling of being at night elicited by a scene. A first 42-item questionnaire organizes this experience into perceptual, activity-related, and inner-state dimensions. Its content was reviewed by urban-lighting experts and is being evaluated through Virtual-Reality experiments and broader image-based studies.

This metric provides a basis for future experiments on the simulation of night vision, including colour desaturation, reduced visual acuity, and luminance shifts. The research also examines physical presence, cybersickness, chronotype, and fatigue as factors that may influence responses to virtual nocturnal scenes.

Industrial developments

Research prototypes are integrated into Obscura, L’Observatoire de la Nuit’s real-time lighting-simulation software. Developments include photon mapping for estimating indirect light, visualisation of photometric distributions, support for architectural DXF plans, and assistance in selecting luminaires for street-lighting renovation. These tools connect quantitative photometric calculations with the qualitative experience of urban night environments.

People involved

PhD student

Anthony Le Gourriérec

Anthony Le Gourriérec is a CIFRE PhD student working with L’Observatoire de la Nuit, AAU-CRENAU, and Lab-STICC. His research investigates the perception and representation of urban night lighting ambiances in Virtual Reality.

Academic supervision

The PhD is directed by Myriam Servières at AAU-CRENAU, École Centrale de Nantes, and co-supervised by Étienne Peillard within the INUIT team at Lab-STICC.

Etienne Peillard

Since August 1, 2026, I have been an Associate Professor in the Department of Automatic Control, Production Engineering and Computer Science (DAPI) at IMT Atlantique, on the Nantes campus. I am a member of the PACCE team at the LS2N (UMR CNRS 6004).

Industrial supervision

The research is followed at L’Observatoire de la Nuit by Nicolas Houel, who contributes expertise in urban planning, lighting sobriety, and the design of nocturnal ambiances.

Partners

L’Observatoire de la Nuit provides the industrial context, lighting expertise, field cases, and the Obscura simulation environment.
AAU-CRENAU contributes expertise in urban digital models, spatial perception, and the study of architectural and urban ambiances.
Lab-STICC — INUIT contributes immersive systems, interaction methods, and experimental expertise in Virtual and Augmented Reality.

Publications

Funding

This research project is carried out through a Convention Industrielle de Formation par la Recherche (CIFRE) managed by the French National Association for Research and Technology (ANRT).

4D Narrative Visualizations for Marine-Drone Mission Reporting

Sat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

Marine-drone missions generate complex spatial, temporal, and operational data that must be interpreted after a mission and communicated to different stakeholders. Conventional dashboards can make it difficult to reconstruct how events unfolded, understand the relationships between autonomous systems and their environment, and identify the information that matters for a mission report.

This doctoral project investigates 4D narrative visualizations that combine three-dimensional space with time to support the exploration, interpretation, and reporting of marine-drone missions. The research examines how interactive storytelling, temporal navigation, annotation, and coordinated views can transform heterogeneous mission data into coherent and understandable accounts.

The project is carried out by Kingsley Stephens in collaboration with the University of South Australia, Naval Group, and IMT Atlantique, within the CNRS IRL CROSSING France–Australia research framework.

Research objectives

Characterize the information and narrative structures required for marine-drone mission reporting.
Design interactive 4D representations that connect mission events, trajectories, environments, and system states.
Evaluate how narrative visualization supports understanding, communication, and decision-making after a mission.

PhD student

Kingsley Stephens

Kingsley Stephens is a PhD student working within CNRS IRL CROSSING on 4D narrative visualizations for marine-drone mission reporting, in collaboration with the University of South Australia and Naval Group.