Vice : an interface designed for complex engineering software : an application of virtual reality

Concurrent Engineering has been taking place within the manufacturing industry for many years whereas the construction industry has until recently continued using the 'over the wall' approach where each task is completed before the next began. For real concurrent engineering in construction to take place there needs to be true collaborative working between client representatives, construction professionals, suppliers and subcontractors. The aim of this study was to design, develop and test a new style of user interface which promotes a more intuitive form of interaction than the standard desktop metaphor based interface. This new interface has been designed as an alternative for the default interface of the INTEGRA system and must also promote enhanced user collaboration. By choosing alternative metaphors that are more obvious to the user it is postulated that it should be possible for such an interface to be developed. Specific objectives were set that would allow the project aim to be fulfilled. These objectives are outlined below: To gain a better understanding of the requirements of successful concurrent engineering particularly at the conceptual design phase. To complete a thorough review of the current interfaces had to take place including any guidelines on how to create a "good user interface". To experience many of the collaboration systems available today so that an informed choice of application can be made. To learn the relevant skills required to design, produce and implement the interface of choice. To perform a user evaluation of the finished user interface to improve overall usability and further streamline the concurrent conceptual design. The user interface developed used a virtual reality environment to create a metaphor of an office building. Project members could then coexist and interact within the building promoting collaboration and at the same time have access to the remaining INTEGRA tools. The user evaluation proved that the Virtual Integrated Collaborative Environment (VICE) user interface was a successful addition to the INTEGRA system. The system was evaluated by a substantial number of different users which validates this finding. The user evaluation also provided positive results from two different demographics concluding that the system was easy, intuitive to use with the necessary functionality. Using metaphor based user interfaces is not a new concept. It has become standard practise for most software developers. There are arguments for and against these types of user interfaces. Some advanced users will argue that having such an interface limits their ability to make full use of the applications. However the majority of users do not come within this bracket and for them, metaphor based user interfaces are very useful. This is again evident from the user evaluation.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Vice : An interface designed for complex engineering software : An application of virtual reality

Concurrent Engineering has been taking place within the manufacturing industry for many years whereas the construction industry has until recently continued using the 'over the wall' approach where each task is completed before the next began. For real concurrent engineering in construction to take place there needs to be true collaborative working between client representatives, construction professionals, suppliers and subcontractors. The aim of this study was to design, develop and test a new style of user interface which promotes a more intuitive form of interaction than the standard desktop metaphor based interface. This new interface has been designed as an alternative for the default interface of the INTEGRA system and must also promote enhanced user collaboration. By choosing alternative metaphors that are more obvious to the user it is postulated that it should be possible for such an interface to be developed. Specific objectives were set that would allow the project aim to be fulfilled. These objectives are outlined below: To gain a better understanding of the requirements of successful concurrent engineering particularly at the conceptual design phase. To complete a thorough review of the current interfaces had to take place including any guidelines on how to create a "good user interface". To experience many of the collaboration systems available today so that an informed choice of application can be made. To learn the relevant skills required to design, produce and implement the interface of choice. To perform a user evaluation of the finished user interface to improve overall usability and further streamline the concurrent conceptual design. The user interface developed used a virtual reality environment to create a metaphor of an office building. Project members could then coexist and interact within the building promoting collaboration and at the same time have access to the remaining INTEGRA tools. The user evaluation proved that the Virtual Integrated Collaborative Environment (VICE) user interface was a successful addition to the INTEGRA system. The system was evaluated by a substantial number of different users which validates this finding. The user evaluation also provided positive results from two different demographics concluding that the system was easy, intuitive to use with the necessary functionality. Using metaphor based user interfaces is not a new concept. It has become standard practise for most software developers. There are arguments for and against these types of user interfaces. Some advanced users will argue that having such an interface limits their ability to make full use of the applications. However the majority of users do not come within this bracket and for them, metaphor based user interfaces are very useful. This is again evident from the user evaluation

Task allocation in distributed multimedia systems based on the host-satellite model

Multimedia applications require intermediate processing between media sources and sinks. In addition to end-user machines intermediate computers can be used for performing media processing. This possibility leads to the problem of allocating processing components on various computers. In this paper, we study this problem in the context of star-shaped application graphs which have to be allocated between given end-user machines (satellites) and a central computer (host). The problem is formulated in terms of best achievable bottleneck resource usage. Several approaches are considered including anapproximate scheme and two fast-heuristics. Performance measurements show the efficiency of the considered approaches. A discussion of our approach shows important differences to solutions provided for related problems of graph partitioning and mapping

Sistemas de comunicação e multimédia com integração de vídeo: evolução, situação actual e boas práticas

