水面を利用したディスプレイの情報提示および認識手法

スマートフォンやタブレットなどの小型コンピュータは現在多くの人が保持し，常に持ち歩いている状況である．近年では，入浴時でもこれらの電子機器を持ち込み，動画や音楽鑑賞，ウェブページ閲覧，メールチェックなどを行う人が増えている．しかし，電子機器と水場である浴室は機器の故障を誘発させる危険性が高く相性が悪い．そのため，浴室環境でも安心して情報閲覧および操作を行えるシステムが必要であると考えられる．浴室環境を考慮したインタラクティブシステムとしてAquaTop Displayが挙げられる．このシステムは水面を入浴時の身体動作を利用してマルチユーザーかつマルチタッチ可能なウォーターサーフェスシステムである．このシステムで用いられるジェスチャは水特性を上手く利用しているが，ジェスチャ認識精度や情報提示手法に問題がある．そこで，これらの問題を解決し，より安定したジェスチャ認識精度，より入浴時に適した情報提示が可能なシステムを実装し評価することが我々の目的である．我々は先ず，これらの問題点の原因を調査した．その後，ジェスチャ認識の解決案として，水面を認識することに特化したビジョンベースのライブラリ群であるAquaTop Core Vision Frameworkを実装し，フレームワークの有効性を検証した．また，浴室環境に適した情報提示の解決案として，浴槽内で動画および音楽鑑賞，ウェブページ閲覧，メール送信など従来のスマートフォンやタブレットで行っていることを水面上で可能にするAquaTop Multi Viewerを提案し実装した．さらに，認識精度を低下させる最大の原因である水面への操作によって発生する波ノイズの対処方法を提案し検証した．今後は提案したシステムを実際の浴室環境で利用し，実装したジェスチャ操作の有効性を検証したい．電気通信大学201

Challenges for Smart Environments in Bathroom Contexts

Leichsenring C, Yang J, Hammerschmidt J, Hermann T. Challenges for Smart Environments in Bathroom Contexts. Presented at the ICMI 2016 Workshop on Embodied Interaction with Smart Environments, Tokyo, Japan.Smart homes have been mostly treated as homogeneous environments where each room is distinguished by the activities performed there but not by any fundamentally different basic parameters for systems to operate in. We argue that at least for bathroom environments, things like the extensive presence of liquid water and humidity and special privacy considerations challenge these assumptions. We discuss typical and unique challenges for ubiquitous computing interfaces in bathroom environments and we look at how actual and conceptual systems confront these challenges. We review bathroom systems in the literature and present two systems of our own to exemplify the unique challenges to smart environments the bathroom provides

Ontic Communities: Speculative Fiction, Ontology, and the Digital Design Community

This dissertation is about the digital design community, those who build cultural and artistic works primarily using digital media. This dissertation, however, is also centered around a larger argument, of which the digital arts and design community serves as a case study. In short, the larger argument is a call to examine more closely the social relationships of material objects (including, but not limited to, humans and things) and idea objects (including, but not limited to, broad cultural and social forces) that constitute the world. This dissertation forwards three major arguments: 1.) That it is often the case, particularly in the social sciences, that scholars look not at non-human objects, but instead at the ways those objects are perceived and labeled by humans/society. Scholars of materiality, then, often miss the mark, and study the conceptualizations of objects at the expense of the objects in of themselves. 2.) That it is theoretically and empirically possible to examine objects in of themselves, and that it is important to do so, as both material and non-material objects contain causal powers that impact history and society independent of the human recognition or conceptualization of these powers. 3.) That objects are also subjects, and engage in intersubjective meaning-making both with humans and other objects. Objects, then, should not be theorized as having various mechanical impacts upon human communities that they interact with, but should instead be theorized as members of the community in of themselves. Non-human entities, in other words, are themselves social beings.Ph.D., Communication, Culture, and Media -- Drexel University, 201

Toolkit support for interactive projected displays

Interactive projected displays are an emerging class of computer interface with the potential to transform interactions with surfaces in physical environments. They distinguish themselves from other visual output technologies, for instance LCD screens, by overlaying content onto the physical world. They can appear, disappear, and reconfigure themselves to suit a range of application scenarios, physical settings, and user needs. These properties have attracted significant academic research interest, yet the surrounding technical challenges and lack of application developer tools limit adoption to those with advanced technical skills. These barriers prevent people with different expertise from engaging, iteratively evaluating deployments, and thus building a strong community understanding of the technology in context. We argue that creating and deploying interactive projected displays should take hours, not weeks. This thesis addresses these difficulties through the construction of a toolkit that effectively facilitates user innovation with interactive projected displays. The toolkit’s design is informed by a review of related work and a series of in-depth research probes that study different application scenarios. These findings result in toolkit requirements that are then integrated into a cohesive design and implementation. This implementation is evaluated to determine its strengths, limitations, and effectiveness at facilitating the development of applied interactive projected displays. The toolkit is released to support users in the real-world and its adoption studied. The findings describe a range of real application scenarios, case studies, and increase academic understanding of applied interactive projected display toolkits. By significantly lowering the complexity, time, and skills required to develop and deploy interactive projected displays, a diverse community of over 2,000 individual users have applied the toolkit to their own projects. Widespread adoption beyond the computer-science academic community will continue to stimulate an exciting new wave of interactive projected display applications that transfer computing functionality into physical spaces