I am a Senior Associate Professor in the Department of Computing at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), China, where I lead the Interactive Mediamatics and Data Science Research Center (IMDS) and the Spatial Interaction and Immersive Visualization Laboratory (VIIS Lab).
I obtained my PhD in Scientific Visualization and Computer Graphics (SVCG) from the University of Groningen in 2013. My research focuses on immersive visualization, human-computer interaction, and extended reality, with a particular emphasis on developing intuitive and effective technologies for exploring and understanding complex 3D spatial data.
I am looking for highly creative and collaborative students. I also have positions for PhD students and research assistants. If you are interested in Data Visualization, HCI, XR and AI-assisted technologies, and if you are hardworking, creative and well-motivated for high-quality research, please send an email with your CV and research plan (lingyun.yu@xjtlu.edu.cn). For students who are interested in doing research with me, please take a look at my research interests. Your research interests and experience should be clearly stated in the email.
July , 2026
My first PhD student, Lixiang Zhao (赵锂想), has successfully been awarded his PhD degree. Congratulations, Dr. Zhao!
He also received the 2025 XJTLU PhD Research Excellence Award (one of three awardees) and the XJTLU Honour of PhD Student (the sole awardee).
March, 2026
At IEEE VR 2026, we presented “ScaleFree: Dynamic KDE for Multiscale Point Cloud Exploration in VR“.
November, 2025
August, 2025
My PhD student, Lixiang Zhao (赵锂想), won 2025 XJTLU PhD Research Excellence Award (one of three awardees) and the XJTLU Honours of PhD Student (sole awardee).
May, 2025
At ACM CHI 
we presented our late breaking work “ArtifactShow: Incorporating Generative AI into Narrative Visualization for Interactive Cultural Experience” and “Mozualization: Crafting Music and Visual Representation with Multimodal AI“, as well as the full paper “RouteFlow: Trajectory-Aware Animated Transitions“. This paper won a Best Paper Award at CHI 2025.
January, 2025
Shuqi He（何舒淇）will join us as a PhD student. Her topic will be “Accessible Interaction and Visualization: Enabling Access to Data Driven Insights”（无障碍交互与可视化设计）.
November, 2024
At the ACM Interactive Surfaces and Spaces Conference (ISS 2024) 
, our paper, “Experimental Analysis of Freehand Multi-object Selection Techniques in Virtual Reality Head-Mounted Displays”, won the Best Paper Honorable Mention Award .
October, 2024
At IEEE 
, our 2012 SciVis paper “Efficient Structure-Aware Selection Techniques for 3D Point Cloud Visualizations with 2DOF Input” received the 12 Year SciVis Test-of-Time Award.
We presented “SpatialTouch: Exploring Spatial Data Visualizations in Cross-reality” in IEEE .
June, 2024
We won the Best Paper Honorable Mention Award in 11st The China Visualization and Visual Analytics Conference (ChinaVis). The paper title is “MapCraft: Dissecting and Designing Custom Geo-Infographics”.
Jifan Yang（杨济帆）will join us as a PhD student. Her topic will be “Collaborative and Immersive Visualization Environments for Data Exploration”（沉浸式可视化环境中的协作与数据探索）.
May, 2024
At CHI2024, we presented four research papers: “Data Cubes in Hand: A Design Space of Tangible Cubes for Visualizing 3D Spatio-Temporal Data in Mixed Reality“, “Exploration of Foot-based Text Entry Techniques for Virtual Reality Environments”, “Exploring Embodied Asymmetric Two-Handed Interactions for Immersive Data Exploration” and “Charting Beyond Sight with DataStory: Sensory Substitution and Storytelling in Visual Literacy Education for Visually Impaired Children”.
March, 2024
Mei Wang（汪梅）will join us as a PhD student. Her topic will be “LLM- and VLM-based Visual Computing Technologies”（基于LLM和VLM的视觉计算技术）.
December, 2023
Shuzi Zou （邹树滋）has started as my PhD student, working on Interaction Techniques for Visual Storytelling （叙事可视化的交互技术）.
October, 2023
We presented “MeTACAST: Target- and Context-aware Spatial Selection in VR” and “Cluster-Aware Grid Layout” in IEEE VIS 2023.
I co-organized a workshop at ISMAR 2023, taking place in Sydney, Australia. The workshop’s primary focus is on “Immersive Visual Analytics“.
Prof. Hai-Ning Liang and I hosted a Special Issue titled “Recent Advances on Spatial User Interaction” (VSI: Advances on SUI 2023) for Computers & Graphics. We warmly invite you to consider submitting your excellent work to this special issue.
We presented our paper titled ‘AR-Enhanced Workouts: Exploring Visual Cues for At-Home Workout Videos in AR Environment’ at UIST 2023. This project is a collaboration work with Zhejiang University.
September, 2023
We won the Best Short Paper Award in 16th International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI 2023). The paper title is “EmotionVis: Affective Visualization with Physical Devices”.
July, 2023
We won the First Prize award of Visualization Competition in ChinaVis 2023 (Chongqing). The topic is “Unfolding Cultural Narratives via Situated Visualizations”.
We won the Best Poster Award in ChinaVis 2023 (Chongqing). The topic is “L-WiM: Collaborative Exploration in Immersive Environments”.
We presented our research paper “Visual Harmony: Text-Visual Interplay in Infographics” in ChinaVis 2023.
April, 2023
We presented our research paper ” A Study of Zooming, Interactive Lenses and Overview+Detail Techniques in Collaborative Map-based Tasks” in IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium (PacificVis 2023).
March, 2023
Fuqi Xie （谢馥琪）has started as my PhD student, working on Perception-enhanced Methods for Immersive Exploration （沉浸式环境下感知增强技术）.
Together with Hai-Ning Liang (XJTLU) and Fotis Liarokapis (CYENS – Centre of Excellence, Cyprus University of Technology), we organized a workshop on “Mixing Realities: Cross-reality Visualization| Interaction| and Collaboration” in EEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR 2023).
We presented our research paper “Design and Development of a Mixed Reality Acupuncture Training System” in IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR 2023).
January, 2023
Principal Investigator. Natural Interaction Techniques for Immersive Data Visualization (国家自然科学基金面上项目：自然交互驱动的沉浸式空间可视化数据探索), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), General Program. 2023 to 2026.