1,720,960 research outputs found
Natural Interaction and Computer Graphics Applications
No full textNatural Interaction with computers has been a challenging topic of research since the very beginning of the digital era and refers to the possibility, on the user’s part, of exploiting natural abilities to control the machine and interpret its outputs. If in the infancy of computer graphics this meant using visual representation and pen pointing, nowadays more refined techniques are needed to fit the wide range of applications, from home entertainment to virtual and augmented reality. This paper describes some advances in gesture, tangible and surface computing, showing how such interaction models, if treated as a continuum, improve the usability, accessibility and overall experience of computer graphics applications
Improving FTIR based multi-touch sensors with IR shadow tracking
No full textFrustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR) is a key technology for the design of multi-touch systems. With respect to other solutions, such as Diffused Illumination (DI) and Diffused Surface Illumination (DSI), FTIR based sensors suffer less from ambient IR noise, and is, thus, more robust to variable lighting conditions. However, FTIR does not provide (or is weak on) some desirable features, such as finger proximity and tracking quick gestures. This paper presents an improvement for FTIR based multi-touch sensing that partly addresses the above issues exploiting the shadows projected on the surface by the hands to improve the quality of the tracking system. The proposed solution exploits natural uncontrolled light to improve the tracking algorithm: it takes advantage of the natural IR noise to aid tracking, thus turning one of the main issues of MT sensors into a useful quality, making it possible to implement pre-contact feedback and enhance tracking precision
Natural exploration of 3D models
No full textWe report on two interactive systems for natural exploration of 3d models. Manipulation and navigation of 3d virtual objects can be a difficult task for a novel user, specially with a common 2D display. With traditional input devices such as 3d mice, trackballs, etc. the interaction doesn't insist directly on the models, but is mediated and not intuitive. Our user interface allows casual users to inspect 3D objects at various scales, panning, rotating, and zooming, all through hand manipulations analogous to the way people interact with the real world. We show the design and compare the tests on two alternative natural interfaces: multitouch and free-hand gestures. Both provide a natural dual-handed interaction and at the same time free the user from the need of adopting a separate device
Evaluation of User Gestures in Multi-touch Interaction: a Case Study in Pair-programming
No full textNatural User Interfaces are often described as familiar, evocative and intuitive, predictable, based on common skills. Though unquestionable in principle, such definitions don't provide the designer with effective means to design a natural interface or evaluate a design choice vs another. Two main issues in particular are open: (i) how do we evaluate a natural interface, is there a way to measure 'naturalness'; (ii) do natural user interfaces provide a concrete advantage in terms of efficiency, with respect to more traditional interface paradigms? In this paper we discuss and compare observations of user behavior in the task of pair programming, performed at a traditional desktop versus a multi-touch table. We show how the adoption of a multi-touch user interface fosters a significant, observable and measurable, increase of nonverbal communication in general and of gestures in particular, that in turn appears related to the overall performance of the users in the task of algorithm understanding and debugging
MORAVIA: A Video-Annotation System Supporting Gesture Recognition
No full textGestures and gesticulation play an important role in communication, particularly in public speech. We describe here the design, development and initial evaluation of MORAVIA (MOtion Recognition And VIdeo Annotation): a collaborative web application for (semi)automatic gesture annotation. MORAVIA was conceived as a support for the automatic evaluation of a speech based on non-verbal components, that is, as much as possible independent from the verbal content. We adopt an evaluation model, based on quality metrics related to gestures and provided by experts in the education and psychology domain. The final goal is to design and implement a system able to detect the gestures using
a video camera and a depth camera, such as the Microsoft
Kinect, to detect the position and the movements of the speaker. Then, the web application for video-annotation allows collaborative review and analysis of the dierent video
sequences. This is useful both to domain experts, as a research tool, and to end users, for self-evaluation
Controlling a planetarium software with a Kinect or in a multi-touch table: a comparison
No full textThe wide availability of low-cost sensing devices is opening the possibility to easily create different interaction settings, which exploit various techniques for a more natural interaction, especially in public and shared settings. In this paper, we compared two different solutions for enhancing the interaction experience of a planetarium application, both replicable at a reasonable cost. The first version is based on a simple multi-touch paradigm, while the second one exploits a full-body interaction together with a projection on geodetic sphere. We detail the technical implementation of both versions and, in addition, we discuss the results of user-study that compared the two modalities, which highlights a tradeoff between the control and the users’ involvement in the virtual environment
A Multitouch Notice Board Fostering Social Interaction
No full textWe report on an alternative OCGM interface for a bulletin board, where a user can pin a note or a drawing, and actually shares contents. Exploiting direct and continuous manipulations, opposite to discrete gestures, to explore containers, the proposed interface supports a more natural and immediate interaction. It manages also the presence of different simultaneous users, allowing for the creation of local multimedia contents, the connection to social networks, providing a suitable working environment for cooperative and collaborative tasks in a multi-touch setup, such as touch-tables, interactive walls or multimedia boards
Interactive Spaces Natural interfaces supporting gestures and manipulations in interactive spaces
Get PDFThis doctoral dissertation focuses on the development of interactive spaces through the use of
natural interfaces based on gestures and manipulative actions. In the real world people use their
senses to perceive the external environment and they use manipulations and gestures to
explore the world around them, communicate and interact with other individuals. From this
perspective the use of natural interfaces that exploit the human sensorial and explorative
abilities helps filling the gap between physical and digital world.
In the first part of this thesis we describe the work made for improving interfaces and devices for
tangible, multi touch and free hand interactions. The idea is to design devices able to work also
in uncontrolled environments, and in situations where control is mostly of the physical type
where even the less experienced users can express their manipulative exploration and gesture
communication abilities.
We also analyze how it can be possible to mix these techniques to create an interactive space,
specifically designed for teamwork where the natural interfaces are distributed in order to
encourage collaboration.
We then give some examples of how these interactive scenarios can host various types of
applications facilitating, for instance, the exploration of 3D models, the enjoyment of multimedia
contents and social interaction.
Finally we discuss our results and put them in a wider context, focusing our attention particularly
on how the proposed interfaces actually improve people’s lives and activities and the interactive
spaces become a place of aggregation where we can pursue objectives that are both personal
and shared with others
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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