The company Blickshift GmbH is a spin off from the Institute for Visualization and Interactive Systems (VIS) at the University of Stuttgart. The company transfers cutting-edge results from Visual Analytics research into commercial products.
With Blickshift Analytics, the company offers one of the world’s technologically leading software tools for the analysis of extensive large gaze data sets together with other data streams. Blickshift Analytics is used by customers all around the world to answer their questions in psychology, cognitive sciences, automotive, aviation, usability, med tech and market research. With our second product, Blickshift Recorder, we offer an easy-to-use tool for recording eye movement data and further data streams within the same application.
The young start-up has become an established data analytics company. But our goal is still the same as when we first started the company: we want to build best-in-class software for our customers to give them a better understanding of their data.
The Founders
Dr. Bernhard Schmitz
studied Software Engineering at the University of Stuttgart. From 2008 to 2014 he was researcher at the VIS. In 2015 he finished his work on this PhD thesis about navigation systems for special user groups. At Blickshift Bernhard Schmitz takes the responsibility for application development.
Dr.-Ing. Michael Wörner
studied Software Engineering at the University of Stuttgart from 2001 to 2008. From 2008 to 2014 he first worked as a researcher funded by the Graduate School Advanced Manufacturing Engineering (GSaME), then as a researcher at the VIS. In 2014 he finished his work on his PhD thesis about Visual analytics for production and transportation systems. Michael Wörner is expert for the development of pattern recognition methods for large data sets. Together with Michael Raschke he is CEO of Blickshift and is responsible for project management.
Dr. Michael Raschke
studied Physics at the University of Stuttgart and University of Heidelberg. From 2009 to 2015 he was researcher at the VIS and developed new methods and technologies for the evaluation of visualizations. Michael Raschke is a world-wide known expert for the visualization-based analysis of eye tracking data, author and co-author of more than 40 publications in the fields eye tracking analysis, visual analytics and human-computer interaction. Together with Michael Wörner, Michael Raschke is CEO of Blickshift.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Ertl
is a full professor of Practical Computer Science at the University of Stuttgart. He is director of the research group Graphic Interactive Systems at the Institute for Visualization and Interactive Systems, co-director of the Visualization Research Center (VISUS), Director of the Stuttgart Center for Simulation Science (SC SimTech), Speaker of the Cluster Excellence Data-integrated Simulation Science. Thomas Ertl is co-author of more than 500 scientific publications and he served as a reviewer for most of the conferences and journals in the field. He has been a member of numerous program committees (e.g. Eurographics, ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE VIS) and a papers co-chair for several conferences (e.g. Eurographics, IEEE Visualization, EuroVIS, PacificVis). From 2015 to 2018 he served as Vice President of Research and Advanced Graduate Education of the University of Stuttgart.
Dr. Michael Raschke
studied Physics at the University of Stuttgart and University of Heidelberg. From 2009 to 2015 he was researcher at the VIS and developed new methods and technologies for the evaluation of visualizations. Michael Raschke is a world-wide known expert for the visualization-based analysis of eye tracking data, author and co-author of more than 40 publications in the fields eye tracking analysis, visual analytics and human-computer interaction. Together with Michael Wörner, Michael Raschke is CEO of Blickshift.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Ertl
is a full professor of Practical Computer Science at the University of Stuttgart. He is director of the research group Graphic Interactive Systems at the Institute for Visualization and Interactive Systems, co-director of the Visualization Research Center (VISUS), Director of the Stuttgart Center for Simulation Science (SC SimTech), Speaker of the Cluster Excellence Data-integrated Simulation Science. Thomas Ertl is co-author of more than 500 scientific publications and he served as a reviewer for most of the conferences and journals in the field. He has been a member of numerous program committees (e.g. Eurographics, ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE VIS) and a papers co-chair for several conferences (e.g. Eurographics, IEEE Visualization, EuroVIS, PacificVis). From 2015 to 2018 he served as Vice President of Research and Advanced Graduate Education of the University of Stuttgart.