One paper has been accepted to UIST 2026
The ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) is a premier annual academic conference on human-computer interaction. (Accept. rates have historically been in the 20-25% range)
Title: CineHaptic: Context-Aware Real-Time Audiovisual-to-Haptic Rendering System for In-Vehicle 4D Cinematic Experiences
Authors: Junwoo Kim (POSTECH), Hyunuk Kim (POSTECH), Hyun-Bin Oh (POSTECH), Jeonggoo Kang† (Hyundai Motor Group), Tae-Hyun Oh (KAIST)†, Seungmoon Choi (POSTECH)†
(†Co-corresponding authors)
Haptic feedback significantly enriches cinematic experiences, but existing manual authoring and offline generation methods lack the scalability required for rapidly growing streaming media libraries. To address this, we present CineHaptic, a real-time system that automatically generates haptic effects for action-oriented cinematic content by estimating event salience and location for immersive in-vehicle 4D experiences. For each sound event, the system classifies its semantic salience into a four-level hierarchy, determining the necessity and intensity of haptic actuation. Concurrently, a cross-modal audiovisual analysis module estimates the sound's spatial origin in the scene. CineHaptic then seamlessly synthesizes this semantic and spatial data into coherent spatiotemporal patterns, delivered through a custom six-actuator haptic seat.
System-level evaluations confirm strict adherence to real-time processing and multisensory synchrony requirements over full-length cinematic content. Furthermore, an in-car user study shows that haptic feedback integrating audio salience, spatial location, and temporal dynamics significantly enhances user immersion and preference compared to baseline methods. Ultimately, our system provides a fully automated pipeline for multisensory rendering, tailored for next-generation in-car entertainment.