Una arquitectura distribuida para el desarrollo de simuladores de entrenamiento

En el presente trabajo se propone una arquitectura distribuida orientada al desarrollo de simuladores de entrenamiento simultáneo de varios operadores con la supervisión de un único instructor. Se analizaron diferentes técnicas modeladoras de especificaciones arquitectónicas, sobre las cuales se evaluaron esencialmente los factores robustez y performance, de forma tal que problemas en un proceso o equipo no afecte al resto del sistema. Por último, se diseño un algoritmo que emplea diversos mecanismos de sincronización y coordinación de procesos distribuidos y en paralelo, el cual permite al sistema mantener los datos consistentes dentro del ambiente de simulación.Eje: Ingeniería en SoftwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Una arquitectura distribuida para el desarrollo de simuladores de entrenamiento

En el presente trabajo se propone una arquitectura distribuida orientada al desarrollo de simuladores de entrenamiento simultáneo de varios operadores con la supervisión de un único instructor. Se analizaron diferentes técnicas modeladoras de especificaciones arquitectónicas, sobre las cuales se evaluaron esencialmente los factores robustez y performance, de forma tal que problemas en un proceso o equipo no afecte al resto del sistema. Por último, se diseño un algoritmo que emplea diversos mecanismos de sincronización y coordinación de procesos distribuidos y en paralelo, el cual permite al sistema mantener los datos consistentes dentro del ambiente de simulación.Eje: Ingeniería en SoftwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Creating the Perception-based LADDER sketch recognition language

Sketch recognition is automated understanding of hand-drawn diagrams. Current sketch recognition systems exist for only a handful of domains, which contain on the order of 10--20 shapes. Our goal was to create a generalized method for recognition that could work for many domains, increasing the number of shapes that could be recognized in real-time, while maintaining a high accuracy. In an effort to effectively recognize shapes while allowing drawing freedom (both drawing-style freedom and perceptually-valid variations), we created the shape description language modeled after the way people naturally describe shapes to 1) create an intuitive and easy to understand description, providing transparency to the underlying recognition process, and 2) to improve recognition by providing recognition flexibility (drawing freedom) that is aligned with how humans perceive shapes. This paper describes the results of a study performed to see how users naturally describe shapes. A sample of 35 subjects described or drew approximately 16 shapes each. Results show a common vocabulary related to Gestalt grouping and singularities. Results also show that perception, similarity, and context play an important role in how people describe shapes. This study resulted in a language (LADDER) that allows shape recognizers for any domain to be automatically generated from a single hand-drawn example of each shape. Sketch systems for over 30 different domains have been automatically generated based on this language. The largest domain contained 923 distinct shapes, and achieved a recognition accuracy of 83% (and a top-3 accuracy of 87%) on a corpus of over 11,000 sketches, which recognizes almost two orders of magnitude more shapes than any other existing system.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant 0757557)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant 0943499

Stereoscopic Sketchpad: 3D Digital Ink

--Context-- This project looked at the development of a stereoscopic 3D environment in which a user is able to draw freely in all three dimensions. The main focus was on the storage and manipulation of the ‘digital ink’ with which the user draws. For a drawing and sketching package to be effective it must not only have an easy to use user interface, it must be able to handle all input data quickly and efficiently so that the user is able to focus fully on their drawing. --Background-- When it comes to sketching in three dimensions the majority of applications currently available rely on vector based drawing methods. This is primarily because the applications are designed to take a users two dimensional input and transform this into a three dimensional model. Having the sketch represented as vectors makes it simpler for the program to act upon its geometry and thus convert it to a model. There are a number of methods to achieve this aim including Gesture Based Modelling, Reconstruction and Blobby Inflation. Other vector based applications focus on the creation of curves allowing the user to draw within or on existing 3D models. They also allow the user to create wire frame type models. These stroke based applications bring the user closer to traditional sketching rather than the more structured modelling methods detailed. While at present the field is inundated with vector based applications mainly focused upon sketch-based modelling there are significantly less voxel based applications. The majority of these applications focus on the deformation and sculpting of voxmaps, almost the opposite of drawing and sketching, and the creation of three dimensional voxmaps from standard two dimensional pixmaps. How to actually sketch freely within a scene represented by a voxmap has rarely been explored. This comes as a surprise when so many of the standard 2D drawing programs in use today are pixel based. --Method-- As part of this project a simple three dimensional drawing program was designed and implemented using C and C++. This tool is known as Sketch3D and was created using a Model View Controller (MVC) architecture. Due to the modular nature of Sketch3Ds system architecture it is possible to plug a range of different data structures into the program to represent the ink in a variety of ways. A series of data structures have been implemented and were tested for efficiency. These structures were a simple list, a 3D array, and an octree. They have been tested for: the time it takes to insert or remove points from the structure; how easy it is to manipulate points once they are stored; and also how the number of points stored effects the draw and rendering times. One of the key issues brought up by this project was devising a means by which a user is able to draw in three dimensions while using only two dimensional input devices. The method settled upon and implemented involves using the mouse or a digital pen to sketch as one would in a standard 2D drawing package but also linking the up and down keyboard keys to the current depth. This allows the user to move in and out of the scene as they draw. A couple of user interface tools were also developed to assist the user. A 3D cursor was implemented and also a toggle, which when on, highlights all of the points intersecting the depth plane on which the cursor currently resides. These tools allow the user to see exactly where they are drawing in relation to previously drawn lines. --Results-- The tests conducted on the data structures clearly revealed that the octree was the most effective data structure. While not the most efficient in every area, it manages to avoid the major pitfalls of the other structures. The list was extremely quick to render and draw to the screen but suffered severely when it comes to finding and manipulating points already stored. In contrast the three dimensional array was able to erase or manipulate points effectively while the draw time rendered the structure effectively useless, taking huge amounts of time to draw each frame. The focus of this research was on how a 3D sketching package would go about storing and accessing the digital ink. This is just a basis for further research in this area and many issues touched upon in this paper will require a more in depth analysis. The primary area of this future research would be the creation of an effective user interface and the introduction of regular sketching package features such as the saving and loading of images

