Thesis Defense: Towards Passing Visual Turing Test with Computational 3D Displays and Appearance Modeling

With recent breakthroughs like Bert and ChatGPT, the Turing Test is progressively approaching the end of its life cycle. To spur another multi-decade of collective research, Meta defined a Virtual Turing Test last year, asking whether a virtual experience, particularly in VR and AR, can be created as vivid and realistic as the physical world such that a human observer can no longer distinguish. This is a grand challenge that requires solving fundamental challenges in different fields.

In this defense, I will present works I have developed toward improving display technologies to deliver a more natural 3D visual experience, and appearance modeling methods for effortless translation of real-world appearances into its digital twin. I will also extrapolate the definition of the Visual Turing test and discuss how we use 3D printing to fabricate painting facsimiles that are hard to distinguish from the originals, and the potential of this technology to help culture preservation and education.

Zoom: https://mit.zoom.us/j/96926731950

Thesis committee: Wojciech Matusik (MIT), Fredo Durand (MIT), Cardinal Warde (MIT)