Mestrado em Gestão da InformaçãoA presente dissertação pretende reflectir a evolução, o papel, a aplicação e a integração de vídeo em sistemas de comunicação unidireccionais e bidireccionais. Versando fortemente o universo digital, o trabalho é composto pela contextualização do vídeo em cenários multimédia, o desenho de uma taxonomia vídeo (apresentando exemplos práticos para cada uma das categorias) e a avaliação de uma sessão de videoconferência. Para finalizar, são propostas boas práticas para a produção, integração e distribuição de vídeo em multimédia.The present work describes the progress, functions, application, and integration of video in unidireccional and bidirectional communication systems. Focusing mainly the digital domain, it addresses different matters, namely: (1) video contextualization in multimedia settings, (2) the framework for a video taxonomy, having covered examples for each case, (3) the evaluation of a videoconference session, and finally (4) the itemization of good practices for the production, integration and distribution of video in multimedia systems

Rendering and display for multi-viewer tele-immersion

Video teleconferencing systems are widely deployed for business, education and personal use to enable face-to-face communication between people at distant sites. Unfortunately, the two-dimensional video of conventional systems does not correctly convey several important non-verbal communication cues such as eye contact and gaze awareness. Tele-immersion refers to technologies aimed at providing distant users with a more compelling sense of remote presence than conventional video teleconferencing. This dissertation is concerned with the particular challenges of interaction between groups of users at remote sites. The problems of video teleconferencing are exacerbated when groups of people communicate. Ideally, a group tele-immersion system would display views of the remote site at the right size and location, from the correct viewpoint for each local user. However, is is not practical to put a camera in every possible eye location, and it is not clear how to provide each viewer with correct and unique imagery. I introduce rendering techniques and multi-view display designs to support eye contact and gaze awareness between groups of viewers at two distant sites. With a shared 2D display, virtual camera views can improve local spatial cues while preserving scene continuity, by rendering the scene from novel viewpoints that may not correspond to a physical camera. I describe several techniques, including a compact light field, a plane sweeping algorithm, a depth dependent camera model, and video-quality proxies, suitable for producing useful views of a remote scene for a group local viewers. The first novel display provides simultaneous, unique monoscopic views to several users, with fewer user position restrictions than existing autostereoscopic displays. The second is a random hole barrier autostereoscopic display that eliminates the viewing zones and user position requirements of conventional autostereoscopic displays, and provides unique 3D views for multiple users in arbitrary locations

Creativity Greenhouse: at-a-distance collaboration and competition over research funding

This paper describes the design and evaluation of a novel mechanism to develop research proposals and distribute funding: Creativity Greenhouse (CG). Building on an established funding sandpit mechanism for co-located participants, communication technologies and structures were designed to support similar activities at-a-distance. Given a particular topic, selected academic participants collaborate during an ideation phase, then form sub-groups around selected ideas to develop research proposals and compete for the available research funding. This paper details the motivations for developing a distributed approach, before describing our iterative design process and trials. We describe an iterative design and evaluation process to support at-a-distance ideation, group formation, and then competitive development of proposals in a shared virtual space, leading to the detailed evaluation of a full-scale CG event that resulted in the distribution of £1.85 Million of funding. This work contributes a novel, fully-developed mechanism to produce research projects, evaluated ‘In the Wild’. Our findings are explored with regards to distinctions and similarities between co-located and distributed events, participant well-being and pastoral care, and the capacity of technologies to mediate complex combinations of cooperative and competitive group work. Through this, we contribute knowledge of how to effectively support research funding events, and also to wider understanding of high-stakes, computer-mediated processes, that involve complex creative and social processes

So nah und doch so fern. Soziale Präsenz und Vertrauen in der computervermittelten Kommunikation

Der Einsatz von computerbasierten Kommunikationstechnologien, wie Text-Chat, "Voice over IP" oder auch Videoapplikationen, ist aus dem modernen Alltag kaum noch wegzudenken. Aktuelle Diskussionen über virtuelle Online-Welten, wie z.B. "Second Life" oder "World of Warcraft" verdeutlichen nicht nur, dass in den kommenden Jahren mit einer weiteren Zunahme von computervermittelten Interaktionen zu rechnen ist, sondern auch, dass die Kommunikationsansätze auf einen neuen technologischen Wendepunkt hinzusteuern scheinen: den Einsatz von Avataren, computergenerierten Figuren, die als virtuelle Verkörperungen ihrer Nutzer agieren. Angesichts der zunehmenden Relevanz von computervermittelter Kommunikation stellt sich daher die Frage, was im Rahmen solcher Interaktionen übertragen werden sollte, um nicht nur eine effiziente, sondern auch sozio-emotional reichhaltige Kommunikation zu ermöglichen. Inwiefern können hier die verschiedenen technologischen Ansätze einen sinnvollen Beitrag leisten? Und anhand welcher Kriterien soll überhaupt bemessen werden, ob ein Medium eine sozial reichhaltige und damit geeignete Plattform für zwischenmenschliche Interaktionen darstellt? Von besonderem Interesse erscheinen in diesem Zusammenhang zwei theoretische Grundkonzepte, die zwar in der bisherigen Forschung häufig diskutiert werden, aber nur selten einer tatsächlich umfassenden und vor allem gemeinsamen empirischen Betrachtung unterzogen wurden: der Aufbau und das Erleben von sozialer Präsenz und zwischenmenschlichen Vertrauens. In der vorliegenden Arbeit findet der Leser daher eine umfassende Darstellung und Diskussion der bisherigen Forschungslage bezüglich dieser beiden Konzepte im Rahmen der computervermittelten Kommunikation. Darüber hinaus wird eine multidimensionale Betrachtung dieser Aspekte diskutiert sowie auf der Basis dieser Überlegungen zwei mediale Experimentalstudien vorgestellt, in welchen verschiedene Kommunikationsmöglichkeiten entsprechend dieser Faktoren miteinander verglichen werden. Neben text-, audio-, und videobasierten Technologieansätzen sowie der unmediierten Face-to-Face-Kommunikation wird dabei ein besonderer Schwerpunkt auf die Nutzung von Avataren gelegt

