Yutaka Tokuda

Yutaka Tokuda is a 2013 research intern in the Applied Sciences Group (ASG).  He is enthused about the potential of 3D floating displays and holography to realize a genuine mixed-reality world where real and virtual objects can interact each other without special wearable apparatus.  His dream is to equip his home village, Mitsue-mura in Japan, of decreasing population with mixed reality system.

Yutaka is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tokyo, working at the Anohito Laboratory under Professor Michitaka Hirose’s guidance.  He received his B.S. in physics from Purdue University and his M.S. in mechano-informatics from the University of Tokyo.  Before joining Microsoft Yutaka worked as a research assistant for the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) in the Digital Public Art project.  He joined the Panasonic Design Group as a rapid prototype developer for future home appliances, and also worked at Google as Rich Media Specialist for interactive advertising while in school.  He has developed four kinds of interactive holographic displays and presented the prototypes at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan), Asiagraph, Haneda International Airport, and at the SIGGRPAH 2008 Student Research Competition, where he was a semifinalist.  He won the Best Paper award at the International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (IEEE VSMM 2010) with a vortex-ring-based display.  He loves optics, math, fluid dynamics, procam, tennis, media art, and anime.

Currently he is interested in creating holographic living things by combining robots with 3D displays.