Study in User Preferred Pen Gestures for Controlling a Virtual Character

Controlling a virtual character with a pen input device is difficult. Pen input devices require freeform gestures and users are not confined to particular mapping of a key or a button that is exactly repeatable. This is a problem since an intuitive motion gesture for one user might not be intuitive for another user. In this paper, we explore user preferred input gestures for character control through user experiments. Most previous pen input gesture sets are based on the preference of the developer. Our goal is to try to find common pen gesture features for common commands through user experiments. For our experiment, we have chosen navigational motions that are common for controlling a character in a virtual world. The users were asked to make gestures for a set of navigational motions according to their intuition. We then analyzed the gesture data and outlined some gesture design guidelines as well as compared the resulting gestures to those used in existing applications that use pen devices for character control

Segmenting Hand-Drawn Strokes

Pen-based interfaces utilize sketch recognition so users can create and interact with complex, graphical systems via drawn input. In order for people to freely draw within these systems, users' drawing styles should not be constrained. The low-level techniques involved with sketch recognition must then be perfected, because poor low-level accuracy can impair a user's interaction experience. Corner finding, also known as stroke segmentation, is one of the first steps to free-form sketch recognition. Corner finding breaks a drawn stroke into a set of primitive symbols such as lines, arcs, and circles, so that the original stoke data can be transformed into a more machine-friendly format. By working with sketched primitives, drawn objects can then be described in a visual language, noting what primitive shapes have been drawn and the shapes? geometric relationships to each other. We present three new corner finding techniques that improve segmentation accuracy. Our first technique, MergeCF, is a multi-primitive segmenter that splits drawn strokes into primitive lines and arcs. MergeCF eliminates extraneous primitives by merging them with their neighboring segments. Our second technique, ShortStraw, works with polyline-only data. Polyline segments are important since many domains use simple polyline symbols formed with squares, triangles, and arrows. Our ShortStraw algorithm is simple to implement, yet more powerful than previous polyline work in the corner finding literature. Lastly, we demonstrate how a combination technique can be used to pull the best corner finding results from multiple segmentation algorithms. This combination segmenter utilizes the best corners found from other segmentation techniques, eliminating many false negatives (missed primitive segmentations) from the final, low-level results. We will present the implementation and results from our new segmentation techniques, showing how they perform better than related work in the corner finding field. We will also discuss limitations of each technique, how we have sought to overcome those limitations, and where we believe the sketch recognition subfield of corner finding is headed

