Integrated Virtual Reality Game Interaction: The Archery Game

The aim of this research is to develop an innovative technology framework that allows a new type of human-computer interaction, where user's motion recognition is combined with immersive visualisation. The demonstrator program allows the user to visualise a virtual arrow on the top of a real physical crossbow used as game controller. Stereoscopic- 3D Visualisation is implemented using two virtual cameras with a variable angle between them (Automated Toed-in). An algorithm is also used to calculate the maximum acceptable dimension of the stereoscopic arrow, in relation with the screen size and the data provided by the Motion Capture system about the user position. The Motion Capture data are transmitted to the video game using a network interface demanded also to depacketize and process the motion data. Tests prove that the Stereoscopic-3D effect is strong enough to visualise the virtual arrow in a realistic position on the top of the crossbow. The theory formulated may be utilised to develop a new generation of Stereoscopic applications easy to use and immersive

From El Mariachi to El Rey: Robert Rodriguez and the Transformation of a Microbudget Filmmaker into a Latino Media Mogul

Studies based on a director often follow a common model, generally resorting to an overview of that director’s films and examining shared aesthetic qualities and themes. This sort of study was grounded in the auteur theory—following authorship approaches in literature—and was invested in a consistency that justified the place of film authorship as a worthy pursuit in academia. In this study, however, I examine Mexican-American filmmaker Robert Rodriguez through a discursive analysis, unencumbered to textual analysis or even a chronological approach, with a look at the media discourse, Rodriguez’s own writings and interviews, and the pertinent scholarship. His debut award-winning debut feature, El Mariachi (1992), as well as the production diary that would soon follow, Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player, inspired a generation of filmmakers into making ultra-low (or microbudget) films. With films often released through Miramax/ Dimension, Rodriguez has continued to make films that primarily cater to action (Sin City [2005], Machete [2010]), horror (The Faculty [1998], Planet Terror [2007]), and children’s (the Spy Kids films [2001-2011], Shorts [2009]) audiences, all outside of Hollywood at his Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas. While still directing films, his most recent venture was founding the El Rey Network, which promotes itself as the first network for English-speaking Latinos. After a brief introduction to the auteur theory in addition to contemporary approaches to authorship that suggest a move away from text-based analyses, I consider four broad areas that point to Rodriguez’s growth from the director of the microbudget El Mariachi to his renown as the most prominent Latino media figure: social contexts (i.e., his Mexican-American identity), labor, economics, and technologies. I conclude that while Rodriguez’s career has evolved significantly over the last twenty-plus years of his professional career, he has steadfastly retained his adherence to his Mexican-American identity, his penchant for taking on many of the tasks of filmmaking (cinematography, editing, composing, etc.) despite having larger budgets, his parsimonious approach to budgets, and his technophilia

Body image distortion in photography

This thesis investigates the theory that photography is, in terms of body image perception, an intrinsically distorting and often fattening medium. In the professional practice of photography, film and television, there is a widely held belief that the camera "adds 10lbs" to the portrayed weight of actors and presenters. The primary questions addressed here relate to the true extent of the fattening effect, to what perceptual mechanisms it can be ascribed and if it can be counteracted in common practice. Current theories in the perception of photographic images rarely, if ever discuss the medium's perceptual accuracy in recording the original scene. It is assumed by many users that most photographs convey essentially the same information they would have seen had they been present when they were taken. Further, it is generally accepted that photographs are an accurate, veridical and scientific method of record and their content should be trusted unless there is evidence of a technical failure, editing or deliberate tampering. This thesis investigates whether this level of trust is appropriate, specifically by examining the reliability of photography in relation to reproducing the face and form of human subjects. Body Image Distortion (B.I.D.) is a term normally used to describe the primary diagnostic symptom of the slimming disease, anorexia nervosa. However, it is demonstrated here that people viewing 2D photographic portraits often make very significant overestimations of size when comparing otherwise identical stereoscopic images. The conclusion is that losing stereoscopic information in conventional 2D photography will cause distortions of perceived body image, and that this is often seen as a distinct flattening and fattening effect. A second fattening effect was also identified in the use of telephoto lenses. It is demonstrated, using psychophysical experiments and geometry that these 2D images cannot convey the same spatial or volumetric information that normal human orthostereoscopic perception will give. The evidence gathered suggests that the Human Visual System requires images to be orthostereoscopic, and be captured using two cameras that mimic as closely as possible the natural vergences, angle of view, depth of field, magnification, brightness, contrast and colour to reproduce scenes as accurately as possible. The experiments reported use three different size estimation methodologies: stereoscopic versus monocular comparisons of human and virtual targets, bodyweight estimations in portraits taken at differing camera to subject distances and synoptic versus direct viewing comparisons. The three techniques were used because photographic images are typically made without disparity and accommodation/vergence information, but with magnifications that are greater than found with direct viewing of a target. By separately analysing the effects of disparity, magnification and accommodation/vergence the reported experiments show how changes in each condition can effect size estimation in photographs. The data suggest that photographs made without orthostereoscopic information will lead to predictably distorted perception and that conventional 2D imaging will almost always cause a significant flattening and fattening effect. In addition, it is argued that the conveyed jaw size, in relation to neck width is an important factor in body-weight perception and this will lead to sexually dimorphic perception: disproportionately larger estimations of bodyweight are made for female faces than male faces under the same photographic conditions