CU-SeeMe VR -- Immersive Desktop Teleconferencing

Current video-conferencing systems provide a "video-in-a-window" user interface. This paper presents a distributed video-conferencing system called CU-SeeMe VR that embeds live video and audio conferencing in a virtual space. This paper describes a prototype implementation of CU-SeeMe VR, including the user interface, system architecture, and a detailed look at the enabling technologies. Future directions and the implications of the virtual reality metaphor are discussed

Digital Theatre: A "Live" and Mediated Art Form Expanding Perceptions of Body, Place, and Community

This work discusses Digital Theatre, a type of performance which utilizes both "live" actors and co-present audiences along with digital media to create a hybrid art form revitalizing theatre for contemporary audiences. This work surveys a wide range of digital performances (with "live" and digital elements, limited interactivity/participation and spoken words) and identifies the group collectively as Digital Theatre, an art form with the flexibility and reach of digital data and the sense of community found in "live" theatre. I offer performance examples from Mark Reaney, David Saltz, Troika Ranch, Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre, Flying Karamazov Brothers, Talking Birds, Yacov Sharir, Studio Z, George Coates Performance Group, and ArtGrid. (The technologies utilized in performances include: video-conferencing, media projection, MIDI control, motion capture, VR animation, and AI). Rather than looking at these productions as isolated events, I identify them as a movement and link the use of digital techniques to continuing theatrical tradition of utilizing new technologies on the stage. The work ties many of the aesthetic choices explored in theatrical past by the likes of Piscator, Svoboda, Craig, and in Bauhaus and Futurist movements. While it retains the essential qualities of public human connection and imaginative thought central to theatre, Digital Theatre can cause theatrical roles to merge as it extends the performer's body, expands our concept of place, and creates new models of global community

QoS pour classes virtuelles dans un environnement multimédia

Des classes virtuelles permettant l'enseignement et l'apprentissage à distance dont l'interaction multimédia en mode de travail collaboratif produisent un volume considérable de transmission audio/vidéo et imposent un défi au réseau à cause des retards et des pertes que peut provoquer la congestion. Pour résoudre ce problème de gestion de qualité de service, nous avons entrepris une recherche basée sur la norme IEEE 802.1p décrivant les marquages du type de service de niveau 2 dans les réseaux locaux et ce, pour assurer une priorité au trafic multimédia. Ce mémoire présente le profil d'un outil de gestion de la qualité de service qui permet l'acquisition et le déploiement dynamique des paramètres de commandes des équipements du réseau. Nous présentons en revue les possibilités existantes pour donner un aperçu sur ce qui se fait aujourd'hui dans ce domaine en expansion continue. Nous introduisons les différents types d'applications d'échanges multimédia et décrivons les méthodes et les procédures qui nous ont aidé à apporter une solution aux problèmes et exigences posés. Dans le cadre de cette recherche, nous avons développé un nouveau profil qui fournit une priorité au trafic généré par une application multimédia. Ce profil est intégré au sein d'une application qui permet la création et la gestion des politiques dans le réseau. Dans ce travail, nous en expliquons le mode de fonctionnement et présentons les résultats obtenus lors des tests entrepris pour fin de validation. La méthodologie que nous avons utilisée correspond à ce qui se fait à ce jour dans le domaine de la recherche sur la gestion de la qualité de service. Nous présentons aussi quelques-unes des recommandations à envisager pour l'amélioration de la méthode et de l'approche. Mots clés: qualité de service, réseaux locaux, classes virtuelles, VLAN, modèle d'information DEN, CIM, politique de gestion, LDAP, IEEE 802.1Q/p, RSVP, SBM, CLI