Formalisierung gestischer Eingabe für Multitouch-Systeme

Die Mensch-Computer-Interaktion wird dank neuer Eingabemöglichkeiten jenseits von Tastatur und Maus reicher, vielseitiger und intuitiver. Durch den Verzicht auf zusätzliche Geräte beim Umgang mit Computern geht seitens der Eingabeverarbeitung jedoch eine erhöhte Komplexität einher: Die Programmierung gestischer Eingabe für Multitouch-Systeme ist in derzeitigen Frameworks abgesehen von den verfügbaren Standard-Gesten mit hohem Aufwand verbunden. Die entwickelte Gestenformalisierung für Multitouch (GeForMT) definiert eine domänenspezifische Sprache zur Beschreibung von Multitouch-Gesten. Statt wie verwandte Formalisierungsansätze detaillierte Filter für die Rohdaten zu definieren, bedient sich GeForMT eines bildhaften Ansatzes, um Gesten zu beschreiben. Die Konzeption von Gesten wird unterstützt, indem beispielsweise in einem frühen Stadium der Entwicklung Konflikte zwischen ähnlichen Gesten aufgedeckt werden. Die formalisierten Gesten lassen sich direkt in den Code einbetten und vereinfachen damit die Programmierung. Das zugrundeliegende Framework sorgt für die Verbindung zu den Algorithmen der Gestenerkennung. Die Übertragung des semiotischen Ansatzes zur Formalisierung auf andere Formen gestischer Eingabe wird abschließend diskutiert.:1 Einleitung 1.1 Motivation 1.2 Zielstellung und Abgrenzung 1.3 Aufbau der Arbeit 2 Interdisziplinäre Grundlagenbetrachtung 2.1 Semiotik 2.1.1 Begriffe und Zeichenklassen 2.1.2 Linguistik 2.1.3 Graphische Semiologie 2.1.4 Formgestaltung und Produktsprache 2.1.5 Interfacegestaltung 2.2 Gestenforschung 2.2.1 Kendons Kontinuum für Gesten 2.2.2 Taxonomien 2.2.3 Einordnung 2.3 Gestische Eingabe in der Mensch-Computer-Interaktion 2.3.1 Historische Entwicklung von Ein- und Ausgabetechnologien 2.3.2 Begreifbare Interaktion 2.3.3 Domänenspezifische Modellierung 2.4 Zusammenfassung 3 Verwandte Formalisierungsansätze 3.1 Räumliche Gesten 3.1.1 XML-Beschreibung mit der Behaviour Markup Language 3.1.2 Detektornetze in multimodalen Umgebungen 3.1.3 Gestenvektoren zur Annotation von Videos 3.1.4 Vergleich 3.2 Gesten im Sketching 3.2.1 Gestenfunktionen für Korrekturzeichen 3.2.2 Sketch Language zur Beschreibung von Skizzen 3.2.3 Domänenspezifische Skizzen mit LADDER 3.2.4 Vergleich 3.3 Flächige Gesten 3.3.1 Regelbasierte Definition mit Midas 3.3.2 Gesture Definition Language als Beschreibungssprache 3.3.3 Reguläre Ausdrücke von Proton 3.3.4 Gesture Interface Specification Language 3.3.5 Logische Formeln mit Framous 3.3.6 Gesture Definition Markup Language 3.3.7 Vergleich 3.4 Zusammenfassung 4 Semiotisches Modell zur Formalisierung 4.1 Phasen gestischer Eingabe 4.2 Syntax gestischer Eingabe 4.3 Semantik gestischer Eingabe 4.4 Pragmatik gestischer Eingabe 4.5 Zusammenfassung 5 Gestenformalisierung für Multitouch 5.1 Ausgangslage für die Konzeption 5.1.1 Ikonographische Einordnung flächiger Gesten 5.1.2 Voruntersuchung zur Programmierung flächiger Gesten 5.1.3 Anforderungskatalog für die Formalisierung 5.2 Semiotische Analyse flächiger Gesten 5.2.1 Syntax flächiger Gesten 5.2.2 Semantik flächiger Gesten 5.2.3 Pragmatik flächiger Gesten 5.3 Präzedenzfälle für die Formalisierung 5.3.1 Geschicklichkeit bei der Multitouch-Interaktion 5.3.2 Präzision bei flächigen Gesten 5.3.3 Kooperation in Multitouch-Anwendungen 5.4 Evaluation und Diskussion 5.4.1 Vergleich der Zeichenanzahl 5.4.2 Evaluation der Beschreibungsfähigkeit 5.4.3 Limitierungen und Erweiterungen 6 Referenzarchitektur 6.1 Analyse existierender Multitouch-Frameworks 6.2 Grundlegende Architekturkomponenten 6.2.1 Parser 6.2.2 Datenmodell 6.2.3 Gestenerkennung und Matching 6.2.4 Programmierschnittstelle 6.3 Referenzimplementierung für JavaScript 6.3.1 Komponenten der Bibliothek 6.3.2 Praktischer Einsatz 6.3.3 Gesteneditor zur bildhaften Programmierung 7 Praxisbeispiele 7.1 Analyse prototypischer Anwendungen 7.1.1 Workshop zur schöpferischen Zerstörung 7.1.2 Workshop zu semantischen Dimensionen 7.1.3 Vergleich 7.2 Abbildung von Maus-Interaktion auf flächige Gesten in DelViz 7.2.1 Datengrundlage und Suchkonzept 7.2.2 Silverlight-Implementierung von GeForMT 7.3 Flächige Gesten im 3D-Framework Bildsprache LiveLab 7.3.1 Komponentenarchitektur 7.3.2 Implementierung von GeForMT mit C++ 7.4 Statistik und Zusammenfassung 8 Weiterentwicklung der Formalisierung 8.1 Räumliche Gesten 8.1.1 Verwandte Arbeiten 8.1.2 Prototypischer Aufbau 8.1.3 Formalisierungsansatz 8.2 Substanzen des Alltags 8.2.1 Verwandte Arbeiten 8.2.2 Experimente mit dem Explore Table 8.2.3 Formalisierungsansatz 8.3 Elastische Oberflächen 8.3.1 Verwandte Arbeiten 8.3.2 Der Prototyp DepthTouch 8.3.3 Formalisierungsansatz 9 Zusammenfassung 9.1 Kapitelzusammenfassungen und Beiträge der Arbeit 9.2 Diskussion und Bewertung 9.3 Ausblick und zukünftige Arbeiten Anhang Vergleichsmaterial Formalisierungsansätze Fragebogen Nachbefragung Ablaufplan studentischer Workshops Grammatikdefinitionen Statistische Auswertung Gestensets Literatur Webreferenzen Eigene Veröffentlichungen Betreute studentische Arbeiten Abbildungsverzeichnis Tabellen Verzeichnis der Code-Beispiel