Defence by Nan Huang

Nan Huang defended her licentiate thesis

On 21 September 2026, Nan Huang successfully defended her licentiate thesis Perceptually Grounded Personalized Smart Immersive XR: System Design and Perceptual Evaluation at the Department of Computer Science, Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH).

Extended reality (XR) technologies enable users to perceive and interact with virtual objects in spatial, immersive environments. As immersive systems evolve, expectations grow for environments that not only present predefined content but also adapt intelligently to users’ behaviors, preferences, and contexts. This thesis investigates how such personalized smart immersive XR (PSI‑XR) environments can be designed and evaluated to support credible, user‑centered experiences.

The thesis is structured around two complementary perspectives: design and perception.

The design perspective includes a systematic review mapping the application areas, enabling technologies, personalization mechanisms, and challenges of PSI‑XR. Building on these insights, the thesis proposes a conceptual design for a personalized VR system using furniture arrangement as an illustrative context. The system integrates HMD‑based VR, multimodal interaction, hand and eye tracking, and generative AI to create adaptive, user‑centered immersive environments.

The perceptual perspective examines whether PSI‑XR systems can deliver visually credible experiences. A first perceptual study compares visual realism and acuity between real-world scenes and VR, showing that VR can achieve high realism while still facing limitations in fine visual detail. A second study evaluates 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) versus mesh-based rendering in VR, demonstrating that while 3DGS can match mesh realism under distant static viewing, it is less robust under close inspection, free movement, and multi-object conditions.

Overall, the thesis concludes that the value of PSI‑XR lies not merely in increasing immersion or intelligence, but in how effectively immersive technologies, smart personalization techniques, and perceptual credibility work together to support user-centered environments.

The defence was examined by Assoc. Prof. Prashant Goswami, with additional supervision from Prof. Veronica Sundstedt, Dr. Yan Hu, and Dr. Abbas Cheddad, all from BTH. The opponent for the seminar was Assoc. Prof. Sofia Ouhbi from Uppsala University, Sweden.

A reception hosted by the Department of Computer Science followed the seminar to celebrate this milestone.

Nan’s work strengthens the HINTS research environment by advancing understanding of how personalized, perceptually credible immersive XR systems can be designed and evaluated to support future human-centered intelligent realities.

Find the thesis and avstract here: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-30327