Dr. Philipp Ackermann

Work at ZHAW

Position

• Head of Visual Computing Lab
• Deputy Programme Director Medical Informatics
• Delegate Entrepreneurship @ School of Engineering

Focus

• Visual Computing with focus in Augmented Reality
• Medical Informatics / Digital Health
• AR Patterns

Network

ORCID digital identifier

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4607-7620

Social media

LinkedIn

Projects

• Automated recognition of modular product structures in AR to enable circular economy / Project leader / ongoing
• Digital Health Zurich: a practice lab for patient-centred clinical innovation / Deputy project leader / ongoing
• Surgical Proficiency – Data-driven transformation of surgical education for proficiency-based performance / Deputy project leader / ongoing
• AR Patterns / Deputy project leader / completed
• Mixed Reality in plant engineering / Project leader / completed
• Intelligent Viticulture / Project leader / completed
• Data Driven Medical muscle Training / Team member / completed
• DeepScore: Digital Music Stand with Musical Understanding via Active Sheet Technology / Team member / completed
• System for integrated, data-driven asset controlling of real estate / Project leader / completed

Publications

Articles in scientific journal, peer-reviewed

• Schläpfer, S. et al. (2026) 'Sex representation and user preferences in pain drawing body charts in back pain research : multimethod study', JMIR Human Factors, 13, p. e76175. doi: 10.2196/76175.
• Difrancesco, S. et al. (2025) 'Collaborative design and development of a patient-centered digital health app for supportive cancer care : participatory study', JMIR Human Factors, 12(e73829). doi: 10.2196/73829.
• Tuggener, L. et al. (2024) 'Real world music object recognition', Transactions of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval, 7(1), pp. 1–14. doi: 10.5334/tismir.157.

Book chapters, peer-reviewed

Ackermann, P. and Stockinger, K. (2019) 'Narrative visualization of open data', in Applied data science : lessons learned for the data-driven business. Cham: Springer, pp. 251–264. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-11821-1_14.

Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed

• Häsler, S. et al. (2025) 'Illustrating AR patterns : a visual language for event-driven Augmented Reality', in Helin, K., Schiavi, B., and Tsaknaki, E. (eds) EuroXR 2025: Proceedings of the Application, Poster, and Demo Tracks of the 22nd EuroXR International Conference. VTT, pp. 179–183. doi: 10.32040/2242-122X.2025.T440.
• Ackermann, P. (2025) 'SRswift : a spatial reasoning library in Swift', in Helin, K., Schiavi, B., and Tsaknaki, E. (eds) EuroXR 2025 : Proceedings of the Application, Poster, and Demo Tracks of the 22nd EuroXR International Conference. VTT, pp. 68–71. doi: 10.32040/2242-122X.2025.T440.
• Hasler, S. and Ackermann, P. (2025) 'Spatial Reasoner : a 3D inference pipeline for XR applications', in 2025 International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Virtual & Augmented Reality Simulations (ICVARS). IEEE, pp. 121–130. doi: 10.1109/icvars66454.2025.11198690.
• Moreno, S. and Ackermann, P. (2025) 'Multi-modal collaboration in spaces using hand-held AR', in Wrase, I. et al. (eds) Tagungsband zur Facility Management Konferenz Spotlight FMplus 2025 – Wissenschaft und Praxis im Dialog: Next Generation FM – How FM adds value. Wädenswil: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, pp. 129–138. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-32149.
• Stucki, S. and Ackermann, P. (2024) 'Physically-based path tracer using WebGPU and OpenPBR', in Proceedings of the 29th International ACM Conference on 3D Web Technology. Association for Computing Machinery, p. 4. doi: 10.1145/3665318.3677158.
• Ackermann, P. (2023) 'AR patterns : event-driven design patterns in creating augmented reality experiences', in Zachmann, G. et al. (eds) Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality. Cham: Springer, pp. 93–114. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-48495-7_6.
• Moreno, S. and Ackermann, P. (2023) 'ARchi VR : real-time collaboration in augmented spaces', in MuC '23: Proceedings of Mensch und Computer 2023. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 551–553. doi: 10.1145/3603555.3609310.
• Pidel, C. and Ackermann, P. (2020) 'Collaboration in virtual and augmented reality : a systematic overview', in De Paolis, L. T. and Bourdot, P. (eds) Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Computer Graphics. Springer, pp. 141–156. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-58465-8_10.
• Ackermann, P. and Bach, T. (2015) 'Redesign of an introductory computer graphics course', in Bronstein, M. and Teschner, M. (eds) EG 2015 - Education Papers. Oxford: The Eurographics Association and Blackwell Publishing, pp. 9–13. doi: 10.2312/eged.20151021.

Other publications

• Häsler, S. and Ackermann, P. (2025) Spatial Reasoner : a 3D inference pipeline for XR applications. Winterthur: ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-33034.
• Heinlein, B. and Ackermann, P. (2016) 'Der virtuelle Körper als 3-D-Simulationsmodell', IT for Health, 2016(1), pp. 44–45.
• Pauchard, Y. and Ackermann, P. (2014) 'Visual eHealth : an ICT innovation and dissemination strategy to improve our well-being', in S2B Science-to-Business Marketing Conference 2014, Münster, Deutschland, 2014, pp. 241–249.

Oral conference contributions and abstracts

Ackermann, P. and Holler, A. (2024) 'Community platform to promote AR patterns', in Augmented World Expo EU, Vienna, Austria, 29-30 October 2024. Available at: https://youtu.be/eWNjM4ub8dM.

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