Interestingness -- the power of attracting or holding one's attention.

Our daily life is greatly influenced by what we consume and see. On one hand, we decide based on our personal interests which news, movies, or other events we focus our attention on. On the other hand, most people are also very open to external visual stimuli that could influence their behavior. To learn more about human visual perception and its effects on judging events as interesting, but also for commercial purposes, it is of great interest to understand what triggers human attention and interest.

For instance, models of what people consider 'interesting' could be used to automatically analyze video streams in video surveillance applications and alert users. Or it can help people in their work by automatically highlighting 'interesting' facts that might otherwise have been overlooked. This is especially important in time-critical scenarios where someone needs to quickly get an overview of many facts, such as in medical emergency care.

• F. Abdullahu and H. Grabner, Commonly Interesting Images, In Proc. European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), 2024, Data and Code on GitHub
• T. Koller, and H. Grabner, Who wants to be a click-millionaire? On the influence of thumbnails and captions. In Proc. IEEE International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR), 2022

Over the past several decades, visual imagery has become the dominant element in modern advertising. A common content strategy involves depicting humans, animals, or objects in the midst of motion. Whereas previous research indicates that implied motion images enhance persuasion, it is unclear whether this effect is unique to depictions of moving humans or if it also applies to depictions of moving animals (e.g., a dolphin jumping out of the water) and moving objects (e.g., a car driving on a street, a burger being tossed in the air). Across a set of seven experimental studies, we provide robust evidence that images depicting animate and inanimate motion increase the persuasiveness of an advertisement and that this effect occurs through enhanced engagement. Our findings further indicate that the level of engagement is influenced by the complexity of the depicted motion, with more complex, nonlinear movements eliciting greater engagement than simpler, linear movements. Overall, this research contributes to the advertising literature by providing an empirically grounded account of implied motion imagery and by helping marketers create more effective advertising.

• ZHAW Medienlinguistik
• F. Bünzli, W. Weber, F. Abdullahu, and H. Grabner, Depicting Humans, Animals, and Objects in Motion: The Effect of Implied Motion on Engagement and Persuasion in Advertising? Journal of Advertising, 2024
• F. Bünzli, W. Weber, F  Abdullahu, and H. Grabner, Do Vectors of Motion Make Advertisements More Interesting? Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), 2023

All images are equal but some images are more equal than others.

"WATCHING THE WORLD, The Encyclopedia Of the Now" is an art, photography, exhibition, AI, big data, and online project that exclusively uses open data sources. It photographs the world simultaneously in live mode around the clock and across the globe using publicly accessible webcams, presenting these recordings in real-time on the website in various modes and developing a new way of seeing, a new form of photography with the help of AI.

On the webpage https://webcamaze.engineering.zhaw.ch, more than 10,000 webcams are analyzed in real time. If the images were printed out, they would stack up to the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza – every day! Without methods of machine learning and automatic image processing, such volumes could no longer be managed.

Most of the time, there is nothing "interesting" to see – but if you are at the right place at the right time, you see surprising, unexpected, bizarre, perhaps questionable images that invite reflection and discussion.

• Kurt Caviezel
• ZHAW News: "The Gegenwart als Kunstwerk"
• Instagram

AWARD: SNSF Scientific Image Competition 2025 - Jury distinction

Jury’s commentary | Frozen in flight and defying gravity, this bird watching us offers a tongue-in-cheek reflection on the observer being observed. The partly humorous, partly absurd shot addresses the role of artificial intelligence and the deluge of images produced by the proliferating webcams and security cameras around the world, questioning the modern practice of photography.

Extended reality (XR) learning environments are developed to spark curiosity, encourage exploration, and inspire creativity in learners. At the same time, educators are empowered by these tools to present their topics in an immersive and interactive way.

Close collaboration is maintained with the University of Zurich (UZH) and the Zurich University of Teacher Education (PH Zurich). Additional support is provided by practice partners such as Microsoft, Siemens, and Magic Leap, whose specialized expertise in XR technology, 3D data acquisition, and cloud solutions plays a key role. Through their contributions, ideas are transformed from early design and prototyping stages into fully realized applications. Applications are created across a variety of educational fields. 

To support learners and educators in their respective environments, applications are developed with cross-platform use in mind. A common XR platform is being aimed for, allowing projects to be presented to individuals using VR or AR headsets, to groups via smartphones, or to entire classrooms through the use of 3D beamers. These tools allow subjects to be explored from fresh and exciting perspectives.

• PH Zurich
• UZH Center for Dental Medicine
• OR-X, ROCS Balgrist

It initiates the paradigm shift in surgical training for optimally prepared surgeons and even greater patient safety.

Training on patients according to the principle of “see one, do one and teach one” no longer corresponds to today’s requirements and technical opportunities regarding education of surgical residents. During the Covid-19 pandemic, most hands-on training had to be discontinued, leading to an almost complete interruption of surgical education.   Under the lead of the three clinical partners Kantonsspital St.Gallen, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, and Balgrist University Hospital, endorsed by the Swiss Surgical Societies, novel standardized and proficiency-based surgical training curricula are defined and interfaced to simulation tools. The four implementation partners VirtaMed AG, Microsoft Mixed Reality & AI Lab Zurich, OramaVR SA and Atracsys LLC, in collaboration with ETHZ and ZHAW develop these innovative training tools ranging from online virtual reality simulation, augmented box trainers, high-end simulators, to augmented-reality-enabled open surgery and immersive remote operation room participation. The proposed developments introduce a fully novel, integrative training paradigm installed and demonstrated on two example surgical modalities, laparoscopy and arthroscopy, while fully generalizable to other interventions. This will set new standards both in Switzerland and abroad.

• R. Lekar, T. Gerth, S. Prokudin, M. Seibold, R. Bürgin, B. Vella, A. Hoch, S. Tang, P. Fürnstahl, and H. Grabner. Enhancing Orthopedic Surgical Training With Interactive Photorealistic 3D Visualization. Annual Meeting of the International Society for Computer Assisted Orthopaedic Surgery (CAOS), 2025, project
• L. Wu, M. Seibold, N. Cavalcanti, J. Hein, T. Gerth, R. Lekar, A. Hoch, L. Vlachopoulos, H. Grabner, P. Zingg, M. Farshad, and P. Fürnstahl, A novel augmented reality-based simulator for enhancing orthopedic surgical training. Computers in Biology and Medicine, Volume 185, 2025
• https://www.surgicalproficiency.ch
• ZHAW Impact
• OR-X, ROCS Balgrist
• ETH Computer Vision and Learning Group

“We are Teaching Students how to Teach Machines how to See.”

Together with the Institute of Computer Science we offer basic and advanced courses on Visual Computing.

A selection of offered student projects is listed below. BSc projects and bachelor theses can also be found at Complesis. We are happy to discuss your own ideas as well!

“Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people” ― Steve Jobs.